Jaguar X-Type Estate: new arrival

Arrived: June 2008
List price (including options): £23,900
Average economy: 34.0

The Jaguar X-Type Estate has been -

Thrown into the deep-end and integrated into our car pool instantly racking up miles visiting a variety of the racing circuits in England for press launches and the Festival of Speed at Goodwood. It's already a popular choice thanks to the comfort and relaxation on offer; it munches the miles with ease.

We're loving the -

Our X-Type's specification is generous to say the least, boasting all of the mod cons one would deem necessary in a junior exec, and some besides, but it's the interface for many of these tools that is the big positive; the touch screen interface in particular is clear and intuitive to use - significantly more so than BMW's iDrive system.

I like the looks too, much more so than the saloon's and while it sounds like a cliché, there is something of a feel good factor to be associated with being sat behind the wheel of a car wearing the big cat badge, as opposed to the propeller, stars or rings that seem to be the default choice of the junior executive market.

But not so impressed by -

Economy. On seeing the tick in the diesel box on the specification sheet we automatically made the assumption that our new steed would boast oil company saddening thrift. Unfortunately our X-Type has yet to live up to this, managing only 34mpg after a thousand miles in our tenure. This would be acceptable if the miles were accrued around town but I can't eke more than 40 miles out of a gallon on the motorway either. This lags rivals by a significant margin.

We're looking forward to -

An improvement in economy, though that may not come given the fact our car is already well run in. Perhaps more realistic is the calm and refined accrual of more miles as the X-Type proves its mettle time and again as a nice place to be, and be seen in. We're also looking forward to getting it onto our more familiar test routes to see how the chassis stacks up in comparison to those Germanic rivals.

Dave Jenkins