I fully acknowledge that it might be too early to know answers to these questions, but I’m wondering if anyone has any information or news on how these new Defenders break? I’m thinking of the Defender for a long-term/long distance 4x4 touring platform, and for that it actually looks pretty good in a lot of ways. It’s a truly global, high-payload 4x4 platform (one of the only 4x4 global platforms available in North America), it’s obviously quite capable based on the numerous reports and videos, and the dealer network is quite good — from Mongolia to Argentina and many points in between. So, it seems that routine, scheduled services on a major grand tour won’t be a deal breaker.
The big unknown for me (having never owned a LR, and only looking at this from reputation) is how does this new Defender break? All rigs break, but a good Overland rig will break in a way that allows the driver to patch it up trail side and get back for a proper repair later. Some rigs though will sit down when a sensor is tripped, and they may not be repairable trail side. Which category is the Defender in?
- The Air Suspension seems to be the most common complaint or concern on these new Land Rovers. How easy is it to swap sensors on air bag systems? I know the sensors are not known for reliability in high vibration environments, but if one goes bad, how big of a job is it to swap in a new one trail side? Sensors are tiny and bringing a handful of spares should be fairly easy, but if changing a sensor requires a full hub disassembly (as opposed to a few turns with a ratchet), that has a huge impact on trail side repair ability.
- Related, what happens if a stick or sharp rock puts a hole in a bag? Is that’s even possible? And Is that a trail side repair to deflate the bag and swap in a new one, or is it more complex than that?
- Also related, is there a way of manually adjusting the airbags if the automatic system fails and continue the journey, or is the rig a bit like an iPhone -- if there’s a problem, beyond turning it off and back on again, you need an Apple Store?
- And finally question about this suspension - how symmetrical is the Defender? For example, does the driver front airbag and sensor match with the passenger rear airbag and sensor in terms of part numbers? It’s easy to bring along spare parts but having symmetry means that you aren’t turning your new Defender into a Ship of Theseus situation with a whole slew of unique spares filling up the trunk!
- Does anyone know what kinds of fault codes will cause the Defender to ‘sit down’? And can codes be reset with a standard OBDII scanner/mobile app and dongle?
PowerfulUK’s Youtube video of his defender throwing an error because of that melted bracket (video since deleted) suggests that the car will warn, but not shutdown (at least in that particular part), so that’s promising but I’ve not heard any other examples of the new Defender breaking yet to give further insight.
www.autocar.co.uk
www.forbes.com
europe.autonews.com
