Ditto
New Defender News
- Thread starter blackangie
- Start date
JackW
Explorer
I just watched the PowerfulUK videos of the winch kit installation that they are making. They have three so far - preparation and cleaning, removal of the old bits and installing the winch mount and they are doing a pretty good job of explaining the steps so far. I am impressed with the design of the factory winch mount and the installation kit. The next installment will show mounting the winch and hopefully the wiring of the winch.
T-Willy
Well-known member
Well, TFL is probably at the fore of "new Defender news" at the moment, however displeasing that may be to you. It's news because TFL's purchasing experience is highly relevant to prospective buyers. Like me. And yes, it is unfortunate that the rage / hate thread was shut down, because that's where some of us were trying to politely segregate discussion of quality and reliability given its obvious offense to JLR brand loyalists.
JLRs reputation for poor quality, reliability and service, as now repeated in twice-failed attempts to deliver an operable Defender to TFL, hangs like a dark cloud over a wagon that, with its payload and offroach chops, is an otherwise uniquely capable remote touring offering in the U.S. market. Because poor quality and reliability is disqualifying, some of us are watching very closely.
TFL's experience has shown thus far one engine failure, a glitchy camera system, a curious wiring harness vulnerability, JLR's inability to timely diagnose problems, and one JLR dealer's wholesale destruction of a new Defender during option installation. It's also shown JLR's exceptional effort (I give them an "A" for effort) to right a bad situation by replacing two bricked vehicles.
All of this is valuable information to potential buyers, and especially remote tourers who frequent this particular website and forum and for whom quality, reliability, and service are of particular import.
And... "Zip it" - seriously, dad?
gabrielef
Well-known member
Mathematically though, they are having a rare occurrence and JLR is taking care of it. I don’t think people should make it more complicated than that.
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DieselRanger
Well-known member
This. One occurrence is getting blown way out of proportion by those who, let's face it, are looking for reasons for LR to fail with the Defender.
DieselRanger
Well-known member
Is the roof rack easily removable? In winter it's nice to have a roof box on crossbars for skis/snowboards and other gear, and while the spacing between the slats looks wide enough to slide roof box clamps through, a roof box on top of an expedition rack isn't a style I'd rock unless I really needed to.
Corgi_express
Well-known member
One of these things is true, at least.
This is your regular reminder that this guy is extremely biased due to his own rocky relationship with JLR, and he put out videos trashing the new Defender's capability before anybody had even driven it. Stop giving him legitimacy by sharing his clickbait nonsense.
Good overview. The highlight take-away was the conversation with ARB and the lack of planned aftermarket support. Previously discussed. That will significantly limit Defender sales potential as true 4WDs are hobbies.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
The TFL saga is actually endearing me to JLR quite a bit. I know that every manufacturer produces a few lemons, but to see JLR be praised by TFL for their response is reassuring. I think a fair bit of the service they are receiving is because of their YouTube presence, but I think the basic response from JLR -- we can order you a new one but it will take a few months, give you a new engine in the one you ordered, or you can swap it for a similar one, or give you your money back -- is a very reasonable and I think fair offer to resolve the issue, and hopefully this is representative of what any of us could expect from JLR if we were in that position (as opposed to having to take them through a lemon-law process). It sure beats Chrysler's "It looks like you've gone off-road so we are not honouring the warranty" response that many of us have gotten. Of course, JLR has been burned on a lemon law case in a big way in Australia (hundreds of thousands of dollars) so perhaps it would not be consistent with "regular people" but one can hope.
The compounding of the issues -- being delivered a lemon, and then having someone somehow botch the winch install -- is just bad luck and human error. These things happen -- usually not to the same person on the same vehicle purchase! -- but they happen. I'm more worried about which wiring harness was cut irreparably, and if that is a vulnerable harness to stick and rock damage which is common off-road, but based on what I have read here that doesn't seem too likely (and we won't know until someone else replicates the problem).
This, I think, is a pretty fair take overall, but with one or two moderately unfair sections. My understanding is that ASPW is a classic Land Rover fan, but has long since abandoned them for Toyotas due to reliability. His nostalgic lens comes into it a bit (which is fine as that's an important part of personal preference but may not be relevant to all buyers). The most relevant concerns from a more general perspective that I noted from the video were ones that I share, namely reliability & complexity (and what that means for ownership & dealership dependency), and wheel size. Both of these are legit observations I think. His big rule out was the long-term cost of ownership due to the complexity/reliability, which is based on previous JLR models. JLR claimed they were aware of it and addressed that in the new Defender, but I do wonder what the odds are for the Defender to have successfully shrugged that reputation. Only time will tell (and a lot of time -- it'll be quite a few years before we have a meaningful number of Defenders rolling past 200k on the odometer).
His "Gotcha" moment with ARB not producing a Bull Bar is a bit unfair I think -- a manager of a local ARB shop isn't going to be able to comment on products in development (his words were "nothing I can comment on at this time", not "we're not making one"). Given ARB's approach to other products, and the complexity of the Defender's front end, I think ARB is probably taking it's time to replicate OEM performance (which is their practice on other vehicles), and the front end of the Defender is a complex bit of engineering. For example, the plastics are designed to scoop and funnel water away from critical systems, so maybe they aren't the kind of thing you can just trim/remove without some consideration to that water diversion function. Who knows what other sensors and features they have to contend with. I also believe ARB crash-tests their bars, and given the production delays due to COVID and the lack of available Defender stock in Australia, I don't think it's unreasonable that ARB has yet to release a bull bar for the Defender -- they will want to release one design and sell it for years, not rush something out that's inadequate and have to re-design it in a year or two. This is all speculation on my part, but to associate this lack of bull bar from ARB with the TFL experience and conclude that you can't fit a winch (or that local 4x4 shops 'won't do it') I think is unfair and equally speculative -- the thing has only been out for a few months, during a global pandemic with multiple lockdown periods, so we need a bit more time and I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If this is still the case a year from now, then fair enough.
The interior is still the bee's knees which he identifies as the highlight. Ineos, are you paying attention?? Lock down the interior on the Gren to "as good or better" than the Defender, and you won't be able to build enough of 'em!
He concluded by saying the Defender is not an appropriate "off roader", and I don't fully agree with him there, but I think he explains his perspective well -- when you consider the classic "off-roaders", they are cheap, user-customizable, and very good off-road. The new Defender meets only 1 of those 3 criteria at this stage (very good off-road) and it really is in a different class than the Jeeps.
As an off-road capable tourer, the only criticisms are long-term cost of ownership (Again, no data to support this yet on the Defender itself, but it's not an unreasonable concern), the wheel size (and 18" are not the deal-breaker they were 15 years ago) -- and those are pretty light critiques in my opinion, depending on what a person wants to do with the vehicle.
The compounding of the issues -- being delivered a lemon, and then having someone somehow botch the winch install -- is just bad luck and human error. These things happen -- usually not to the same person on the same vehicle purchase! -- but they happen. I'm more worried about which wiring harness was cut irreparably, and if that is a vulnerable harness to stick and rock damage which is common off-road, but based on what I have read here that doesn't seem too likely (and we won't know until someone else replicates the problem).
This, I think, is a pretty fair take overall, but with one or two moderately unfair sections. My understanding is that ASPW is a classic Land Rover fan, but has long since abandoned them for Toyotas due to reliability. His nostalgic lens comes into it a bit (which is fine as that's an important part of personal preference but may not be relevant to all buyers). The most relevant concerns from a more general perspective that I noted from the video were ones that I share, namely reliability & complexity (and what that means for ownership & dealership dependency), and wheel size. Both of these are legit observations I think. His big rule out was the long-term cost of ownership due to the complexity/reliability, which is based on previous JLR models. JLR claimed they were aware of it and addressed that in the new Defender, but I do wonder what the odds are for the Defender to have successfully shrugged that reputation. Only time will tell (and a lot of time -- it'll be quite a few years before we have a meaningful number of Defenders rolling past 200k on the odometer).
His "Gotcha" moment with ARB not producing a Bull Bar is a bit unfair I think -- a manager of a local ARB shop isn't going to be able to comment on products in development (his words were "nothing I can comment on at this time", not "we're not making one"). Given ARB's approach to other products, and the complexity of the Defender's front end, I think ARB is probably taking it's time to replicate OEM performance (which is their practice on other vehicles), and the front end of the Defender is a complex bit of engineering. For example, the plastics are designed to scoop and funnel water away from critical systems, so maybe they aren't the kind of thing you can just trim/remove without some consideration to that water diversion function. Who knows what other sensors and features they have to contend with. I also believe ARB crash-tests their bars, and given the production delays due to COVID and the lack of available Defender stock in Australia, I don't think it's unreasonable that ARB has yet to release a bull bar for the Defender -- they will want to release one design and sell it for years, not rush something out that's inadequate and have to re-design it in a year or two. This is all speculation on my part, but to associate this lack of bull bar from ARB with the TFL experience and conclude that you can't fit a winch (or that local 4x4 shops 'won't do it') I think is unfair and equally speculative -- the thing has only been out for a few months, during a global pandemic with multiple lockdown periods, so we need a bit more time and I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. If this is still the case a year from now, then fair enough.
The interior is still the bee's knees which he identifies as the highlight. Ineos, are you paying attention?? Lock down the interior on the Gren to "as good or better" than the Defender, and you won't be able to build enough of 'em!
He concluded by saying the Defender is not an appropriate "off roader", and I don't fully agree with him there, but I think he explains his perspective well -- when you consider the classic "off-roaders", they are cheap, user-customizable, and very good off-road. The new Defender meets only 1 of those 3 criteria at this stage (very good off-road) and it really is in a different class than the Jeeps.
As an off-road capable tourer, the only criticisms are long-term cost of ownership (Again, no data to support this yet on the Defender itself, but it's not an unreasonable concern), the wheel size (and 18" are not the deal-breaker they were 15 years ago) -- and those are pretty light critiques in my opinion, depending on what a person wants to do with the vehicle.
JackW
Explorer
As someone who has owned twenty different Land Rovers over the last 48 years and driven hundreds of thousands of miles in them I can see Andrews point. The Ineos Grenadier looks more like what he (and I) would see as an ideal off road platform - more rugged than the new Land Rovers, inline six diesel, simpler and field repairable, but more comfortable and capable than the old Defender. I'm not confident we will ever see it in the USA - especially since the new administration will not stand up to the California Air Resources Board and soon their more restrictive standards will be applied nationwide.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
I don't wish to derail this thread, but yesterday's news about Ineos pursuing a Hydrogen powerplant gave me hope to see them in North America. If they offer three powertrains (gas, diesel, and hydrogen), the odds of us seeing one in North America are better as that will give them some more wiggle room around clean air standards. Fingers and Toes are crossed, anyway!
Not worried about the new administration and the emission trajectories. Ineos is the largest manufacturer of green hydrogen and with their latest agreements with Hyundai for FCEV development I'm actually expecting Ineos will leap-frog JLR and be early to market with a FCEV "Defender".