Quick spin in a 2017 Jaguar XF 20d R-Sport
Jaguar’s diesel XF feels faster than it actually is — and it also beats its fuel economy ratings
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — When I was told that the only car Jaguar could liberate from its fleet for my three-day drive to sunny Santa Barbara was its mid-size XF, I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed. Not so much that the XF isn’t a good car — it is — but because it is pretty much a known entity. Yes, it’s in its second generation, but Jaguar, on something of a tear lately, has launched the all-new XE and various forms of hot-rodded F-Types, not to mention the F-Pace, since the 2016 introduction of the newly aluminum-bodied XF. Hardly hot news.
So, hefting a week’s worth of luggage — including motorcycle gear, my boxing equipment and what passes as “executive” wear for the L.A. Auto Show (basically, my Harley jacket and my cleanest black T-shirt) — my expectations were low. Been there. Done that.
Moved on. Open the door, put the fob in the cupholder — damn, I do miss putting a key in an ignition switch — and punch the starter button.
Immediately, my ears perk up to a little uncharacteristic clatter.
How long has this car been sitting here? Did all of the oil drain out of the cylinder head’s galleys?
Was the engine built on a Monday morning, the weekend’s libations, let’s say, loosening the assembly process? Surely, someone in P.R. had noticed that this XF was more growl than purr?
And then it came to me: they’d slipped a diesel under the hood of my XF. Wowza, the first full-fledged road test of Jaguar’s new Ingenium diesel engine, one of the most anticipated (non-performance) powertrains of the year.
So, you’ll forgive if this treatise is less about comportment and more about combustion.
Indeed, read Brian Harper’s impressions of the XF S on Driving.ca if you want to gauge the car’s impressive comfort, convenience and much improved In-Control infotainment system.
The basic stats of Jag’s new Ingenium engine read like this: There are 2.0 litres of displacement spread over four cylinders.
The compression ratio is a monstrous 15.5-to-1 because, of course, there’s no spark plug to initiate combustion, the 20d relying instead on the heat generated by the compression of air to “spark” the ignition.
The result of all this squeezing of crude is 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 318 pound-feet of torque from 1,750 to 2,500 rpm.
It is all that torque that really propels this XF. Revving any diesel hard — this most modern example included — is a wasted exercise.
Instead, the XF, despite its paucity of displacement and pistons, is a revel of effortless acceleration at the slightest whiff of throttle.
The beauty of having 318 lb-ft of torque available at a mere 1,750 rpm is that the XF just shrugs off hills, and passes long trucks at highways speeds as if wafted along by a big V8.
Indeed, up to about 2,500 rpm, the Ingenium feels like the most powerful engine in Jaguar’s lineup.
Jaguar Canada claims a zero-to-100 km/h acceleration time of 8.4 seconds on the 20d, yet it feels quicker.
Factor in the eight-speed automatic transmission — there’s a sixspeed manual available in Europe for diesel-powered XEs but even there, it is not much loved — that mostly keeps the engine in the meaty part of its powerband and you have plenty of perk.
If there’s a slight downside to the Ingenium, it’s that it is a little more growly than some of its European luxury competitors.
This mostly happens at low speed (typically when one notices a diesel’s characteristic “clatter”) and is not troublesome.
But Jaguar’s diesel, the company’s first in-house design of a four-cylinder oil burner, is a little noisier than other European 2.0-L turbodiesels.
That said, the Ingenium does deliver on its primary promise.
Our average fuel economy on the run to Santa Barbara — which included a traffic jam of a length and intensity that only Los Angeles on a Friday night can generate — was 6.0 L/100 km.
Remember, the XF is a mid-size luxury sedan — in this case fully loaded — alternately creeping along bumper-to-bumper and then speeding along at a buck-thirty, neither being an optimization of fuel conservation.
At a steadier 100 km/h on the return voyage — there wasn’t as much traffic returning late Sunday evening — the 20d averaged an even more impressive 5.3 L/100 km.
Considering that Natural Resources Canada officially rates it at 5.8 L/100 km on the highway, the Ingenium is yet further proof that diesels, despite their recent bad publicity, are still the only engines that exceed official governmental estimates of their fuel economy.
In the end, that’s why Jaguar Canada is importing a 20d version of the XF. Oil burners may not be traditional luxury car power plants by North American standards, and Volkswagen may have permanently poisoned the diesel waters, but if you want the best fuel economy from an internal combustion engine, Rudolph Diesel’s 130-yearold design still can’t be beat.