Hi,
I discovered this forum a couple of months ago, have found it very useful to help me make my mind up, and I'm now the proud owner of my first Jaguar, a P300 Convertible.
I fell in love with these cars when I first saw them, and have been lucky enough to drive all the versions in anger at both Millbrook and Fen End over the years on various Jaguar events, and am now a very proud owner.
I'm a serial convertible owner, starting off with a Fiat Barchetta, then BMW Z4, and an Abarth 124 Spider as my last car, and now the F-Type. Looking forward to many miles of fun with this latest addition, and will be using this as my daily driver (cars are for driving!), which is why I decided to go for the P300. I love the fact that it looks as amazing as any other F-Type, won't cost me a fortune using it everyday, and still has enough power to put a smile on my face everytime I drive it.
Here's a couple of photo's from my first weekend drive, taken in between many rain showers!
Welcome, from another newbie happy owner, i also went for a P300 as a daily driver too.
2021MY P300 1st edition Coupe, Eiger grey, with Climate, Privacy, and Tracker,
Previous: 2019MY XE 300 Sport {petrol) with lots of addons.
Previous: 2017MY XE 240 Portfolio (petrol) with a selection of addons.
Great photos, sure you will continue to have a smile on your face for a long time, especially when you park up, lock and look back.
F-Type V6S convertible MY16
Glacier Pearlescent White
Red soft top
Red electric and heated sports seats
Black dash and door cards
Red belts
Flat bottom heated wheel
Thanks for all the replies, nice to see F-Type owners are a friendly bunch of people!
I did love the Abarth 124 Spider, the handling was very impressive, it had just enough power so you could drive it hard and not feel like you were out of control, and I've never had so many people ask me about a car, either at petrol stations, in traffic queues, or carparks (people just didn't know what it was, and amazingly we're happy to ask). Despite this, it was starting to irritate me - it just didn't seem to stand up well to everyday driving. I never had any issues mechanically with it, but I kept having to take it in for work under warranty, and this was all within just over 2 years of ownership.
The first issue, which seems to effect most of these, is the Monza exhaust. It sounds amazing, and it's hard to believe a car with a 1.4 litre engine could sound so much bigger than it is, but they have a known fault with the valve that opens when you rev over approx 4000rpm. The valve just gets stuck closed due to corrosion. I had mine changed within a couple of months of ownership (from new), and again a year later. There's never an issue getting it replaced under warranty, but there's been no attempt to replace it with a design without the problem. I got bored of having to keep getting it replaced, and disovered that a monthly spray around the area that sticks with WD40 Silicone spray seemed to stop it happening.
The second issue I had was the drivers seat collapsing, another common issue. Before you ask, I'm not particularly heavy, but the seat frame is badly designed so parts underneath just break, and the seat foam itself just seems to disintegrate. Again all sorted under warranty (although the original dealer I bought the car from denied there was an issue), but the foam had to be replaced twice as it started to happen again.
The third (and final) issue I had was corrosion. Rust started to appear around the rubber seal around the boot opening, one of the gas struts for the boot lid was corroded, and I started to get bubbling under the paint on all four of the wheels. Again all of these were sorted under warranty.
It's a real shame as these cars have so much potential, I know not everyone likes the look of them, but I really preferred them to the MX5 that they're based on.
If they're only going to be used as a 2nd car, cherished and taken out for a quick blast, then I don't think you'd have too much trouble with them, but I'd rather have one car that I can use and enjoy everytime I go out for a drive.
