deep

"Defender Sport? Isn't that an automotive oxymoron?" Great quote from comments in that article! To be fair, though, some folk have chucked a lot of horsepower in Defenders and earlier Land Rovers and survived...

He meant they're much better for driving under the fruit trees on the back lawn! Honestly, you'd think people here would know better. Sigh.

It's not hard to do both. Riding well on dirt roads and tracks means NOT bouncing off line when you hit a bump! On the other hand, a lifted, softly sprung vehicle will feel very vague and mushy at high speed on any surface, unless it's been designed very carefully.

Well, a manufacturer wants things to be good and Land Rover standard suspension is that. However, they also have to turn a profit (fat chance with the last Defenders but definitely on the cards originally). Part of that is balancing cost and performance. Some after-market suspension components, particularly shock absorbers in this thread, can be considerably more complicated (i.e. expensive) than standard and CAN be an improvement, on and/or off the road. My previous Stage One V8 had adjustable Munroes (not necessarily considered brilliant as a brand) which were wonderful when I put the 3.9 and higher gearing in and found myself cornering at decent speeds. My Mercedes has Bilsteins on the front which definitely tame the handling. On the other hand, I think my 110's shocks are standard and I have no complaint. That doesn't mean I couldn't spend silly money and feel an improvement. Even aftermarket springs have their place. When I drove a heavily laden Range Rover across and around Australia, I shelled out for heavier duty rear springs. Rover had never intended their car to work that hard, so it was appropriate to do that and it made a huge difference to handling. Trip over and all the gear removed and it felt like a truck! Getting the right springs for your load and good quality shocks will always be best. In most scenarios, Land Rover have it right but they lean less to travelling extra-light on motorways than heavily laden in rougher conditions.

The first 110 I used regularly (work car) and my current 110 both have the Boge ride leveller. The ride was/is very decent in both cases. My current work car is a (groan) Mitsubishi Pajero i.o.. Independent front suspension, rear beam on coils with fancy five link setup. Alloys and lighter tyres than my 110. It manages to be both harder on choppy bumps and more mushy on more rolling surfaces than the old truck Land Rover. Even with 255/85s on the 110 and the rear sway bar removed. I think this is largely due to the softer springs the ride leveller allows and, of course, the long and well-controlled travel. A 110 should ride well, no reason at all for it not to ride like a slightly firmer Range Rover, except maybe on very rough roads where the extra tyre weight would be felt. I forgot to mention, I travel modestly loaded and usually run 30 p.s.i. in the front and 34 p.s.i. in the back - less if venturing far off-road. The three BFG KMs have been on three vehicles and done maybe 70,000km and wear is nice and even. I'm definitely not in the high pressure school, especially having had a fright on a wet road when the garage over-inflated the Mitsubishi tyres recently! I stopped using that garage...

Well said, Mr.(?) Drumstick. The notion expressed here that ordinary Defenders are not very good off road tends to be made by people who either never use them or limit their opinions to very artificial situations in which traction control is highly favoured. It actually takes quite an extreme situation to cross axle my 110 - by which stage the lovely little Freelander may have bellied itself anyway. Or not. There is a reason the Freelander didn't quickly provide the base for a Defender replacement (while the more competent D3/4/RRSport probably will, sigh).

Good grief! First off, I never said Land Rover don't know what they are doing nor that their new vehicles aren't very capable. I don't have that odd attitude. (Nor do I have a Defender. My 110 is older than that.) Think, though, how good a Land Rover could be if it combined the electronic trickery with a suspension system that kept four wheels on the ground... On the other hand, I have done a lot of off-road work over the years and really, really wish your Freelander wasn't half a planet away so that I could rub your nose in it! Your "different line" just is not available once a few full-size vehicles have been through the inevitably narrow tracks we have to face. Not to mention the rocks I thread my way through along the river every summer. I don't want to argue but, seriously, that is a completely unrealistic attitude. Freelanders may be wonderful in their place but they have little wheels, low ground clearance and high gearing. Physical constraints.

Until you hit the first decent rut or have to straddle a rock or piece of wood more than eight inches high! Get real.

Is that your camper project in the background? Glad it's still around!

Yes, it's the Boge self-levelling unit. Don't try to fix it - it has gas inside at huge pressure! Don't give up, though. The one in my 110 still works fine and I got one off a Range Rover chassis which also worked. They stopped making them yonks ago but you should be able to get a second hand one that works. Soooo much better than heavy duty springs which only ride nicely when you are heavily loaded! Plus, heavy weight springs in the back give that ugly tail-high look when lightly loaded. An alternative is to use air assist springs which goes inside the rear coils. I have seen them and they make sense but there must be a problem 'cos no one ever talks about them...

We all do now. Thanks for doing the research on our behalf!

Oops!

I have some experience running in sand and completely agree with Eightpot. When I was cruising the Australian deserts, the locals agreed too. Here is the logic as to why a tall, thin tyre is better than a short fat one. Taller gives a shallower angle of attack than shorter - the tyre isn't trying as hard to climb out of it's rut (all tyres sink into the sand a little unless you are talking about a light vehicle with flotation tyres). The more it tries to climb, the more it will naturally dig. Resistance to the tyre comes from how much sand it is pushing out of the way - the wider the tyre, the more sand is getting pushed out. The more sand the tyre is pushing, the more the drag and therefore the more chance of digging in. The plus side to a wider tyre at a given diameter is more contact are = more flotation. You have to balance flotation with drag though. Add it all up and the best bet turns out to be the tallest that doesn't overly compromise clearance/gearing, generally 32-33" on a Land Rover. Because of the drag/clearance problems of an overly wide tyre, you are better off with a 255/85 rather than a 285/75. You might think that a 265/75 is better than a 235/85 but the slight height difference of the latter has proven better than the extra width of the former. I'll also add that, while it's true that a smooth tread pattern greatly reduces the chances of digging, my personal experience is that an aired-down (old school) BFG MT actually digs less than an aired-down BFG AT. That is because, sand being very fine, the AT has more "spades" in its tread!

An accurate description of the Land Rover product line today...

I've used the old style BFGs in that size for years. When supplies dried up, I found a couple of second hand ones that kept me going a bit longer. Last year I really needed a new tyre and had to decide what to do, as the KM2s were so different that I really would have needed a set and they are super-expensive. It turned out that I could only find three manufacturers that make that size (BFG, Cooper and Maxxis - well, Toyo are supposed to but you don't see those here). The Maxxis 762 is a very similar pattern to the old BFG KM and around 2/3 the price, so I tried that. It's been great and I will move to a full set as finances allow. I don't imagine they will last as long as the BFGs, based on my experience with 764s on a work vehicle, but the cheaper price would offset that. Personally, I think 255/85x16 is the sweet spot for standard Land Rovers. 265/75s and 235/85s give up that crucial inch of diameter, while 285/75s are too fat. You can get a 33x10.5x16 which is very similar in size but those tyres are very aggressive mud tyres, with all the compromises that involves on other surfaces.