Jaguar F-PACE Review & Prices

The Jaguar F-Pace is a stylish premium SUV that has enjoyed a heavy mid-life update. It’s bigger than Jaguar’s other SUV, the E-Pace, putting it in the area of alternatives such as the Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Mercedes GLC.

But park the F-Pace next to these other SUVs and it’s like sitting James Bond next to Indiana Jones. They can all handle a bit of rough and tumble off the beaten track, but the F-Pace is somehow more sophisticated doing it.

That starts with its looks. Its striking grille, air intakes, slim headlights and bonnet creases give it a sporty look, but it’s somehow a classier effort than from those across the water.

The F-Pace’s interior never used to rival the Germans’, but this update has changed things massively. Gone is the disappointing quality and lacklustre tech, replaced by posh trims, plush materials and a real ‘mini-Bentley’ feel

Part of the visual drama is the F-Pace’s new 11.4-inch curved touchscreen. It’s located nicely on the dash to help when driving and integrate it seamlessly into the sleek design. BMW’s iDrive and Mercedes’ MBUX systems are both easier to use while driving, but as touchscreen’s go, Jag’s effort is sharp, responsive, feature-packed and very easy to navigate. Importantly, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both standard.

Cars higher up the range also come with slick digital driver’s dials and a rearview mirror you can flip from a standard glass reflection to a camera mounted on the tailgate. It looks cool, but also works well. It’s a shame the F-Pace’s touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons are a tad fiddly to use, though.

The F-Pace isn’t the most spacious car in the medium-sized premium SUV class, but it’s far from cramped, with plenty of room for four and their luggage.

If you need to carry three adults in the back you’ll find it more cosy than those others, though, and there’s no seven-seat option. Still, you do get a decent boot, which is bigger or matches that of all of the competition.

There are petrol, diesel and petrol-electric plug-in hybrid engine options for your F-Pace. If your yearly mileage is small and you’re mostly bumbling around town or on the school run, the smooth, quiet yet punchy 250hp P250 petrol will be fine. If you cover more miles, often on the motorway, then the 204hp D200 is the pick for us. It’ll return better fuel economy and feels stronger at low revs thanks to its mild-hybrid tech.

Of course, there’s also that plug-in hybrid, which if you’re planning on running your F-Pace through work or regularly do short urban journeys, might work out to be the cheapest to own if you can stomach the initial outlay. If you do, you’ll find it a great option: it’s brisk, refined and very economical if used right – you need to charge it up regularly to get the best fuel economy.

The punchy and nice-sounding six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines are the quickest of the range, helping you make the most of the F-Pace’s sharp steering, great body control and huge grip. There’s also the hilarious V8-powered SVR if you really want performance.  All are comfy and quiet in town, too, and only the very largest wheel option can slightly affect the ride.

So, the F-Pace is a huge improvement inside and is still every bit as good to drive. To see for yourself, and see how much you could save with us, head to our deals page. You can also choose from a number of used Jaguar F-Pace examples.

Traditionally, Jaguars have been just that bit more affordable than their main German competitors but the F-Pace upends that by being just a small bit more expensive, model-for-model. It’s around £1,000 more expensive, in basic form, than a matching Mercedes-Benz GLC, a BMW X3, or an Audi Q5 and quite a bit more expensive than the very impressive (and hybrid-only) Lexus NX.

That gap only grows when you look at the plug-in hybrid P400e version. That’s a great one to buy if you’re a business user-chooser, and paying company car tax, but in terms of list price it’s at least £5,000 more than its closest German or Japanese competition. In its defence, the F-Pace does come well-equipped, including a sporty bodykit, 20-inch wheels, 12-way memory front seats, and the big 11.4-inch touchscreen as standard, but that’s still a big price gap to make up.

Very smooth and refined to drive, although it’s not the comfiest around town, especially if you go for the bigger wheels

In town

In town, you could probably get away with the lowest-spec F-Pace engine, the 165hp 2.0-litre diesel. To be honest, the more powerful 200hp version is a much-better all rounder, but on urban roads and streets, the lesser engine is OK. The plug-in hybrid P400e is even better though, as long as you’ve remembered to charge it up as then you can swish around on silent electric power. Even without that, the F-Pace is a refined car with quiet engines and the standard eight-speed automatic gearbox is very smooth. 

The suspension is slightly less so, though. The F-Pace is set up to be a sporty SUV to drive, and if you’ve gone for the larger 21-inch wheel options then the ride comfort around town can be slightly over-firm. It never quite gets uncomfortable, but it’s not as soothing as some others. Visibility is good with big windows all round, although the driving position isn’t as high up as you’ll find in some SUVs. 

On the motorway

If you’ve got a long motorway journey ahead, then either the four-cylinder D200 or the six-cylinder D300 are the engines to have. They’re both refined and smooth, and the D200 has impressive long-haul fuel economy. They’ve also both got very decent performance, with the 3.0-litre D300 able to accelerate to 62mph in just 6.1 seconds, which is indecently brisk for such a big family-friendly SUV. The recently-upgraded cabin means that the F-Pace is a more comfortable long-haul prospect now than it once was, and the standard-fit lane-keeping steering and radar-guided cruise control really help to take the sting out of lengthy journeys. The ride comfort is better when you’re on a big road, too.   

On a twisty road

Here’s where the F-Pace really starts to separate itself from the premium SUV herd. Even with stern competition from the likes of the BMW X3 and Mercedes GLC, the F-Pace is very definitely up with the best of the bunch to drive when the road has corners. Well, assuming you can close your eyes when a Porsche Macan drives past, it is. The steering is light, but very direct and you can corner the big F-Pace with surprising enthusiasm. Here, that firm ride translates into tight control of the body’s movements so the F-Pace doesn’t roll and start to feel ‘boaty’ in corners. It’s really quite good fun for something so big and chunky. The optional Adaptive Dynamics electronically controlled suspension is a big bonus when you click it into Dynamic mode, and it can help ease the worst of the suspension stiffness at lower speeds.

Space in the cabin is OK, although rear passengers won’t find the most generous of settings

Practicality

Up front, the F-Pace has lots of space and there’s enough adjustment in the seats and steering wheel for even the tallest driver to get themselves very comfortable indeed. Storage space is also good, with big door pockets, and no fewer than three storage spaces in the centre console — one under the armrest, one under a sliding lid that also houses two cupholders, and another in front of the stubby gear selector which is home to the wireless phone charger, and a little slim pocket on the side of the console, just next to your leg. The glovebox is pretty decent, too. 

Space in the back seats

In spite of the F-Pace’s size on the outside, it doesn’t have the roomiest back seat going. In fact, if you really need to get three people into the back of your premium SUV (a third passenger in the middle of the F-Pace’s back seat will be slightly cramped) then you’re better off going for the Jag’s related stablemate, the Land Rover Discovery Sport. 

Space for two people in the back is decent, though you will find that rivals such as the BMW X3 offer a touch more legroom. Headroom is fine unless you spec your F-Pace with the optional panoramic glass roof, which does rob a crucial few millimetres of hairdo-room. Seat comfort is good though, although the view out for back seat passengers isn’t all that great as Jaguar has given the F-Pace a wedge-shaped window line. Helpfully, there are two ISOFIX points in the back for child car seats, but none in the front passenger seat.

Boot space

The F-Pace’s boot seems massive on paper,  as long as you don’t buy the P400e plug-in hybrid. 

At 650 litres, it looks bigger to the tune of 100-litres than the boots of the BMW X3, Mercedes GLC, and Audi Q5, although Jaguar publishes to-the-roof space figures, whereas almost everyone else uses the luggage cover as the logical place to measure to, so it’s not like-for-like. 

There’s also a bit of extra storage space under the floor, and the rear seats split and fold in a useful 40:20:40 formation (you can optionally fit handles in the boot that allow you to fold them without going around and doing it by hand). There’s a flat loading lip from the edge of the boot, although the little metal cover on the load lip can get rather easily scratched. Fold down the back seats and you’ve got 1,440 litres of space to play with. The P400e plug-in hybrid obviously has less boot space as it has to package the big battery for the hybrid system, but even then it’s still roomy with a claimed 552 litres of room, meaning that it’s the same size as the boots of its conventional diesel and petrol rivals.

Impressive infotainment and comfort, with just a couple of flimsy looking buttons betraying the otherwise high-quality cabin

The original version of the F-Pace had a very dowdy cabin that, frankly, looked and felt cheaper than what you’d get from significantly more budget-conscious brands. Thankfully, Jaguar has chucked out all of that with the updated model, and now you get a cabin that looks and (mostly) feels every bit as good, if not better than, any of its rivals. 

The star of the show is the new infotainment system, which uses a massive, curved 11.4-inch touchscreen in the centre of the dash. Jaguar calls the system ‘Pivi Pro’ which is a weird name, but the actual way it works is very impressive. Given that previous Jag (and related Land Rover) models had some of the worst infotainment systems around, this is a massive leap forward and is easily comparable with the best setups from BMW and Mercedes. The screen responds quickly to commands, the menu layout is logical, and you get nice features such as built-in music streaming and over-the-air software updates. 

The main digital dials are slightly less impressive — they’re fine, and you can adjust the layout as you please, but they don’t look as graphically slick nor impressive as what you’d find in a BMW X3. The heating and air conditioning system is good, though — you control it through a combination of touchscreen and nicely tactile multi-function rotary switches, which is a better setup than an all-screen version might be. 

The front seats are excellent, especially the optional sports seats which hug you snugly in place but never feel too tight nor too firm, like a good pair of jeans.

Basically, the F-Pace’s cabin now is the one the car should have had all along, and although you will find one or two flimsy, fragile buttons and plastic panels, for the most part it looks and feels like a high quality interior.

All of the F-Pace’s engines, bar the basic P250 petrol 2.0-litre turbo, get mild-hybrid assistance, so even if you’re buying a straightforward diesel model you’re getting at least a small amount of electrified motoring. As all-rounders go, the 200hp four-cylinder D200 turbo-diesel and the 300hp six-cylinder D300 turbo-diesel are the best picks, capable of returning 44mpg or 37mpg on the combined fuel economy cycle. These are pretty realistic figures in the real-world, too. The D200 engine has exactly the same CO2 emissions as the cheaper 165hp engine, so there’s no tax savings in going for the most basic model — you’ll pay the same current £585 + the £355 levy for cars costing more than £40,000 road tax in your first year either way. But that’s at least a big step away from the higher band of the D300 3.0-litre.

The P250 petrol turbo engine isn’t really all that much more refined than the diesel options, and you’ll pay the same as the six-cylinder diesel in VED, so there’s not much point in it.

The P400e plug-in hybrid is the interesting one. It has CO2 emissions of just 49g/km (and an electric-only range of 33 miles when fully charged, although that’s more like 25 miles in real-world conditions) so you’ll pay just 11% benefit in kind tax if you’re a company car user. Beware the fuel consumption though. Jaguar claims fuel economy of 129mpg, which would be nice but on longer runs, lugging around a dead battery, you’re more likely to see more like 35mpg. Still not terrible, perhaps, but not as good as the on-paper performance.

Or, you could just go completely nuts and get the 575hp supercharged V8 SVR version, but good luck getting 20mpg out of that one.

Euro NCAP tested the F-Pace in 2017, when it was first launched, and gave it five stars for crash performance, with a 93% rating for adult occupant performance and an 85% score for child occupant protection. That’s impressive, although NCAP’s ratings have since moved on so that original F-Pace may not be a five-star car were it re-tested today. Then again, the F-Pace has moved on too, and now comes with an improved selection of electronic safety aids. As standard, R-Dynamic S models come with front and rear parking sensors, a rear-facing camera, lane-keeping assistance for the steering, and radar-guided cruise control. There’s also a trailer stability assistant for towing, and torque vectoring by braking, which improves the F-Pace’s agility and its ability to swerve away from danger. All F-Paces also come with a driver drowsiness monitor, and autonomous emergency braking as well as a speed limiter with speed sign recognition. 

Jaguar does not have the best reputation for quality and reliability, although there is hope for the future as the company’s boss has put a new taskforce in place whose entire job is to improve on the solidity of the cars. The F-Pace has had five recalls in the UK, for detaching driveshafts, fuel leaks, fire risk, and CO2 emissions issues.

General quality has been quite good, but many owners have reported the sorts of annoying electrical and electronic niggles that are common to the Jaguar brand (and which really shouldn’t be). Hopefully, the recent upgrades to the cabin will improve on what went before, and there haven’t been many issues with core items such as engines and gearboxes. If you want the ultimate in reliability, though, just buy a Lexus.

Jaguar does offer a standard three-year unlimited mileage warranty, and that can optionally be extended out to four years.