Jaguar is having to recall nearly 18,000 cars in the UK after reports that the cruise control systems fitted to X-type models built between 2006 and 2010 "may not respond to the normal inputs in some circumstances."

Alarmingly enough, X-type owners have been notified that when the cruise control system is engaged it is not possible to disengage the system in the normal manner.

Apparently though, Jaguar technicians have announced that killing the ignition will disable the cruise control but in doing so X-type owners will surely run the risk of engaging the steering lock – a pretty hairy situation to be faced with.

"The potential problem was spotted by one of our employees. No customer has been affected and there had been no accidents or injuries," a Jaguar spokesperson told Sky News.

A total of 17,678 X-types will have to be recalled to receive the fix and it's a good job Jaguar spotted the problem and acted quickly to rectify the situation.

As Toyota will testify, issues like this need to be smothered quickly after the Japanese firm came in for heavy criticism and faced legal action over its cars experiencing sudden unintended bouts of acceleration leading to some pretty serious smashes.

As yet Jaguar haven't revealed the seriousness of the issue or what work is needed to rectify the fault.