2007 Jaguar X-Type Luxury Car Reviews & Ratings

The X-Type is a real Jag on the inside, too. Jaguar's leather and wood are done as well as they were in the days when those luxury touches were not added to every model on the road.

The seats are quite good, supportive and comfortable, and they can be adjusted every which way. And they offer reasonable side support as well; we had no trouble staying in them while flinging the car around.

The cabin has a spacious feel, and outward visibility is enhanced by the slimness of the roof pillars. With the elevation of the driver's seat easily adjustable, drivers of varying heights have an excellent forward view over the hood. The outside mirrors are particularly generous in size, a welcome safety feature at a time when mirrors on some cars are getting smaller.

All the switchgear operates intuitively. Controls fall within easy reach, and the steering wheel tilts and telescopes, allowing any driver to adjust perfectly to the car. People of all body types will find a comfortable home in the X-Type.

Lots of stowage inside the X-Type adds to the convenience. The doors have a handy tray near the door handle, as well as a large main pocket. There are dozens of nooks to stow phones, cassettes, CDs, pens, maps, or tissues; even ice scrapers and an umbrella. There's a retractable hook in the glovebox release to hold a handbag, small shopping bag or take-out. The center console is small, however, and there is only one cupholder.

The design of the X-Type isn't all about style. The sedan's trunk is big, something that can't be said for all Jaguars. With 16 cubic feet of cargo space, the X-Type beats the impressive trunk of the Audi A4 (13.4 cubic feet) and the relatively dinky boots in the Mercedes-Benz C-Class (12.2) and BMW 3 Series (12.0) sedans. Further, if you pull one or both of the small handles in the X-Type trunk you can easily flip the rear seats forward for carrying longer items. That makes this a practical Jaguar.

Even more practical is the Sportwagon. With the seats folded down it boasts a cargo capacity of 50 cubic feet, which puts it ahead of the Audi A4 Avant or Mercedes-Benz C-Class wagons, if slightly behind the 61 cubic feet of the BMW 3 Series wagon. However, the official dimensions do not include the Jaguar's very useful hidden storage area under the rear floor, which can be used to stash cameras and other valuables in a molded compartment with dividers. Even more forward-looking is the 12-volt outlet inside the compartment. It allows recharging of a laptop computer or digital camera while totally hidden from prying eyes.

The Sportwagon also offers a bit more headroom, front and rear, than the sedan.

When it was introduced, the Jaguar X-Type set new standards for rigidity of structure. A rigid structure translates into a car that can be tuned to ride smoothly and quietly while cornering like a cat. Our first experience with the X-Type sedan bore this out, and it was confirmed in the X-Type Sportwagon.

We've driven the X-Type down winding rural roads near Dijon, France, over mountain roads in north Georgia, and around the high-speed banked oval of Atlanta Motor Speedway. The X-Type was the epitome of stability and confidence in the high-speed sections. Yet it rode smoothly on the streets of Atlanta.

The narrow, high-crowned pavement in France follows the wandering ways of long-ago farm animals over varied terrain. When polished by rain, it becomes a driver's challenge. The dampness was simply erased by the all-wheel-drive system, which offered comforting security. On the French roads, the X-Type seemed to rise to every challenge. Whether on a major highway or winding back road, it always felt smooth and stable. The steering was sharp and precise, and the car feels nimble in corners yet secure at speed.

To further explore its capabilities, we took the X-Type onto a tight handling course near Atlanta. A corner flooded with water showed off the advantage of the optional 18-inch high-performance Pirelli P Zero tires, which provided better grip in the wet than the standard skins. They greatly reduced understeer (the tendency of the car to push out toward the outside of a turn when the front tires lose grip).

That flooded curve also helped demonstrate the value of Jaguar's Traction-4 all-wheel-drive system. The system incorporates a center differential and viscous coupling to split the torque 40 percent to the front wheels, 60 percent to the rear. Slippage at either set of wheels will send more power to the opposite end of the car. The viscous coupling automatically and transparently transfers power away from slipping wheels to those with the best traction, helping to keep the X-Type moving forward and tracking true no matter the conditions underneath. In short, the X-Type performs well in the wet and we presume it handles well on snow and ice.

The now-standard Dynamic Stability Control can help a driver maintain control in an emergency handling situation. DSC minimizes skidding by applying the brakes at selected wheels, something no driver can do. It can help the driver avoid an accident. It reduces the chance of spinning out. We found it makes the car easier to drive at the limit of the tires. It reduced yawing when charging too fast through a slalom. DSC can be switched off for those rare times when the driver feels it's too intrusive, as when we drove the S-Type on a closed course at Atlanta Motor Speedway to test its limits. By default, the system switches back on every time the car is re-started.

The X-Type feels equally comfortable on the highway and in fast, sweeping turns. It was supremely stable at 120 mph on Atlanta Motor Speedway's back straight and felt confident turning in for the banked turns at that speed. It was easy to drive flat out through the facility's infield road racing circuit. The well-controlled suspension and the all-wheel drive add to the X-Type's confident feel when driving at the limit. And the X-Type offers predictable handling when pushing its tires beyond their limits, something that can happen at much lower speeds when it's slippery. It felt comfortable when braking and turning at the same time, a move that ruffles many cars. The handling is quite neutral, understeering at times, yet willing to rotate according to the skilled driver's wishes in the middle of a turn through use of the throttle.

In designing the Sportwagon, Jaguar's engineers wanted to make sure it felt no different from the sedan. In fact they have made the wagon quieter than the sedan. While driving a Sportwagon along twisty mountain roads near Palm Springs we found it handled as nicely as the sedan. It is certainly substantially more pleasant to drive with verve than a small SUV, such as the BMW X3. And with its all-wheel drive the Jaguar Sportwagon is just as capable in adverse conditions as a car-based SUV. It's sportier than a sport utility, yet gives up little cargo carrying capacity.

Both X-Type models offer responsive performance. Engine torque is spread over a power curve in the desirable mesa shape. The 3.0-liter V6 engine doesn't have the hard edge of BMW's inline-6, but the Jaguar's power is there early at launch and accessible over a wide range of speeds. It growls appropriately when provoked because Jaguar engineers have fine tuned the exhaust note to sound right. The X-Type somehow feels more powerful than it really is because there is never a questing need for more oomph at a critical moment, as when you're making a left turn onto a busy thoroughfare or passing a tractor-trailer rig on a narrow two-lane road.

The five-speed electronically controlled automatic transmission works very well. Put it in Drive and it shifts smoothly and predictably up and down, keeping the X-Type's engine in the proper gear for smooth cruising or quick acceleration. Its shift points seem to be the result of some clever mind reading, because the transmission selects shift patterns according to driving conditions. The driver can select a sport mode, which raises the shift points to make full use of available engine power. Jaguar's J-gate shifter allows the driver to shift semi-manually, keeping the transmission in the selected gear until the lever is moved. The J-gate works fairly well, but it's more cumbersome than the plus-minus sequential pattern on other semi-manual transmissions. As with most automatics with a semi-manual feature, we prefer putting it in Drive and leaving it there most of the time. Jaguar says the X-Type sedan can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 7.1 seconds, the Sportwagon in 7.3 seconds.

The 2007 Jaguar X-Type comes in just two models: the sedan and the wagon. Both are powered by a 3.0-liter V6 rated 227 horsepower, driving all four wheels through a five-speed automatic transmission. A five-speed manual is no longer available.

The X-Type sedan ($34,330), which Jaguar sometimes refers to as the X-Type 3.0, comes with automatic climate control; leather upholstery; eight-way power driver's seat; 70/30 split folding rear seats; Bronze Sapele wood interior trim; tilt-and-telescope steering wheel; six-speaker, 120-watt AM/FM/CD stereo; power locks; one-touch power windows; a power tilt-and-slide glass sunroof; automatic headlights; and 16-inch alloy wheels.

The Sportwagon ($39,330) is somewhat better equipped, adding a 320-watt premium Alpine sound system, a wood-and-leather steering wheel, 10-way power adjustable seats for driver and front-seat passenger, electrochromic mirrors inside and out, rain-sensing windshield wipers, a programmable garage-door opener, message center and trip computer, Reverse Park Control, and 17-inch alloy wheels. The cargo bay features a retractable security cover, a cargo net, four-spring-loaded tie-downs, and a 12-volt power outlet inside a hidden storage compartment.

A Luxury Package ($2,400) for the sedan adds some unique appearance items, including contrasting piping for the leather seats, burl walnut veneers, bright mirror caps, rear treadplates, and 17-inch wheels (of a different design than the wagon's). It also brings the sedan closer to the Sportwagon's level of equipment, with a wood-and-leather-trimmed steering wheel, eight-way power passenger seat, electrochromic mirrors, memory for the driver's seat and side mirrors, Reverse Park Control, rain-sensing windshield wipers, programmable garage door opener, and a message center and trip computer.

Options include heated front seats ($500), Reverse Park Control ($325), DVD-based navigation ($2,300), Bluetooth wireless connectivity ($500), 320-watt Alpine sound ($800), Sirius Satellite Radio ($450), metallic paint ($595), custom-order paint ($1,000), and 17-inch wheels ($700). Eighteen-inch wheels with 225/40ZR18 Pirelli P-Zero performance tires ($800) are available on Sportwagons and on sedans with the Luxury Package. The wagon can be ordered with black (instead of silver) roof rails for no extra cost.

Safety features for both models include dual frontal, side-impact and side-curtain airbags managed by a sophisticated sensor system; pre-tensioning front safety belts with load-limiters; and three-point belts for all seats. Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) is now standard as well, and so is antilock braking (ABS) with Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD).