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Thoughts and musings on the new defender


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I feel sad reading these pages; especially all the handbags. I have a number of previous work colleagues now working at JLR and in some very significant positions. They have brought with them some fantastic automotive manufacturing and quality experience and are working their proverbials off to help get both J and LR into a better position. Ok so they don't design, market or sell, they work in operational roles and they would be sad too if they read this thread.

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2 hours ago, Happyoldgit said:

Blimey, 73 pages of "talk" but is anyone here actually going to order a new Pretender?

I keep reading this....

Soi an Indian car maker 

The car built where.

I am waiting until the dealership has one to see where the glass comes from, yes, I will try to look at the ID plate.

NO I can't afforn oneI can't work on it but going to have a looksee

 

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An Indian carmaker, are you kidding? Have you been to Gaydon? Have you been inside? Have you seen how many people from the UK work there? There's more R&D and other stuff going on there under UK leadership than in many other car makers.

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37 minutes ago, Red90 said:

Come on by and bring what you wish.  Try and keep up.  Soft springs, long travel, well tuned shocks.  Have not seen anything that can drive as fast.  Certainly these modern Land Rovers can't.  I spend way too much time waiting for them to catch up.

 

thanks, but CAN is a bit far to drive for me. Besices, we have gravel roads here for days and even weeks to keep us entertained.

Last July, I went solo on a club outing, and on the gravel road to the farm, I tried to get the RRS to step out - hard as I tried, at almost twice the speed limit (+-160kmh), it just would not. 

A Defender, OTOH, will step out if you even look at it funny 😅

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26 minutes ago, Peaklander said:

An Indian carmaker, are you kidding? Have you been to Gaydon? Have you been inside? Have you seen how many people from the UK work there? There's more R&D and other stuff going on there under UK leadership than in many other car makers.

Who owns the Land Rover name.

Where is the new Defender made

 

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@mmgemini yes I know the answer to those questions but I don't see how they are relevant. There's a lot more to it than owning the name. You can't just say Indian is "a bad thing". There's plenty of autonomy in the UK bases. Far more than in plenty of other automotive companies here. I find it sad that there is little or no recognition of that within this thread

 In fact people seem to wish JLR a speedy demise. Why on earth would anyone want that, based on a feeling, however strong, that the newer models are not what "people" want?

There's enough challenges in keeping strategic decision making in the UK as it is and it's fair to say that a good bit of JLRs is still here, as well as some manufacturing, plus engineering, design, sales, marketing...

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8 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

G Wagens have difflocks because they have even less articulation than is being ridiculed here - I saw one on the twist-off ramp at a show once, it was significantly out-twisted by an old 109 on stock leaves.

Most vehicles will get out-twisted by a 109 on stock leaves, especially if those leaves are well run in.

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3 hours ago, Peaklander said:

I feel sad reading these pages; especially all the handbags. I have a number of previous work colleagues now working at JLR and in some very significant positions. They have brought with them some fantastic automotive manufacturing and quality experience and are working their proverbials off to help get both J and LR into a better position. Ok so they don't design, market or sell, they work in operational roles and they would be sad too if they read this thread.

Andy Wheel said on video that they do read all the comments (which very likely would include this thread) and some of them do hurt.  Nevertheless, the company did make deliberate design decisions that, inevitably, alienated many of the people who liked the design philosophy of the main Land Rover line from 1948 until quite recently.  They had to change but they didn't have to go all in on the technology and didn't have to throw away the pickups, flat decks and vans.  Hence the "debates" here and everywhere else.  Styling is also subjective and will have created some dissent, no matter what they had done.  JLR management and workers will all know that but they will deal with it, because they have reason to believe the new Defender will sell very well, which is why they made it.  The only ones who will be "sad" will be the few ultra-sensitive types who thought they had incorporated everything that mattered from the old Defender and then discovered that us greybeards strongly disagreed!

Just a quick, ironic note on the technology.  My 1987 110 couldn't be further from the new Defender in that respect, unless it still had drum brakes up front.  When I put it together, the one thing that bugged me was that it needed power to keep the fuel shut-off valve open.  I put a new one in at the time but the stupid thing exploded on Sunday and left me stranded on the side of the road for five hours.  If that tiny, tiny bit of modern technology can fail, where is the appeal in multiplying it by a thousand, in a vehicle that is often far from help?  Your former work colleagues had better be very, VERY good at their jobs.

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11 hours ago, dailysleaze said:

Can't see a sump plug poking through the bash plate? What a chore.

Or "what a fuel saving" - like every other vehicle on the market for at least a decade :rolleyes: the tray underneath makes a surprising difference and having to undo 6 screws every 10,000 miles for a service is hardly the worst thing in the world.

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1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Or "what a fuel saving" - like every other vehicle on the market for at least a decade :rolleyes: the tray underneath makes a surprising difference and having to undo 6 screws every 10,000 miles for a service is hardly the worst thing in the world.

A garage local to me just drills a hole it in based on the fact that the 6 screws usually won't just come out so they don't bother trying. :rolleyes:  Then again they also just wipe the spark plug tops so not exactly a great example. 

JLR have announced 500 job losses at the old Jag plant, I think the discovery sport is built there. Dropping a shift. 

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43 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

A garage local to me just drills a hole it in based on the fact that the 6 screws usually won't just come out so they don't bother trying. :rolleyes:  Then again they also just wipe the spark plug tops so not exactly a great example.

Sounds like a quality outfit :lol: do they change filters or just blow them out with the windy gun 'cos filters are a money-making scam? :rolleyes:

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A friend did a day release apprenticeship with them, they wouldn't sign him off as then they would have to pay him a real wage, quit in the end so despite doing the whole course never got the full qualification. :angry2:

 

Had a similar conversation about tech in cars at work the other day, I'm 37 and don't want it, my boss is 69 and has vowed never to buy another new car as he doesn't want it, another lad has no interest in cars he's happy so long as it goes and feels safe to drive, so who actually wants it? Must be these bearded millennials with their white trainers and skinny jeans who won't go anywhere without a bottle of water and make political statements with the colour of their throw away coffee cups whilst preaching about the environment on social media.  They're more current than me. :lol:

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46 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

Had a similar conversation about tech in cars at work the other day, I'm 37 and don't want it, my boss is 69 and has vowed never to buy another new car as he doesn't want it, another lad has no interest in cars he's happy so long as it goes and feels safe to drive, so who actually wants it?

That depends on the tech and how well it works. Are you still moaning about ABS and ETC and all of those? No, because you like them 99.9% of the time and they work well.

I'm 30 (and bearded, don't like sneakers though) and don't mind the tech so much. I hate bad implementation of tech, though. I'll get mad at my car for automatically applying the brakes when it thinks it saw something - but I don't think it shouldn't have that technology at all, just that it has a long way to go before it'll be in the background enough to not care.
The same applies to tech like Terrain Response. Yes, I liked my old Classic without any assists. I also like my P38 with 4-wheel traction control. I'm sure I'll like a car with Terrain Response. Each system (or lack thereof) has its drawbacks and learning curve, but also its upsides.

As infuriating and slow as my infotainment system is sometimes, it's still not nearly as bad as trying to actually use Google Maps for driving. And it's integrated. I survive without in my P38, but trying to get Google Maps to listen to me while on holiday infuriated me a 1000x more than a slightly lagging Comand has ever done.

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The people that want it are ~90% of the population who want cheaper, more efficient, safer (and more idiot-proof), more reliable boxes to get them from A to B for 3-5 years under warranty before throwing them away and re-financing their kidneys...

Same with phones, TV's etc.

There's some drawbacks especially when it's done badly but let's face it, you can buy a reasonably priced Toyota saloon today with more power than the Ferrari that was on your bedroom wall, more equipment than a Rolls Royce, that'll run for 200k+ without having to lift the bonnet and which you can crash in spectacular fashion and walk away from.

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I miss no ABS, I used to like screeching up to the back of someone when they pull out infront of you, doesn't convey your anger as well when you just glide up to the back of them.

I don't like tech for tech sake, an example is my wifes car, I nearly rolled back into another car at a junction, it's an auto with stop start and an electric handbrake, I pulled up at a junction, stopped, let off the brake to go and it rolled back. Electric handbrake hadn't come on and the engine was off. I've never done that in my life in a manual with a cable handbrake. My boss rolled into things in a car park twice in his car when the electric handbrake should've come on but hadn't. My wifes car required a key to unlock it but it's keyless start, so you get in with a key in your hand then put it... where? Then you can't find it when you go to get out. Pointless. However you can have a power and torque meter on the dash, that was fun for about 10 minutes. 

I had an astra that flashed a big red light on the dash the other day as I was approaching a car pulling into a side road too quickly, it didn't brake for me so only annoying. I can't stand adaptive cruise, you start to pass someone who is behind a lorry in the middle lane, the lorry pulls in and they speed up leaving you stuck in the outside lane with an angry audi behind you. And don't get me started on the pointless features on the tesla...

I find when I get a car I fiddle about and think wow look at all this stuff, then when I come to sell it and am writing the advert I think wow, look at all this stuff the car has that I've never used and had completely forgotten about. 

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Exactly proving my point about technology needing to be mature to be unnoticable...

My E-class also is an auto with start/stop and an electric handbrake. What you describe has never happened to me. The only thing that annoys me is start/stop, which I turn off when I start the car and turn on when I want it to work (at a red light or a railway). I opted to not get adaptive cruise for the very reason you stated, yet would probably have it if I could enable/disable it with a simple button press instead of going through 10 menus. I need the key to unlock it (because I don't like keyless entry), but usually that's done through my pocket, or if I'm holding it, there's a handy little slot in the centre console that the key fits into.

As for Tesla, well, let's just ignore all that rubbish. It's what happens when you let Silicon Valley make a car. And I say that as a software developer.

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2 hours ago, elbekko said:

.My E-class also is an auto with start/stop and an electric handbrake. What you describe has never happened to me.

Your e-class has a proper auto box in it, I suspect it’s with dual clutch boxes like anything from the VW stable as I’ve had this happen too.

The e-class auto also has the double press brake pedal feature that only merc seem to do, where it will hold the brake on for you, then you just have to accelerate to set off. What a labour saving tech feature that we all need 😉😉😉

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My VW has the ZF 8-speed auto non DSG torque converter box. I think hers is an Aisin 8 speed none DSG torque converter box. I don't particularly like either and would pick a manual any day. On hers you can turn the stop start off and leave it off, mine you have to do it every journey. She leaves hers on to 'save fuel' :rolleyes: Although they both seem robust, I towed an artic up Sutton bank with mine and she managed to put hers in second on the motorway whilst trying to use the flappy paddle to set of the cruise control :lol: They both claim impressive 0-60 figures but that doesn't work well in the real world, the lag waiting for them to decide what gear is at best uncomfortable, at times scary. 

I have a Mercedes Vito and hate the foot parking brake, they never bothered me with autos but with a manual it's the most stupid thing. That goes down in my list of fixing things that ain't broke!

The lorry I used to drive had a button you could press whilst the handbrake was on, when you took the handbrake off the trailer brakes would stay on, you could get the power down to the drive wheels and it would disengage the trailer brakes as you started to pull off. I though that was pretty natty, although I must admit i never used it :unsure:

Anyway, back on topic, no, I'm not going to be at the front of the queue to buy a new Defender. Too expensive and doesn't suit what I need a car to do. Of course none of that would matter if I looked at it and my heart told me I had to have one, but it doesn't. :(

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