The Jaguar F-Pace Is the Average of Every Other Luxury SUV

This is the new Jaguar F-Pace S, which is a new SUV from Jaguar, and not just any SUV, but very average SUV. This car isn't horrible by any means, but it's also not great. In fact, I happen to think that the F-Pace is the absolute average of every other midsize luxury SUV currently on the market. And today, I'm going to explain why. Now, I borrowed the F-Pace here in Nashville using Turo, which is this service that lets you rent other people's weird and interesting cars, like the F-Pace, instead of a normal boring rental car you'd usually find at the airport. You can sign up for Turo if you click the link in the description below. And I chose the F-Pace because I really wanted to sample a Jaguar SUV. And now that I've sampled it, I can confidently say that it's a nice car. Really. It's fine. Very fine. Now, before I get into this, let me explain what I mean when I call this thing average. Right now, the compact-ish, midsize-ish luxury SUV segment is really hot. Every luxury brand has at least one model in this segment. Some have two or even three because there are just so many buyers choosing between these cars right now. And Jaguar showed up with the F-Pace, which is a really good compromise between all of the other options. For example, it isn't as sporty as the Porsche Cayenne, but it's a lot sportier than the Acura MDX. It's about average. It's got more interior room than the BMW X6, but not as much as the Volvo XC90. It's about average. It's cheaper than a Mercedes GLE, but not as cheap as a Lexus RX. It's about average. It's got better tech than a Lexus GX, but it's not as advanced as an Audi Q7. It's about average. It's more comfortable than a Maserati Levante, but it's not as comfortable as a Cadillac XT5. It's about average. It has more off-road capabilities than a Lincoln MKX, but not as many as a Range Rover Sport. It's about average. Even when it comes to styling, the F-Pace looks like one of those generic luxury SUVs that a luxury condo developer would use in an ad to try to sell condo units because they can't use a real design or else they might get sued. It's like Jaguar took the lines of the BMW X5, the Porsche Cayenne, and the Range Rover Sport and averaged them all together to create this. And then they said, meh, that'll do. And indeed, this'll do. Today I'm going to show you the quirks and features of the F-Pace, some of which are good and some of which are bad. Then I'm going to take it out on the road and tell you about the F-Pace driving experience, which is about average. And then I'm going to give it a Doug score, which I haven't done yet, but I suspect it'll turn out about average. Now, for more of my thoughts on the F-Pace, click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer, where I've written a column about my F-Pace experience, and I've created a list of the most unusual Jaguar models currently listed for sale on Autotrader, none of which are about average. Now, I'll start on the outside. There aren't too many exterior quirks in the F-Pace, but here's one. That would be the spot where they put the radar cruise control sensor. Now, a lot of luxury cars with radar cruise control, they integrate it into the front emblem, so you don't really see that it's there. But Jaguar didn't do that. The front emblem is here. It's a Jaguar, apparently, although to me it looks like the devil. And anyway, around him you can see this glass area. That's where they've put the radar cruise control sensor. Now, the interesting thing is, for most of the grille, you can just stick your hand inside because the grille is open to allow air to flow in, as you might expect, and while Jaguar has designed the radar cruise control thing to look like, it is just a continuation of the grille. It isn't. If you look closely, you'll see that it's completely solid behind the glass piece so that the radar cruise control sensor can be there. So you can stick your hand here and here, but even if the glass weren't there, it's a solid piece back here. Another thing you'll notice if you just spend three minutes with this car is the sheer number of Jaguar logos and the word Jaguar spelled out all over the interior and exterior of this car. Now, obviously it says Jaguar on the front with the cat, like every other car, and it says Jaguar in back, and also it shows the cat on the tailgate, and that's no surprise, but the sheer number of other Jaguar logos inside and outside this car is crazy, including some in places you wouldn't find them in any other car. The reason I bring this up is because I suspect one of Jaguar's biggest selling points about this vehicle isn't that it's better than its rivals, or faster, or more powerful, or more exciting, but just that it's a Jaguar, and they really don't want you to forget that. Now, moving on to the interior, and specifically the back seat, which is of average roominess, I want to talk about this piece right here. This is interesting. Now, every other car I've ever been in has just left the door jamb body colored, just as sort of an unfinished piece that looks ugly with this big latch here, but in this car, they put this big piece of plastic here, and it's interesting. I kind of like that. It cleans up the look of this area, although I do wonder and worry about wear long term. Another item to point out, these things on the doors, yeah, they're not factory. If you get an F-Pace, you don't have to have these on there and look like an idiot. Instead, the guy who's running this car out on Turo stuck those on there so that in case he runs out to some idiot like me, I won't accidentally do something stupid with it. Now, moving on to the front seats, one of the first things you'll notice when you climb inside is that the starter button pulses, and it doesn't just turn on and off. It pulses like a heartbeat, because it controls the heartbeat of the car, I guess. I don't know. That's the kind of stupid thing some Jaguar PR person would write in a press release. Anyway, speaking of questionable lighting, take a look at this. This is the door panel at night, lit up in this teal glow so that it looks like a 1990s Ford product. I don't think you can change this. I certainly haven't figured out a way how. I think that if you buy an F-Pace, you're just stuck with your doors lighting up teal at night for no explainable reason. But there are some other things that I like and dislike about the interior. In fact, one could say that it all kind of averages out. One of the things I like is when you get inside and you're about to start the car, it gives you a percentage left in your fuel, just like you'd have a percentage on your laptop battery or a percentage on your phone. I love that. I don't know why we're still using old school fuel gauges. Just tell me how much percent I have left. That's all I really care about. That's a cool idea. Not so intuitive is the process of switching between modes in this car. In most cars, it's easy. It's a little switch. Switch between sport mode and regular mode. In this car, it's a little dial here in the center, and it's rather complicated. There are two arrows on either side, and you move the arrows to switch between modes. That's not the annoying part, though. The annoying part is that when you switch in the gauge cluster, it says that you're switching modes, and then it confirms that you've switched modes. Then you have to wait. Press it again, and you wait. It's switching. Then it's confirmed. I don't know why it takes so long to switch between modes. It's like the car's getting ready to do something, when in reality, we know that it probably just tightens up the suspension this much, and then it tells you that you're in sport mode. I have to admit, something I do like, when you switch to dynamic mode, the gauge cluster turns red to let you know that you're a little bit sportier than a regular car. That's pretty common in sports cars, but it's not very common in SUVs, and it's kind of cool. One cool Easter egg for F-Pace owners, if you hold down both the left and right mirror adjustment buttons at the same time, it folds in your mirrors automatically. Bet you didn't know that. One less cool thing about the mirrors and the rest of the door panel controls is the fact that they have switched the seat memory controls and the window controls. I have no idea why. The seat memory controls are exactly where you'd expect the window controls to be, and the window controls are way up at the top of the door. It makes absolutely no sense, and it's incredibly infuriating. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to roll down the window in this car, and instead, I've gotten the seat memory. Some other cool F-Pace features. One of the things that I like best is the low-speed cruise control button, which is perfect for off-roading. If you're off-roading at, like, seven miles an hour, you can press low-speed cruise control and just hold that speed. Now, no one's ever going to do that in an F-Pace, but I would use it if, for example, I was driving on the beach. I'm not sure why the button is so prominently placed right in the middle of the center console because no one will ever use it, but there it is. Another cool thing is the fact that if you go into the menus here, you can get a low-friction launch. Low-friction launch is designed to get you going if you're in some sort of muddy or maybe gravelly or sandy or maybe even icy situation. You have to meet the conditions it shows on the screen, which are surprisingly thorough, but once you do that, the car can use its computers and traction control and all-wheel drive system to get you going in a tough spot a lot better than you can. A couple more interesting things you'll find in the F-Pace infotainment system. If you go into the Eco menu, it actually gives you tips on how to drive more efficiently. In fact, it gives you tips in several different areas, accelerator, engine, braking. It really gives you some great ideas on how to improve your fuel economy that you probably should have learned in driver's education. Perhaps next, it will teach you how to balance your checkbook. Another interesting thing about the infotainment system, this is the home screen you see when the infotainment system first turns on, lets you choose what function you want. If you look closely at the navigation button, you will see that traffic here is driving on the left like it does in Britain. This picture was taken in Britain, perhaps to emphasize the F-Pace's Britishness. If you think I'm reading too much into it, take a look over at the phone button. There is a London telephone booth, a nice red one, except it's right in the middle of the wilderness. They're one step away from putting the Union Jack on there. They really want you to remember that you're driving a British Jaguar, even on the infotainment system home screen. Another interesting infotainment system quirk, if you go into the settings menu, you'll find one that says stealth mode. Apparently, this isn't for the engine or for the car, but rather for the interior lighting. If you press it, it dims the lights to create a nice evening mood. Maybe this will finally turn off the 1990s teal blue Ford door panel lighting. Another cool thing is a cool extra storage compartment in this car. You have a glove box and a center console, of course, but they've also integrated a tiny little storage area into the center console next to where you have your knee. I've never known I needed this before, but I've used it a ton already in just a couple days driving this thing around. I love it. Everybody should do this. Bon, I have to admit, while this car has some features I really like and some features I don't like quite as much, it has given me a few examples of Jaguar's biggest perceived weakness, which is questionable engineering and reliability. For example, when I have the key in my pocket or even right in front of the door, I'm supposed to be able to just tap the door and it locks, but I really cannot get that to work. It works occasionally. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. On my Mercedes, it works all the time. That isn't the only key problem I've noticed. Take a look at what's going on here. The car is telling me that it isn't recognizing the key inside the car, but I'm literally holding the key inside the car. No, I haven't borrowed some random Jaguar key from someone else to trick it. It just isn't detecting the key that's sitting right next to the thing that's telling me. It isn't detecting the key. But maybe this car's most questionable piece of engineering is the placement of the start-stop button. There are two circles in the center control stack, the start-stop button and the radio on-off button and volume control. The start-stop button is the one that's closest to you. So when you're driving along, just cruising down the road and you're thinking, hey, maybe I want to listen to some Jimmy Eat World. So you go turn on the radio and suddenly you've accidentally turned off the car. It is not a very good placement and I can't believe they actually put it here. The other crazy thing is the two buttons are right about the same size and they're placed in almost exactly the same orientation, just one's on the left and one's on the right. So that's something you have to be careful of if you're driving the F-PACE. Now all of this questionable engineering doesn't bode well for one of the F-PACE's cool party tricks and that is the fact that when you turn on the ignition, the transmission selector rises from the center console so that you can turn it and shift into gear. But if it can't even detect the key inside the car, how many more years is it going to be until it breaks, it no longer rises from the center console and you can no longer shift it into gear. And so those are the F-PACE's quirks and features. Now it's time to get it out on the road. All right, driving the F-PACE. Unfortunately, the driving portion of the F-PACE video had microphone issues, courtesy of these $700 Sony microphones, which I purchased to replace some older ones. These never worked right. They're total crap. People often ask me what gear I use for my videos and the answer for the microphones is not these. I already returned them for a full refund. But the basic takeaways of the driving portion, however, were these. Number one, the F-PACE is pretty quiet. A surprisingly relaxed cabin for a sporty SUV that does a good job keeping out road noise and wind noise. Unfortunately, the ride comfort was a little rough, especially considering the F-PACE I got seems like a fairly middle-of-the-road model. This is the F-PACE S, which has only a 380 horsepower supercharged V6, and that's the sportiest model in the range, hence the rough ride, but 380 horsepower is nothing compared to the Porsche Cayenne, for example, where you can get one with 550 horsepower. Jaguar says a more powerful F-PACE is coming, but this car's already been out for two years, so where is it? I was shocked by how sensitive the forward collision warning system was. It certainly was the most sensitive of any car I've ever driven. The owner of this one may have had the sensitivity turned up, but the sheer fact that you could turn up the sensitivity this high at all is absolutely insane to me, as it constantly beeped when I was approaching nothing. Acceleration is strong, but again, it's about average. Many luxury brands make SUVs with some serious performance and some serious muscle, but this thing accelerated like a pretty quick, but not very fast SUV, and it certainly sounds like a V6, not a big V8. Likewise, it's not exactly slow, which is good, though it's worth noting I found the transmission way too hesitant, especially off the line. Handling was strong, composed, and secure, and it was fun to drive, but it was no Range Rover SVR or top-level Cayenne, especially because of the F-PACE's steering. It's a little lighter than you want, definitely leaning more towards Mercedes GLE than Porsche Cayenne. As for pricing, the F-PACE S I drove is about $65,000 to $70,000 with options, making it cheaper than the BMW X5 and the Mercedes GLE with similar equipment and similarly powerful engines. However, the F-PACE is smaller than those. It's bigger on the inside than an X3 or a Mercedes GLC, but it's more expensive than those. The F-PACE lives in sort of an unusual world in between the compact and the mid-size crossover. Price closer to a mid-size, but size closer to a compact, not squarely in either camp. In the end, I like this car. I think it's pretty good. I don't see any major flaws with it, but I also don't see any major things that it does better than its competitors. I think this is a great car to lease for a few years, just to see what the Jaguar SUV is like, and then maybe move on to something else. It's competent. It's reasonably good. It's certainly just not best in class. I don't really think in particularly anything. I'm happy to have sampled it, and I thought about considering this car when I bought my AMG wagon. And having driven this thing around now for three days, I'm glad I got the AMG instead. And so, ladies and gentlemen, that is the Jaguar F-PACE. Now, one quick note before I wrap this up. I don't hate this thing. In fact, if I were you and I was looking for a mid-size luxury SUV, I would put this on my shopping list. No, it's not as big as an MDX. It's not as sporty as a Cayenne. It's not as high-tech as a Q7, and it's not as comfortable as an XC90. But it's pretty well-priced, and it's a pretty good compromise between those cars. It just doesn't excel at any one specific thing. If you want a car that's sporty, or one that's especially comfortable, or one that has a lot of interior room, or one that's especially high-tech, you won't buy this car because there are other cars out there that do it better. But this is a good choice if you want some of all that stuff. Anyway, now it's time to give it a Doug score. Starting with the weekend categories and styling, I think the F-PACE's lines average most other luxury SUVs, but virtually everyone I talked to think this is one area where the F-PACE excels, offering nicer styling than rivals. Fine. It gets a 6 out of 10, falling just short of the high mark of 7 set by the gorgeous Volvo XC90. As for the rest of the weekend categories, it's rather predictable. The acceleration is 0-60 in 5.3 seconds, giving it a 5 out of 10. Handling is sharp, but not especially responsive. In other words, good, but not great, and it earns a 5 out of 10. Cool factor is certainly higher than a boring car, but nowhere near as strong as a special sports car and exotic, and it earns a 5 out of 10. Finally, importance. This is more significant than a standard mainstream car by virtue of being a desirable luxury model, but it doesn't reach Ferrari or Aston Martin or even Porsche level, giving it a 5 out of 10. That brings the weekend score to 26 out of 50, placing it ahead of the XC90 Excellence, which makes sense as the F-PACE is sportier and more fun. Next up onto the daily categories, where the F-PACE excels a bit more. Features and equipment are good, but the F-PACE doesn't have everything I'd want, like self-driving tech, and it gets a 7 out of 10. Comfort is good, better than sports cars, but not as good as many of the top luxury cars, and again it gets a 7 out of 10. Quality is fine. The interior materials are nice, but not necessarily special, and reliability is always a question mark with Jaguar, so it earns a 6 out of 10. Practicality is good, especially for a car in this segment. Its 61.4 cubic feet of cargo space gives it an 8 out of 10. Finally, value. It's good compared to some models, and bad compared to others. It's truly the dead average value in the luxury SUV world, and I suspect it'll depreciate more than some rivals based on prior Jaguars. It gets a 5 out of 10, bringing the total daily score to 33 out of 100, a bit behind some of the top models that have larger interiors or offer better value per dollar. Added up, and the total DUG score is 59 out of 100, which is perfect for the F-PACE because it's literally right in the middle of my DUG score chart. I swear I didn't plan that, but an average score for an average vehicle makes total sense, and if you click below, there's a link so you can see the DUG score chart in better detail. Note that a few models have been updated in some other categories.