Jaguar XF to get 2.2 Diesel? Nope.

A Jaguar XF with a 4-Pot Diesel? Not on the cards.

Rumours are circulating that Jaguar are about to launch a Jaguar XF with the 2.2 litre diesel from the Freelander 2. They’re not.

Rumours do the rounds all the time in this business. And the more successful a car -be it a brand or a model – the more the rumours circulate. Many are specualtions; many are borne out of the writer’s wish-list. And some are spawned by the makers themselves, either heralding the arrival of something new or flying a kite for a reaction.

Jaguar is once more a force to be reckoned with. Which makes it the target of many a writer’s speculation. We’re guilty of it too, and it’s usually based on information we’ve had, or speculation on where logically an existing model could go or where a new model would fit. We still think, for example, that Jaguar will produce an XF Coupe at some point. It also seems eminently sensible – despite the objections of purists – that Jaguar drop the hugely able 3.0 litre diesel in to the XK.

We’d also love to see the Jaguar XF Estate – particularly the XFR Estate – but Jaguar don’t think it’s viable without a 4WD platform. We’d beg to differ, but they should know better than us. But maybe this ties in with the resurrection of a long-standing rumour around the XF – a small 4-pot diesel.

The idea of putting a 4-pot diesel in to the Jaguar XF – specifically a tweaked and fettled version of the 2.2 litre lump in the Freelander 2 (and a gazillion other cars) – has a degree of sense and has been around for a while. But it’s surfaced again this week after Top Gear decided that Jaguar are about to take the plunge and seek out a piece of the market dominated by the BMW 520d. And Autoblog have also run the same story in the US.

There is a lot of logic to this argument. The smaller-engined diesels are a big seller for BMW. And the XF has the measure of the BMW 5 Series. So it makes sense. And it would make an XF estate viable too as buyers of lower spec / less powerful  estates are less hung up on 4WD than those who buy top end estates.

The trouble is, no one has told Jaguar. Or, it would seem, even asked them. So we though we should. And although obfuscation is often the name of the game when getting a quote on future Jaguar plans, Jaguar told us that this is “…speculation I’m afraid. No plans to announce a new engine in XF”, which although that seems carefully couched is about as close as you’ll get to a ‘Not in a million years’ quote from Jaguar.

And we’re in two minds about this. We see the logic in a mass-market, cheaper, 4-pot diesel XF. We don’t like the idea, but we see the potential commercial possibilities. But perhaps it’s just too soon for Jaguar to risk being seen to go downmarket. They’ve finally put to bed the ‘Old Man’ cars tag with the XF and the new XJ. They’ve slayed the dragon of perceived unreliability that’s hung over them for decades. And they’ve just about recovered from the damage to the Jaguar image a Mondeo in fancy dress did to the perception of the marque.

So why risk going ‘Cheap’when they’ve just managed to convince the world they’re anything but?