Jag ditched plan for all Supercharged line up

[British_Rover]

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/02/07/jags-stillborn-supercharged-savior/


http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070206/FREE/70205006/1528/rss01&rssfeed=rss01




Very interesting read there.

I wonder if this could have worked. I think it might have been able to work at least in the US and that is where Jag is strugling the most.

Looks like the plan was to offer all Jags with superchargers to boost profitablity. All jags would get a low pressure supercharger and R models would get the more powerful version.

The R models were always the most profitable and this would hopefuly make the lower end models profitable as well.

'R'aw Profit

In the 2004 model year, Jaguar's supercharged R models carried higher potential profit margins for dealers than nonsupercharged models. Here is the difference between the dealer price and the sticker price. Also, R models sold for closer to sticker price than other models.

S-Type 4.2 $3,900
S-Type R $5,000
XK Coupe $5,700
XK-R Coupe $6,800

The non-R models are not profitable for Jaguar.

 

[MPowered]

Sounds a bit like what Saab is doing currently, turbo-charging all of their models and making it a point in their advertising. Well, all except the badge-engineered 9-7x.

 

[Zuhaib]

So the whole plan was to make Jaguar a more high power company, and then charge respectively for there new high power status. BS and its a good thing they killed it.
As a former Jag owner, they need to spend money on Build quality and working to fix brand image. Nice cars, but to everyone who has owned one they just break down.
They need some new Motors is a first thing, they have been pushing that 4.2 V8 way too much and for too long and is starting to get dated i think. Also i had some very bad experience with the 4.2 V8 needing it a full top end rebuild only 30k in to its life.

 

[British_Rover]

So the whole plan was to make Jaguar a more high power company, and then charge respectively for there new high power status. BS and its a good thing they killed it.
As a former Jag owner, they need to spend money on Build quality and working to fix brand image. Nice cars, but to everyone who has owned one they just break down.
They need some new Motors is a first thing, they have been pushing that 4.2 V8 way too much and for too long and is starting to get dated i think. Also i had some very bad experience with the 4.2 V8 needing it a full top end rebuild only 30k in to its life.

Err Jags quality is better then most any other European make out there. Jags build quality is very very good. The Halewood plant has won JD Powers Gold award multiple times now.

http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/112_news050615_jag_jdpowe

If anything build quality is what Jaguar does best.

If ford can get Land Rover's numbers up anywhere close to Jaguar we won't be able to keep them in stock.

 

[Zuhaib]

That is not what a lot of Jag owners on this side of US would say... Almost all the owners i spoke to had the same complaints as i did with a lot of things failing. If it was not the ABS, it would be the E-Brake servos (if you lived on a hill, a lot of SF people had this problem), the tranny locking up in to one gear (very common on the 6-Speeds Autos), or all the small things just deciding to kick. For me the small things i could have lived with, but the Engine rebuilt and then the tranny kicking was the last straw for me. Also when i learned from the dealer the E-Brake servos locking up was COMMON on my year Jags and that they where advise to tell owners not to park on hills. This is San Francisco, the freaking dealer is even on a hill, i live on a hill, my own driveway has a crazy slant due to the hill!

A lot of owners i meet during my time owning a jag shared the same experience i had which is they are great cars, really its very easy to fall in love with them. I still lust at the XK when i see one, even the old ones, but man.. They are a PITA to own. Only the XJ which i could believe as having high marks as most of the owners i spoke too said they had little problems under warranty. And i think most of the numbers for Jag is the fact of the XJ, which they put a lot of QA in too but then the rest of the line, the S-Type, the XK, the X-Type suffer.
I have heard the newer 06 models did get a whole new revamp, and i drove the 06 S-Type and it felt better but i left the brand and went to Merc, and right now my Merc has had almost 0 issues with any major part. The worst is a cup holder that is really badly engineered so its not a QA issue.
FYI i had an 2003 S-Type V8

 

[British_Rover]

Oh you had a 2003 S-type that was kind of at the start of Jags reliablity rise.

Jag is kind of like Rover you can't compare cars they made four years ago to cars they make now.

The JD Powers survey is flawed but it can show trends in the reliablity of various brands if you don't treat it as the gospel truth...

Going from the 2003 VDS up to 2006 you can see the change...

The X-type was so poor for the first couple of years and that is why there was a drop in 2004-2005. Now the X-type plant is one of the best plants in europe.

Keep in mind the VDS is measuring cars three years out so 2003 measures 2000 MY cars, 2004 measures 2001 MY cars etc.

Now the IQS measures problems that happen in the first 90 days of ownership. Those problems are important because they normaly point to poor build quality and not so much poor design or inferior parts. Wel at least this was true untill 2006 when JD Powers added a percived design flaw component to the survey.

The problem is they don't seperate this from the over all defect survey. I know they keep the two data sets internaly but I can't find a copy of the two data sets on the web.

Basicly by changing the Survey JD powers can say cars have more problems then they actually have.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1592


Ahh I did fine a listing of the break down between the two versions of the 2006 Survey. It is in a post from Edmunds but I trust the guy posting the data to be correct. It seems all primary sources of the data have been removed from the net.

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX?14@@.f0cf225/49

 

[Zuhaib]

Yeah i have seen those reports before, i used to keep them under my bed as comfort when i owned the jaguar
I can believe what your saying that quality is making an upturn on them. When i drove that 06 S-Type it felt a lot different then when i drove my 03 when it was new. It was the small things, but it felt nice. Big plus was for the brakes which on the old 03 where good, but the pedal felt like jello.
But if Jag is making this quality upturn, they need to make sure people know and see that because like i said int his part of the US the saying you need two jags.. One for the dealer to work on, one for the road.

 

[British_Rover]

Yeah i have seen those reports before, i used to keep them under my bed as comfort when i owned the jaguar
I can believe what your saying that quality is making an upturn on them. When i drove that 06 S-Type it felt a lot different then when i drove my 03 when it was new. It was the small things, but it felt nice. Big plus was for the brakes which on the old 03 where good, but the pedal felt like jello.
But if Jag is making this quality upturn, they need to make sure people know and see that because like i said int his part of the US the saying you need two jags.. One for the dealer to work on, one for the road.

Oh I agree Jag needs to make a much bigger to do of the fact that according to the survey's they have the highest quality of any European make.

The problem is that for the next 16 months they have no new product comming. The only new thing they have is the XK and it is not a high enough volume vehicle. In the next year several jag dealers around the country will probably go out of business.