How to make X-Type best in class for 2003 (long) (archive)

One of your earlier posts said you are passing opinions from this board up the chain to Management, so here's 2 cents worth from a prospective buyer. I'm looking to trade in my '98 BMW 328i (auto) about this time next year, and right now the contenders are X-Type (best looking car in class), Infiniti G35 (top performance but asthetically disappointing, also much less expensive) and BMW 330i (an effective compromise in looks-vs-performance but probably more expensive than the X-Type when dealer discounts from MSRP are factored in). So, here is what would close the deal for Jaguar (fixing all the first year bugs is assumed).

I guess the short of it is that what I want is "looks like a Jag, drives like a Beemer", but here's the detail:

ASTHETICS-------------------------------

DON'T discontinue BRG (glad to hear that you aren't after all) - it's a tradition - the color Jags are supposed to be!

Offer the "Heritage Tan" leather upholstry with BRG exterior in the US - another tradition thing - if I can't have a Jag that LOOKS like a Jag I might as well get another Beemer:) Plus I'll be hauling a 4 year old & a toddler in the back, and Ivory is pretty scary in that context.

Add factory-installed wood consol to the Premium Package (see the Arden website for how good this would look, but aftermarket glue-over-the-factory-plastic stuff sounds like trouble)

Offer a normal maple wood option on the sport package - IMO the grey wood looks like an old unpainted weather-greyed barn on my Grandpa's farm with a shiny coat of shellack, so as things stand now I'm forced to pass on the Sport Package. You shouldn't force that kind of choice on a consumer.

PERFORMANCE-----------------------------

If you stick with AWD (but see below for why you should offer RWD), you definately need more horses to match/beat BMW 330i performance. Replace the 3.0l engine with a 3.2l tuned to produce 280 HP - Infiniti & Acura models in the same class offer 3.2l 260 HP engines and have fully-loaded MSRP's $8-10k less than the X-type, so this should not be a big cost increase (I don't recall a big price jump when BMW went from 2.5l to 2.8l or 2.8l to 3.0l, either). BMW puts a normally aspirated 3.2l 333 HP engine in the M3, so getting 280 HP should not be a technical difficulty in that displacement. Then when you get around to it you can slap on that Eaton supercharger & R-badge it (but I won't be able to afford the R version - that's to compete with the M3 that I also can't afford).

Replace the J-gate 5-speed automatic transmission with a 6-speed Sequential Manual Transmission with automatic mode & wheel-mounted shift switches. The SMT of that sort is currently offered on BMW M3 and Toyota MR2 Spyder - it is a $3500 option on the Beemer but <$1000 upcharge on the Toyota, so the Beemer price is probably a gouge. You should be able to do it at the same cost as the current auto trany. That should shut up the auto press about poor automatic transmission performance on the current X-Type.

Make the base car RWD and offer AWD as an option at higher cost, as in the BMW 3-series. If you can do an AWD with 60% of the power going to the rear wheels, then a 100% RWD should be technically feasible without major rework of the rest of the car. This would be optimum for performance - AWD saps HP and FWD trashes handling. For my sale your competition is the 330i, NOT the 330xi (which I would never order), so the performance gap due to AWD is a strong negative.

PRICE-----------------------------------
As noted individually above, none of these items should represent a significant real production cost increase, so hold the line on MSRP. The cost of the car right now is about the limit of what my better half will let me spend - don't price me out of the market:)

Follow Ups:

A corection & an addition Barnacle Bill 07:54 3/18/2002 (0)

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