Guaranteed future value for Jaguar XE

The new Jaguar XE officially goes on sale from September 1, priced from $60,400 for the entry-level XE Prestige with a 147kW turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine.

And as evidence of the importance of the new sedan to the health and wellbeing of the Jaguar brand in Australia, it's offered with a fixed-price service plan and guaranteed future value. Both these enticements and the option of an extended warranty, taking coverage from three years or unlimited kilometres to five years and 100,000km, place Jaguar in a position to go head to head with its German prestige rivals in Australia: Mercedes- Benz, BMW and Audi.

The fixed-price servicing costs between $1100 and $1350, depending on the variant of XE purchased. That once-only cost covers servicing of the car for five years or 100,000, whichever comes first. That's well beyond the parameters of the standard warranty coverage.

Service intervals for the XE in four-cylinder petrol form are 12 months or 16,000km, whichever comes first. For the diesel the intervals are 24 months or 34,000km, and the range-topping V6 model needs servicing every 12 months or 26,000km.

"The perceptions of the cost of servicing European or imported products is quite high, so we're building other things into our offerings, to make sure that when a customer comes in and wants to talk about the products and then obviously how to manage and maintain the product, the conversation is pretty straightforward with our dealers, and very manageable to say the least," explained Jaguar Land Rover Australia MD, Matthew Wiesner, during the local launch of the XE this week.

The service plan is financeable and transferrable. In other words, the cost can be bundled up as part of the car's purchase price and financed, and it remains in force for the next owner of the car, assuming the XE is on-sold before the expiry of the five-year/100,000km period of cover.

Guaranteed future value, arranged through JLR Financial Services, will be rolled out across the entire Jaguar Land Rover range in due course, but the XE is the inaugural product in the local range to offer it, the one proviso being that the car travels no more than 20,000km a year, on average. The extended warranty option will cost buyers $2500.

Collectively, the incentives point to Jaguar's determination to take market share off C-Class, 3 Series and A4 with the XE.

"You can have a 36 or 48-month [lease] with an XE, and at the same time you've got a five-year servicing plan,"Wiesner summed up. "When you put those things together in regard to the whole ownership proposition... cost of ownership becomes very manageable, to say the least.

During his presentation at the XE launch, Wiesner told motoring journalists that currently Jaguar passenger-car sales account for as little as 10 per cent of all Jaguar and Land Rover sale in Australia. By the end of the decade, the local JLR boss anticipates Jaguar's share of sales may rise to 30 per cent, through the introduction of the XE and other future models, such as the F-PACE SUV.

The XE kicks off in Australia in a model range comprising four levels of the trim and four engine options. Arranged in two pillars, the levels of trim are (entry-level) Prestige and (upmarket) Portfolio variants on the luxury pillar, and R-Sport and (flagship) S on the sport pillar.

The four engines are a turbo-petrol four-cylinder in two states of tune, a supercharged V6 and a turbo-diesel four. The turbocharged petrol engine displaces two litres and is the same engine already known in Australia for doing duty under the bonnet of the larger XF sedan, which is soon to be replaced. In the XE, this engine develops 147kW/280Nm or 177kW/340Nm. Fuel consumption is 7.5L/100km for both outputs, but the higher-performance engine will propel the XE to 100km/h in 6.8 seconds, versus 7.7 for the 147kW engine.

Jaguar Land Rover's new Ingenium engine family is introduced to the local market in diesel form, a 2.0-litre four-cylinder with variable valve timing. This engine produces 132/kW and 430Nm and is rated at 4.2L/100km in combined-cycle testing. At 7.8 seconds, its 0-100kmh is the slowest in the range, by a small margin.

The supercharged V6 engine fitted to the flagship XE S produces 250kW/450Nm and is shared with the F-TYPE sports car. Fuel consumption is 8.1L/100km and its 0-100km/h time is 5.1 seconds.

XE in the Prestige level of trim is available in three variants, powered by the diesel and two petrol four-cylinder engines. Uniformly priced $4000 higher, the R-Sport grade is offered with the same three engine options. The Portfolio model, $10,000 more than the base-grade Prestige, is only available with the high-performance (25t) turbo-petrol engine. And the range-topping XE S is the only variant in the range with the 3.0-litre supercharged V6. It is also the only variant in the range exceeding $80,000 in price.

Standard equipment for the XE Prestige includes 18-inch alloy wheels, front/rear parking sensors, reversing camera, park assist (parallel and perpendicular parking),  blind spot monitor, rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure warning, autonomous emergency braking, auto-dipping electric mirrors with fold-in function/reverse-gear dipping, keyless start/entry, xenon headlights, eight-inch infotainment touch screen with satellite navigation, voice control, 380W Meridian audio system with 11 speakers/subwoofer, leather seats, 10-way electrically-adjustable front seats, position memory for driver's seat/mirrors/steering column, dual-zone climate control and triple-split folding rear seat.

The XE R-Sport adds to this with the following features: sports seats, sports suspension, body kit and R-Sport branding. At the head of the luxury pillar, the XE Prestige additionally comes equipped with soft-grain leather upholstery, leatherette upholstery for the instrument panel, 'piano black' gloss veneer and a rear-window electric blind.

As the flagship of the range, the XE S comes with leather/suede combination for the seat trim, Adaptive Dynamics, 19-inch alloy wheels, exclusive body kit, sports-style leatherette trim for instrument panel, S branding, bright-finish pedals, black headlining and exhaust pipe finishers.

Jaguar Land Rover Australia made a calculated choice to refrain from bringing the low-grade XE Pure to Australia, arguing, says Wiesner, that with no leather trim option available, it would cheapen the image of the XE.

2015 Jaguar XE pricing (plus on-road costs):
Prestige 20t – $60,400
Prestige 20d – $62,800
Prestige 25t – $64,900
R-Sport 20t – $64,400
R-Sport 20d – $66,800
R-Sport 25t – $68,900
Portfolio 25t – $70,400
S V6 – $104,200

Pictures show XE S (red), XE R-Sport (blue) and XE Prestige (white)