Thoughts and musings on the new defender

[Bowie69]

Working vehicles...... 🤣

[FridgeFreezer]

13 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Working vehicles...... 🤣

You laugh... but I've noticed these days a lot of SUV's are the ones towing plant trailers or hauling gear for folks who don't want a rattly old Defender or a pikey Japanese pickup... see a lot of Merc ML's and Disco 3/4/5 towing plant and honestly why not?

If someone had said 20 years ago that builders would be tooling round in vans with 19" alloys, the 0-60 time of a Golf GTi and the level of equipment found in the RR Vogue SE you'd think it unlikely but that's where we are.

[Chicken Drumstick]

15 hours ago, Retroanaconda said:

The range of colours is poor, I’d very much liked to have gone for a straight solid colour but the only non-metallic available is the standard white which I’m not a fan of. In the end Eiger Grey has had to do.

This Pangea Green one looks good with a set of BFG ATs on the standard 18” steel wheels. A reasonably good range of tyres available in that size with a decent sidewall. Mine is coming with the Wrangler ATs but will get BFGs when they’re worn out (or when they get burst ).

 

Green is the colour I'd pick from the online configurator. However in the flesh I didn't actually like it. It does look better in the matt finish, but my word is it an expensive option or what!

BTW - There looks to be a huge colour discrepancy in the pic above, look at the rear pillar with the small lights and compare to the rear wing. Bit odd looking, wonder if it is only visible on camera and not with the naked eye?

[landroversforever]

27 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

You laugh... but I've noticed these days a lot of SUV's are the ones towing plant trailers or hauling gear for folks who don't want a rattly old Defender or a pikey Japanese pickup... see a lot of Merc ML's and Disco 3/4/5 towing plant and honestly why not?

If someone had said 20 years ago that builders would be tooling round in vans with 19" alloys, the 0-60 time of a Golf GTi and the level of equipment found in the RR Vogue SE you'd think it unlikely but that's where we are.

Valid point fridge. Farmer friend of mine rocks around in a D4 on MTs. It pretty much lives with a trailer on the back of it. Same when he had the D3 before that. His boss occasionally even sticks the ifor on the back of the Cayenne. 

[Retroanaconda]

The factory satin wrapping is expensive. However I priced up one of these paint protection films as I thought it might be good to help prevent bramble rash on green lanes and such, and for the full vehicle you’re looking at £5k plus. Frankly it can get scratched up for that price!

Might look at a price for just the sides. I’m buying it to use it so I’ve no reason to be worried about minor scratches and dents, but there is still a small part of me that will cry the first time it gets dragged down a hedge 

I think a few of the commercial ones will find homes doing things like Ross mentions above, as a tax-efficient way of getting a fairly high-end company car. 

[ThreePointFive]

19 minutes ago, Chicken Drumstick said:

BTW - There looks to be a huge colour discrepancy in the pic above, look at the rear pillar with the small lights and compare to the rear wing. Bit odd looking, wonder if it is only visible on camera and not with the naked eye?

Just looks like the satin-ish paint is picking up the tones of reflections rather than the clear shapes to me.

 

Retro - the fact you'll be using it on lanes etc. is good to hear, that's more than many original Defenders get (just look at Def2...) and they don't have the excuse of being £45k+ vehicles.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to actually drive mine when's it's finished, it might get dirty.

[Chicken Drumstick]

Looks like the different materials are different colours to me.

 

[Snagger]

18 hours ago, Retroanaconda said:

 

 

Regarding the issue of the colour discrepancy, is that panel bevelled like the corners on Discovery 1 and 2?  If so, it could just be a trick of the light.

[Retroanaconda]

I can’t even see a discrepancy!

Maybe it’s more or less apparent on different device screens. 

[Ed Poore]

7 hours ago, Retroanaconda said:

The factory satin wrapping is expensive. However I priced up one of these paint protection films as I thought it might be good to help prevent bramble rash on green lanes and such, and for the full vehicle you’re looking at £5k plus. Frankly it can get scratched up for that price!

Might look at a price for just the sides. I’m buying it to use it so I’ve no reason to be worried about minor scratches and dents, but there is still a small part of me that will cry the first time it gets dragged down a hedge 

I think a few of the commercial ones will find homes doing things like Ross mentions above, as a tax-efficient way of getting a fairly high-end company car. 

One of the Jeeps I laned with in France used industrial cling film... Can't remember how they got in and out - perhaps through the sunroof.

There were some neat magnetic panels for the D3s and D4s in the group but they probably won't work on aluminium 

[deep]

8 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

You laugh... but I've noticed these days a lot of SUV's are the ones towing plant trailers or hauling gear for folks who don't want a rattly old Defender or a pikey Japanese pickup... see a lot of Merc ML's and Disco 3/4/5 towing plant and honestly why not?

If someone had said 20 years ago that builders would be tooling round in vans with 19" alloys, the 0-60 time of a Golf GTi and the level of equipment found in the RR Vogue SE you'd think it unlikely but that's where we are.

There seems to be a quietly growing class of vehicle these days, that are getting used for transport to remote sites or trailer hauling when people don't want the ubiquitous (but restricting) crew cab 4WDs.  Things like the Ford Everest, Isuzu Mu-X and at least one Holden and a Toymota come to mind.  These are more or less a pick up truck converted into a station wagon, with better rear suspension.  They have big rubber and decent ground clearance.  In fact, given that most have traction control, they are the natural competitor for the new Defender and much cheaper to boot.  You can't blame people for buying them, considering they are likely to give less trouble, have as much room and, in the real world, be just as useful on and off road.

[Happyoldgit]

On 9/12/2020 at 1:08 AM, Anderzander said:

 

 

And the award for the most annoying presenter and presentation goes too...

 

 

 

 

 

...someone known as Superblondie

[Peaklander]

6 hours ago, Chicken Drumstick said:

Looks like the different materials are different colours to me.

At launch, some makers’ cars are often only available with black trims and rub strips. This allows the manufacturer time to get the colour match exact as they are often bought-in. 

[Anderzander]

1 hour ago, Happyoldgit said:

 

And the award for the most annoying presenter and presentation goes too...

 

 

 

 

 

...someone known as Superblondie

She’ll be disappointed and you know she speak so highly of you 😞

[Naks]

From ZA, two new Defenders having some fun offroad. Both with rear E-diff and advanced offroad package. White has 19 inch Goodyear Wrangler Adventurers A/Ts, while Brown has 22 inch.

 

Owner's thoughts:

Quote

 

Suspension offroad works exceptionally well.

Approach angle, departure angle and ground clearance are very good.

Weakest point is the breakover angle. Would have been better to have moved the rear axle a bit further forward (but that would obviously sacrifice benefits in other areas like road holding and interior packaging etc)

Inherent traction is in line with a Land Cruiser and Patrol. IOW: exceptional

Glossy black B pillars scratch almost by just staring at it.

Aural parking aids are an irritant.

User friendliness of offroad software isn't great having to do it thorough the touch screen.

Cameras are crisp, crystal clear and sharp! 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Naks

[elbekko]

That's nice.

I've got a test drive booked tomorrow (all day) with a D240. We'll see how much they warn me about not taking it off-road

[Tanuki]

I've locally seen a couple of new-Defenders clearly being used for business: both silver. One was signwritten for a tree-surgeon and towing a wood-chipper, the other was marked up in the livery of a farrier-business (or 'Hoof-care' as they termed it).

I guess these will be on 3- or 5-year business leases.

[elbekko]

So, I've been doing some looking up and calculating, to see how realistic the PHEV would be for me to buy.

In Belgium we've got some pretty harsh BIK rules. Even the D240 would be painfully expensive.
Recently they've also added a rule for "fake hybrids". A battery under 0.6 kWh/100kg of vehicle weight means you pay tax as if it's the non-hybrid version.

For the Defender, the unladen weight is 2600 kg (!). And from what I can find, a 19.2 kWh battery. If I did my maths correctly (probably not), at that weight it would need a 15.6kWh battery to comply. So actually safe, surprisingly. For now.

What I also noticed, is that for the PHEV the tow weight is down to 3000kg instead of 3500kg. I'm guessing because the vehicle weight has gone up quite a bit (2323 kg for a D200).
I don't get why the max. combination weight is down from 6650kg on the D240 to 6300kg on the PHEV. Maybe the electric powertrain can't handle it?

Source: https://www.landrover.com/vehicles/defender/specifications.html

The tow weight is a bit annoying, but apart from that I'm actually pleasantly surprised. I actually first wrote this post as a rant about it not complying, and then noticed I can't count (I knew that already)

[Waldorf]

@elbekko You may want to read up on the Belgian tax rules. Real hybrids need at least 0.6 kWh/100kg, but there is a second condition for a vehicle to be a 'tax friendly' hybrid: maximum 50 grams of CO2 per km. The Defender produces 74 grams, so the tax man will consider it as a pure petrol vehicle. 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Waldorf

[elbekko]

Oh? I thought as long as you complied with the 0.6kWh/100kg, you'd just be taxed for the reported CO2 emissions, in the Defender's case 74-88 g/km. I'll do some more research...

Edit: conflicting info, but on the website of the government (https://financien.belgium.be/nl/ondernemingen/personeel_en_loon/voordelen_van_alle_aard/bedrijfswagens#q1) they mention OR, and in the linked Excel file the RRS PHEV is listed as compliant. And also suddenly listing 0.5kWh/100kg instead of 0.6. Ahh, Belgium.

Edited September 18, 2020 by elbekko

[L19MUD]

The conversation about towing is an interesting one, has anyone had the opportunity to put 3,500kg behind one yet? My L322 handles the 3 axle 18ft bed Bateson better than my Defender for lots of reasons - power, air suspension, stability due to weight/size

 

Does the Defender have any trailer aids? The Ford pickups in the states have had a clever 'anti sway' system that uses the brakes to try and counteract a snaking trailer for years and they now even have a system to help you reverse a trailer

[geoffbeaumont]

I'd hope any modern vehicles likely to be used for towing has anti-sway (but sounds like they don't all...) - even my Zafira has it.

[Ed Poore]

15 minutes ago, L19MUD said:

Does the Defender have any trailer aids? The Ford pickups in the states have had a clever 'anti sway' system that uses the brakes to try and counteract a snaking trailer for years and they now even have a system to help you reverse a trailer

I wouldn't be surprised - this was an option on the Disco 4, remember trying it out pre-launch at Gaydon. We didn't get to experience the anti-sway, difficult to simulate (safely) I guess.

Did try out the hitch-assist (zoomed in on the tow-ball as you reversed closer to the trailer) and the reverse assist which showed you where the trailer was going to go as you turned the steering wheel.

[L19MUD]

22 minutes ago, geoffbeaumont said:

I'd hope any modern vehicles likely to be used for towing has anti-sway (but sounds like they don't all...) - even my Zafira has it.

Shows how many modern vehicles I drive!!

[landroversforever]

32 minutes ago, geoffbeaumont said:

I'd hope any modern vehicles likely to be used for towing has anti-sway (but sounds like they don't all...) - even my Zafira has it.

The trouble with systems like that, and the trailer based versions available on most if not all new caravans is that it just breeds complacency. I'll happily admit that I've never towed on the road as I still need to do my B+E as I'm a youung-un, however I've grown up around trailers and caravans and know how stuff needs to be loaded. I can't help but think all the aids whilst making it safer do make people blind to the affects of where they've put stuff. And as we've discussed in this thread several times, electronics can only make up for so much. Case in point was chatting to some friends of our neighbours... They've only been caravaning for a couple of years but they've had the trailer anti-snake stuff kick in several times. In all my life I can think of one incident of snaking with any of our caravans across the last 20+years. Same for reversing stuff, (probably the one thing the old man would benefit from), and I'd say is one benefit to the need for a towing test is demonstrating the ability to reverse.