New Defender News

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Is it a US thing where you don’t have screen cover with car insurance?

I had my heated screen on my Disco 3 changed and it was only £80 excess for the Pilkinton glass.
Are you having to pay full price for a screen change?

As for the scraper thing, being a tad vertically challenged at 5,8 on a good day.
I would have to climb on the tyre and reach in to get the middle. Which was a pain when trying to wash it...

I can't speak for everyone but when I was offered glass coverage, it was only a couple bucks extra a month in terms of premium, but I would have to pay my deductible annually. Since my screen was only $300 and my deductible was $500, it would only be useful if I went through two screens in a year. Truthfully, I definitely do go through more than one screen a year if it's just a matter of rock chips, but I usually don't replace my screen often or just for a rock chip -- for me it's always been more a matter of time/convenience than anything else. I usually only replace after the cracks have spread/it's collected enough stone chips or sandblasting wear to obscure vision. So, the $500 deductible made it not good value for me.

The D5 non heated windshield is $816 and heated is $1,044. So it’s about a $200 difference on most LR windshields.

Thanks Carson -- that's what I wondered. Strikes me if a new screen is going to cost an arm and a leg no matter what, I'm not worried about also having to hand over the toes and fingers.

In other words, the 'extra' $200 may well provide enough utility between broken screens that it makes sense to go for it for a buyer, given it's not a massive increase on the price of an already expensive screen.

Like @A.J.M mentioned, my partner is shorter than I am while we have special scrapers that make the job easier, it's still not a pleasant job. A heated screen might give her plenty of benefit on cold mornings. Of course, this is if the Defender ends up as a daily driver for us which it might. I'm honestly so impressed with it that I'd like to own one event a different rig might check the Adventure Vehicle boxes a bit better. If it's a dedicated adventure rig though I would probably rely on the "as basic as can be" approach.

 

[Christian P.]

9115 Defender sold in the last 6 months of 2020. Be ready to see these everywhere soon.

The New Land Rover Defender Is Off To A Cracking Start

The goofy new Defender you see above has good reason to smile. It took the new Defender less than a year to exceed sales figures set by its predecessor, which was last sold in the American market from the early-to-late ’90s.

jalopnik.com

 

[Blaise]

The comments section of the Jalopnik article reminds me a lot of the hate/rage thread.

 

[catmann]

I can't speak for all the different policy types, but I have always known glass coverage to be part of "comprehensive coverage", which is above the minimum required by most states. In my case windshield/glass is covered 100% and the deductible does NOT apply to this part of the policy. Repairs and replacement are somewhat no-hassle services due to safety concerns. Asking for OEM glass is also allowed at no extra cost, but you do specifically have to ask for it or they may use an approved aftermarket windshield.

 

[catmann]

9115 Defender sold in the last 6 months of 2020. Be ready to see these everywhere soon.

The New Land Rover Defender Is Off To A Cracking Start

The goofy new Defender you see above has good reason to smile. It took the new Defender less than a year to exceed sales figures set by its predecessor, which was last sold in the American market from the early-to-late ’90s.

jalopnik.com

Well, you can never be sure. Remeber when the LR3 came out and it was the car of the year and sales were great...There is a LOT of competition coming, the Bronco, Hummer, Rivian, Jeep V8, etc so LR is going to have to keep impressing people at the price points they are charging...

 

[plainjaneFJC]

9115 Defender sold in the last 6 months of 2020. Be ready to see these everywhere soon.

The New Land Rover Defender Is Off To A Cracking Start

The goofy new Defender you see above has good reason to smile. It took the new Defender less than a year to exceed sales figures set by its predecessor, which was last sold in the American market from the early-to-late ’90s.

jalopnik.com

Does TFL count for 3 sales or 1..... I mean we could actually have only 3k new owners.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

9115 Defender sold in the last 6 months of 2020. Be ready to see these everywhere soon.

The New Land Rover Defender Is Off To A Cracking Start

The goofy new Defender you see above has good reason to smile. It took the new Defender less than a year to exceed sales figures set by its predecessor, which was last sold in the American market from the early-to-late ’90s.

jalopnik.com

That's fantastic news for the used market in a couple of years too as many of those will likely be purchased by folks who want the latest, greatest thing and will trade up to the next latest greatest when the time comes.

 

[Carson G]

That's fantastic news for the used market in a couple of years too as many of those will likely be purchased by folks who want the latest, greatest thing and will trade up to the next latest greatest when the time comes.

Gonna be honest I don’t want a 2020 model year anything. Frankly I think 2022 will probably be the year to get.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Gonna be honest I don’t want a 2020 model year anything. Frankly I think 2022 will probably be the year to get.

Fair point - the growing pains will be much reduced by the 2022 model year so I think you're right. Couple that with all the trouble you had (I think it was you?) finding a new one with the locker, I imagine the ones on the used car lots will mostly be the same locker-less models and thus less applicable/appealing to the folks in this community.

 

[Blaise]

What's wrong with a 2020 model year anything? You mean first model year?

 

[Carson G]

What's wrong with a 2020 model year anything? You mean first model year?

Build quality, QC, etc, I feel like the pandemic may have affected it somewhat in all vehicles. The Defender has that as well which just exacerbates potential first year problems.

 

[Carson G]

Fair point - the growing pains will be much reduced by the 2022 model year so I think you're right. Couple that with all the trouble you had (I think it was you?) finding a new one with the locker, I imagine the ones on the used car lots will mostly be the same locker-less models and thus less applicable/appealing to the folks in this community.

I actually have found quite a few for sale recently with the lockers. My dealer almost always has at least one or two either in stock or on the way with it. I’ve also seen a bunch in other parts of US coming in with steel wheels. Even a couple here in NC. Plus historically the First two years are always very rough for LR especially, the LR3 was a prime example some of the early ones had some issues kinda like the Defender has but by 07’ or so they had it fairly dialed in. Then in some ways they screwed it up again with the LR4 in 2010 and then got it back together by late 2012.

 

[soflorovers]

Build quality, QC, etc, I feel like the pandemic may have affected it somewhat in all vehicles. The Defender has that as well which just exacerbates potential first year problems.

2020 Defender in particular seems to have suffered from quite a few teething flaws. Some of these things are expected/acceptable (Loose window trim, constant OTA updates, temperamental infotainment, etc...) whereas some of these issues are downright unacceptable (air suspension faults - I mean cmon, hasn't JLR perfected this system already? It's been two decades now). I guess it's the price you pay to be an early adopter of an entirely new vehicle and an entirely new engine line (Ingenium i6).

Not to be "that" guy and draw parallels, but Land Rover owners are very much like Tesla owners - many of us are willing to put aside a vehicle's flaws for the "charm"/ personality of the brand. I'm not blind to the issues of the platform, and frankly I don't think we should be dismissive of many of these issues as minor. It's one thing to go full "rage/hate" in here in defense of the New Defender because it's an incredibly capable machine, but I still believe we need to be honest with ourselves and the entire community. To have this many issues for a new vehicle is unacceptable, and JLR should know better. That said, I personally would still buy a New Defender despite the flaws...in 2022 once they've ironed out most of them.

 

[Blaise]

Build quality, QC, etc, I feel like the pandemic may have affected it somewhat in all vehicles. The Defender has that as well which just exacerbates potential first year problems.

I'm not sure this is a good assumption. I work in a production environment and while things have certainly slowed down both build and supply chain, there's no direct tie to quality problems (that I've seen, metric based).

2020 Defender in particular seems to have suffered from quite a few teething flaws. Some of these things are expected/acceptable (Loose window trim, constant OTA updates, temperamental infotainment, etc...) whereas some of these issues are downright unacceptable (air suspension faults - I mean cmon, hasn't JLR perfected this system already? It's been two decades now). I guess it's the price you pay to be an early adopter of an entirely new vehicle and an entirely new engine line (Ingenium i6).

Not to be "that" guy and draw parallels, but Land Rover owners are very much like Tesla owners - many of us are willing to put aside a vehicle's flaws for the "charm"/ personality of the brand. I'm not blind to the issues of the platform, and frankly I don't think we should be dismissive of many of these issues as minor. It's one thing to go full "rage/hate" in here in defense of the New Defender because it's an incredibly capable machine, but I still believe we need to be honest with ourselves and the entire community. To have this many issues for a new vehicle is unacceptable, and JLR should know better. That said, I personally would still buy a New Defender despite the flaws...in 2022 once they've ironed out most of them.

LOL way to trigger me with the tesla comment. For me it's not about charm/personality - it's just use case. Nobody else makes a supremely comfortable but off-road capable vehicle designed in the last decade (sorry Toyota) and under 100k (sorry G wagon).

What are the issues for the suspension? I haven't been up on this other than seeing endless regurgitation of the TFL saga.

 

[JeepColorado]

Your comment made me go look at the Jalopnik comments- found this jewel in the comments section of the Defender article-

"Expedition Portal is full of rich people that like to set money on fire to fuel their obscure offroad fetish."