In the mean time I've been tooling around in an XF 250 R-Sport - thoughts as below...
Blimey the steering doesn't half weight up quickly once you add a little lock - it all feels very digital to me, compared to the syrup smooth hydraulic steering on my F-Type. Having owned one of the first XEs I have to say I never noticed that before. Does feel like a bit of overkill though having to put fair effort in at low speeds.
The seats! - my how I used to fidget in them on a long run. I couldn't justify the massive leap to cooled seats as you had to first add the full electric adjustment pack and I'm the only driver - be the same for lots of business users no doubt. But there's just no lower back support for me - at a fairly average height and weight. Can't wait to sink back into my Performance seats later today. And yes ok, getting out eloquently is another matter
The engine doesn't seem to have a lot of character to me - slight diesel impression at some points and no bark to it, but then compared to an F-Type that's going to happen. At 250 horses it does pull well enough, once you realise you can't just flex your toes and expect to overtake - there does seem to be a fair travel on the throttle pedal. Great, you get good mileage and emissions from an Ingenium but overall it doesn't impress me any more than my Ford derived XE 200, which I always thought was excellent on the NVH front.
Quality seems good - my early XE had "a few" niggles but it seems that things are improving on the fit and finish front.
Looks very nice in Firenze red with black pack and 20" diamond turned wheels.
But then at a configured cost of £47k I'm happier with the F-Type and £10k worth of Tesco Momentum
