Jaguar XJ - always the latest software
Jaguar is to offer all XJ owners the latest software on the new XJ, ensuring all XJs benefit from the latest functions available. And it’s free.
Back when I was a lad (around the same time as Adam) cars were simple things. The engine was fed petrol by something called a carburettor (which wasn’t bright enough to know it was being started from cold so you had to yank out a big knob to tell it) and, if you were lucky, your HT leads hadn’t got damp in the night and the car would start. Sometimes.
And the sum total of entertainment in your box with four wheels, an engine, gearbox and some rather uncomfortable seats, was a radio. Unless you got out your toolbox and spent a weekend fitting an ‘8-Track Stereo’ system to the car.
The height of audio sophistication, an 8-track in the car was a guarantee you’d get the girl at the end of the night. Well, that and your undoubted charm, good looks and sophistication. In your rather ancient Austin 1100 and sporting a ‘Magnum’ moustache. Or maybe that was just me.
But now we have cars with iPod connectivity, Bluetooth, Voice activation, HDD music boxes, SatNav and endless other toys to make our journey bearable. Effectively we have a cross between our laptops and smartphones bolted in to the dash of the car. And the more sophisticated the car the more complex our in-car PC becomes. Which can be a problem. Or at least an irritation.
Because these in-car infotainment centres are run by software, engineers are forever thinking up new and better ways to take our minds off the drudgery of driving. Which means the toys in your new pride and joy soon fall behind the latest version of toys in the next model year car. Even your mapping gets out of date on the SatNav and you end up finding a roundabout where you’d expect a T-junction and trying to park in a car park that’s now turned in to a new branch of Tesco Express.
But none of this is a problem if you’ve bought the new Jaguar XJ, because Jaguar is on a mission to give all XJ owners the latest software for their car. And that includes SatNav mapping. And it’s free. Which is a great deal better than the usual ‘That’ll be £499 +vat, sir’ when you ask most car makers for the latest SatNav maps.
So how come we know this and no one else seems to, despite the fact that Jaguar is insistent they always intended the XJ to get the latest software whenever it was available?
Regular readers may remember that when we did a review of the new Jaguar XJ recently, we had a couple of hiccups on the Infotainment. Stuff like SatNav freezing and phones not connecting, which Jaguar put down to a dodgy battery. But we weren’t completely convinced so, much to Jaguar’s credit, they took our concerns seriously and further investigated possible causes.
Turns out that under certain odd circumstances and sequences of events there can be issues with the infotainment freezing. So they’ve re-written the software early to overcome the issues. Which has astonished us. Because this problem was not exactly widespread. Really, I hear you say. How can you know that?
Well, we wrote a story earlier this year about Jaguar delaying the launch of the XJ until all the problems were shaken out. As a result, we rank No. 1 in the world if you do a search for ‘New XJ problems’ (well, in Google, at least). And we’ve had just six readers contact us about their problems. Add in Richard who has had some of the freezing and the problems with our press car and that’s eight cars. And there are now around 5,000 XJs in the wild worldwide.
True, not everyone does the web when they’ve got the arse, but most do so we know the problem is tiny. So we’re very impressed that Jaguar worked with us and our readers to find out what was causing the freezing and worked quickly to resolve it. And they’re now about to get every XJ owner to come in to their dealer to get the new software installed free of charge, which includes not just a fix for the rare freezing issue but Voice Activation, enhanced SatNav functions and the great Video Streaming function that becomes available via the USB port.
We have to say, we’re dead impressed. Fancy Jaguar taking notice of us.
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