New Defender News

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Someone should send that Harry guy an e-mail and tell him the new Defender is no good for farmers -- almost everyone says so, after all. Boy, I bet that Harry will feel silly, doing all that farming with his new Defender, once he finds out that it's apparently no good for that. Any day now he'll realize.....

(That is intentional sarcasm in case anyone is wondering)

Great video, thanks for sharing it Christian. Nice to see it in use on a working farm and hear the perspective of that use case. He raises a lot of good features -- being able to toss those extra tires/wheels in the back without a worry for carpeting, the outlet at the back for flood lights is handy during harvest time when there are late-night harvest time repairs, etc. A lot of these features that work great on a farm also work great on an expedition for similar reasons; It seems like JLR may not have totally abandoned the use case of farmers after all.

"From a farmer point of view, I think it does really work. The thing I'm stumbling on is the price point" <--- Pretty good endorsement overall, with a fair critique on the price for a farm vehicle.

 

[DieselRanger]

Someone should send that Harry guy an e-mail and tell him the new Defender is no good for farmers -- almost everyone says so, after all. Boy, I bet that Harry will feel silly, doing all that farming with his new Defender, once he finds out that it's apparently no good for that. Any day now he'll realize.....

(That is intentional sarcasm in case anyone is wondering)

Great video, thanks for sharing it Christian. Nice to see it in use on a working farm and hear the perspective of that use case. He raises a lot of good features -- being able to toss those extra tires/wheels in the back without a worry for carpeting, the outlet at the back for flood lights is handy during harvest time when there are late-night harvest time repairs, etc. A lot of these features that work great on a farm also work great on an expedition for similar reasons; It seems like JLR may not have totally abandoned the use case of farmers after all.

"From a farmer point of view, I think it does really work. The thing I'm stumbling on is the price point" <--- Pretty good endorsement overall, with a fair critique on the price for a farm vehicle.

Review is also a fail without showing how many dead sheep you can fit in the back vs. a "classic" 110.

 

[A.J.M]

Curious how he got a P400 to review and not a much cheaper diesel model.

The cheapest D200 is half the price of that but will have the same kit by and large.

but that Harry Will feel a rough plum when he realises that people who were never going to buy it say it can’t do things they never did with their own older ones.
That will show him!

whatever you do, don’t check his other channel “Harry’s garage” you’ll lose days to watching his videos.

 

[Paddler Ed]

Ultimately if a P400 is a mild hybrid (which IIRC it is) it will be cheaper to tax in the UK than the diesel would be, so that makes a difference in people's purchasing decisions. That difference in tax will flow into the used price as well so whilst the initial capital outlay will be higher, it will in the long term be cheaper.

 

[A.J.M]

The new 6 cylinder diesels are mild hybrid as well.
The P400e gets a much lower tax band, the regular stuff is similar to the diesels.

By the sounds of his video, the 6 cylinder ones weren’t out when he shot it.

The ved rates are all over the place and because they are above £40,000 they get an extra £235 on the tax for the first 5 years.

 

[naks]

Brace yourselves for some controversial opinions!

 

[XJLI]

I agree with him. Unless you're building a crawler, the new Defender is better at everything except for being a cooler vehicle.

 

[DieselRanger]

Brace yourselves for some controversial opinions!

Aw this guy's a total jerk! ?

Nailed it on the "Lifestyle vehicle" bit.

The fuel mileage bit was interesting - in my 2017 Discovery HSE Td6, I average about 24.5mpg at 78 mph, when I'm at 72mph I'll regularly touch 30mpg. The P400 is nice to drive, but I really, really want the D300 to come to the US. I'd swap to a D110 in a heartbeat.

Some things I disagree with - most people will configure these with tow package which will come with recovery points built in, and you can buy your own recovery hooks to put in the built in points. It's a nit from him that it didn't come with them, but it's just a nit. the D5 does not have the little inserts that pop out of you don't want the tow package - you have to remove an entire bit of trim in the back. I installed a bash plate and just cut out a hole in the plastic in the front underneath the bash plate to keep the front hook exposed. At least they made it easier to get to the recovery hook installation points.

Heated windshields - do not buy for most Mountain West residents. Windshields are wear items here in Colorado. Mine isn't a heated windshield and it still cost $500 (for my deductible) - the total installed cost was over $800. $1600 is ridiculous for a thing that is only going to save you a few minutes on a frosty morning.

The most controversial opinion is, "it's a good car, it's a great car across the country and off road..."

 

[DieselRanger]

I agree with him. Unless you're building a crawler, the new Defender is better at everything except for being a cooler vehicle.

And then if you're building a crawler, buy a cheap broken Jeep, not an old Defender. Unless you just want to look cool. The green one in the video he parked his next to was a $100,000 vehicle. You're not going to take a perfectly good, classic lifestyle vehicle and ruin it to become a crawler, unless you find a cheap broken one and build it from scratch.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Great vid, @naks. Thank you for sharing.

For folks who may not have time to watch but still want to discuss it in the thread, it's a pretty good summary of his Defender experience over a 7k mile road trip Doug took. His complaints are minor -- placement of the door lock buttons hit his knee, operation of the mute on the radio, and a few minor operational concerns like that. A number of his complaints -- like the brake lights not staying on when the vehicle is using the "hold" mode or the lack of an indicator for a mute button/rear wiper sound like they could be fixed in future iterations of the Pivi Pro system, as they appear to be software focused. This is what JLR touted as being an advantage with the OTA updates, anyway, which is a neat way to think of keeping a vehicle modern and current while also addressing usability concerns as they come up. The best parallel I can think of is the updates to our cell phones; On older iPhones, when you turned up the volume, the indicator would be right in the middle of the screen and obscure whatever you were watching. In the new OS, it's off to the side and discreet, and even phones that are a few years old got that 'upgraded' feature when they updated their OS. So Doug's complaints about indicators of wiper status or the mute button could see a similar update that addresses those concerns in the future.

In terms of quality, he did have his sunroof button fail to work. It failed closed so no real harm done in terms of using the vehicle, but I suppose it could have failed the other way and caused a problem -- either way, it will be back to the dealer for a repair. He also pointed out that the weatherstripping on the rear doors is loose which is a QA/QC issue, but fixed with a dab of glue. Totally agree with him that both of these should not happen on a new vehicle but, it's a year 1 model so it gets a wee bit of grace.

He also cracked his windshield -- I'm with you @DieselRanger, I would never go a heated windshield in an adventure vehicle -- every adventure vehicle I've owned has had a cracked windshield within the first few thousand kilometres, it's just the nature of dirt travel with oncoming traffic.

His controversial opinion I think is pretty fair and actually not controversial, especially in North America. If a person wants a good road tripping adventure vehicle and has $100k to spend, you can have the New Defender and years on the road in fuel money having adventures, going pretty much anywhere you want because the vehicle is quite capable and far better at off road, on road, and everything else than it's predecessor. The old Defender would only ever be in your driveway for the same amount of money, and is often more of a status symbol to have the "look" of an adventurer than it is actually used for adventuring. I'm not sure this is true overseas, but in North America I think it's an accurate assessment. A few people of course do use Old Defenders as adventure rigs here -- but a few people use G-Wagens as adventure vehicles too, but I don't think that represents the majority of owners of that rig either.

Overall I would say that Doug's video had no surprises, but a lot of good insight into the usefulness of the new Defender. The QA/QC issues and related, reliability concerns are still on the radar, but that's where they should be -- on the radar so folks like us can make informed decisions and know what we're getting when (if) we decide to purchase a rig like this. Beyond that, he seems to love it.

 

[Carson G]

Aw this guy's a total jerk! ?

Nailed it on the "Lifestyle vehicle" bit.

The fuel mileage bit was interesting - in my 2017 Discovery HSE Td6, I average about 24.5mpg at 78 mph, when I'm at 72mph I'll regularly touch 30mpg. The P400 is nice to drive, but I really, really want the D300 to come to the US. I'd swap to a D110 in a heartbeat.

Some things I disagree with - most people will configure these with tow package which will come with recovery points built in, and you can buy your own recovery hooks to put in the built in points. It's a nit from him that it didn't come with them, but it's just a nit. the D5 does not have the little inserts that pop out of you don't want the tow package - you have to remove an entire bit of trim in the back. I installed a bash plate and just cut out a hole in the plastic in the front underneath the bash plate to keep the front hook exposed. At least they made it easier to get to the recovery hook installation points.

Heated windshields - do not buy for most Mountain West residents. Windshields are wear items here in Colorado. Mine isn't a heated windshield and it still cost $500 (for my deductible) - the total installed cost was over $800. $1600 is ridiculous for a thing that is only going to save you a few minutes on a frosty morning.

The most controversial opinion is, "it's a good car, it's a great car across the country and off road..."

His average speed was 78mph he was probably doing 90+ most of the time. That’s decent for 6,000lb brick at that speed.

 

[A.J.M]

Decent review and if his average speed is that high, he’s been shifting at proper speeds for a

I’ll argue blind that a heated screen is a must have.
I wouldn’t be without one and have had them in 4 landys over 12 years.
1 screen has been replaced in all that time.

My gf now wants one for her car and is happy to buy a new car just to get it...

My suggestion of buying me a 110 so she can take on my Freelander 2 hasn’t been approved...

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

I’ll argue blind that a heated screen is a must have.
I wouldn’t be without one and have had them in 4 landys over 12 years.
1 screen has been replaced in all that time.

That's interesting, A.J.M. - My only hesitation on heated screens is the cost of repair, which seemed high versus the benefit they bring as I thought that they prevent a bit of fogging. and I don't mind letting the vehicles air system keep the fog off instead. Are there other advantages to the heated windscreen from your perspective that make it a "must have"?

(I really shouldn't ask questions like this...my Defender build is going to get pricier and pricer!)

 

[A.J.M]

The biggest bonus for me was in 2018.
We had a “beast from the east” winter storm for days.

I went out in the D3 to rescue a mate and get him and his car home.
The heated screen was on pretty much the full time for the 70 mile round trip keeping the wipers from freezing up with the temperature and snow build up.
Front wipers stayed unfrozen for the trip.

i also had the PROG going full chat to heat the car.

I gave up with the back wiper as I couldn’t keep the blade from being frozen.

It picked up a lot of snow that trip....

I find the heated screen great for winter and cold weather use.
ive covered over 150,000 miles with 1 screen replacement.

My dads been using them in Fords and the Jaguar for 22 years. He wouldn’t have a car without one either.
Nearly 400,000 miles of driving and no screen replacement for him.

It does help for me that my screen replacement excess on my policy is £80.
Which is nice.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Thanks @A.J.M . Great photo of your Disco too -- looks right at home in that stuff! We tend to have dryer weather but as soon as I saw your photo I was reminded of that sticky, melts-then-freezes-and-builds-up snow that I've encountered on a few occasions, and looking back a heated screen would be an asset. If I was in a region that saw that a lot, I can see the value; here it tends to be a bit too dry and cold to get the really sticky stuff. We still get lots of it but for whatever reason it doesn't have that same "build up" effect that the snow type in your photo seems to have.

The way we currently do it is max heat pumped right into the windshield, which tends to do the trick but at the cost of then being unable to send heat elsewhere in the vehicle. No problem in my truck as it's insulated, but in my jeep, with it's uninsulated doors, it made for some chilly drives!

Good point on the insurance thing - I've never had so I had forgotten it as an option. that but it would make the sticker price of a replacement a lot more palatable.