On the inside, the revised XF gets a smattering of extra standard equipment: heated mirrors, better seats, and digital instruments. More widely, though, it may be near enough unrecognisable to you if you haven’t cast your eye over this car in a few years; because Gaydon really did make a big improvement to the perceived quality and classy material allure of this car back in 2021.
The tastefully dulled, subtly sculptural chrome trims immediately catch your eye; but when you explore the darker corners of the driving environment, you find matching perceived quality in other places, too.
The car’s various clusters of buttons and knobs, on the steering wheel and the centre console, are much more neatly presented and better finished than they used to be as well.
And remember that black rubberised look and feel that the car’s secondary switchgear used to have? It looked all right when brand new, but you’d have bet on it wearing badly. Well, that’s all long gone, replaced by chunky-feeling chrome window switches and illuminated toggle buttons on the steering wheel’s spokes.
The Pivi Pro infotainment screen, meanwhile – some 11.4in on the diagonal, a lot squarer of aspect than the old car’s set-up, and with a slightly convex display that makes it appear to hug the curve of the dashboard quite nicely – is also very creditable. It’s standard on even entry-level S-grade cars, as is Jaguar’s digital instrument pack which is also very good.
And it’s easy to use, fully furnished for wireless device mirroring compatibility, and both reliable and robust with its software. The line of shortcut buttons on the margin of the display, and the easy configurability of the home screen to suit the functions you access most often, are as key to this as the system’s responsiveness.
Seat comfort up front is very good. If you’re taller, there’s a chance you might notice a slight shortage of telescopic steering column adjustment range, or the closeness of the car’s roofline. The XF never was the biggest or most accommodating of mid-sized executive options; but now that’s it priced like rivals from the class below, that’s much less likely to bother you.
Boot space on the Sportbrake version is a very useful 550-odd litres up to the window line, although you lose the car’s underfloor storage if you go for mild-hybrid diesel (which carries its 48V battery and power inverter under there), whereas you’ll keep it if you have a P250 or P300 petrol version instead.
