How And Why Jaguar Turned Down Its Supercharger Whine

The supercharger Jaguar uses is as loud as ever, but it's more insulated than previously

The supercharged engines used by Jaguar don’t make quite the same sound as they did a few years ago. We’re not talking about the switch to new exhaust systems with petrol particulate filters – no, we’re on about the superchargers.

In the F-Type, the whine from the superchargers used on the V8 and the recently discontinued V6 has noticeably reduced in volume. We haven’t been imagining things – when speaking to Jaguar Land Rover Vehicle Integration Manager Tanmay Dube at the launch for the new 2020 model year F-Type, he confirmed that there was a change around two years ago.

The superchargers themselves haven’t been changed; rather the insulation. “The engine cover and the sealing at the end of the bonnet [were altered] – that was the main input to reduce the whine,” Dube said.

Jaguar - How And Why Jaguar Turned Down Its Supercharger Whine - News

The reason for the change was primarily to make the car a better cruiser. “We wanted to make sure that the car was something you could use all the time, on long journeys and so on, and [it was] one element that made the refinement better,” Dube explained. The changes that the engineering and quality team came up with were based on customer feedback from various feedback was sources – including from dealerships and even owner comments on Internet forums.

For the latest F-Type, nothing has changed. “We did consider for this model if we wanted to do anything more on it – bring it back a little bit, or reduce it further for refinement,” Dube said, adding, “We assessed a bunch of options but we ended up deciding on keeping it the way it has been.”

Jaguar - How And Why Jaguar Turned Down Its Supercharger Whine - News

Dube does admit that there are many advocates of the noise. “There is a fair share of people who really like supercharger whine. You could make it go away completely but we didn’t want to go that far. It just had to be a bit more subtle.”

Indeed, you can still – just about – hear the whine on F-Types built after the changes were applied. We’d just take a little more noise if it was us. Wouldn’t you?

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