2020 Defender Spy Shots....

[blackangie]

New Defender Rendered As A Commanding Convertible

Great gallery in this article

Heres a few

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[mpinco]

I applaud you gentlemen because you are without a doubt in the distinct extreme minority of LR owners. I wish I saw more of them on the trail, I really do. I hope to see this Defender out there- can't remember the last time I saw a LR on a trail here in CO or UT for that matter.........

It is a different 'crowd'. When we were climbing up Engineer's Pass several years ago some lady in a ATV (what a miserable ride) yelled out "I wouldn't bring my LR4 up here!". The trail bike guy further up said "Perfect vehicle for here". And yes, no other LR's all day long while an assortment of other vehicles but mostly Jeeps.

 

[nickw]

And I was speaking to “low end torque” and the benefits of how a diesel makes power in an off-road towing scenario (typically not done at high RPM’s). ✌

Low range

 

[Bayou Boy]

That interior has a very econobox look for a $55k vehicle.

 

[Colin Hughes]

In regard to EAS, the system in my P38 was rock solid. When the compressor started getting weak, I installed 4 air valves and topped it up every couple of weeks rather than risk a fault. It held air beautifully and at 330,000 kms, those were the original front springs. The LR3 system worked good too, we get temps of -30C here. The problem was the fool who thought running the Canbus wires through the rear wheel well was a smart idea. Salt loved those wires. After I taped them up real good and wrapped a sleeve around them, those problems stoped.
At 112 pages, the conclusion is, some folks love this new Defender and some just don’t. If you like it,buy it, if you don’t, don’t. Seems pretty simple.
I do like it, I just don’t have the money to buy one. I’ll be sticking with the 4Runner and 1998 D1 for my fun.
I’ve driven in my brothers Jeep wth big tires. Very uncomfortable. In fact, he sold it and bought a new Taco a couple month ago. To each their own. It would be boring if we all drove the exact same thing.

 

[grizzlyj]

I very much like the 110.

One of the reviews says the wheelbase is more like 119"? So a 130 using the same wheelbase isn't so far off. They were 127"s to begin with.

But. (rant)

Considering how clever technology is nowadays, why can't things be built simple, pure and light?

As someone says about 30 pages ago, the new Suzuki is closer to what a Defender should be. Suzuki are limited to how many of those they can sell in the UK because it's a simple unturbo'd engine so not as emssions compliant as it could be, even with another engine Suzuki actually already have in their range. But they didn't. EU emissions rules limit a companies CO2 output over their range, so more 4x4s compared to tiny city cars and Suzuki would get fined. So today no demonstrators available, can't even register interest, sold out and then some so simple, no hybrid, and crude even and they can't make enough.

JLR are stuffed in this way because they don't have many pure battery or 750cc city cars in their range

Quiet, comfortable, fast economical, good towing etc etc, but who the heck needs computers to do that? A switch works too, and if they spent as much time money and effort in building it simple it would be reliable. Add lightness not a ####*** touch screen!

Folks in this thread reel off retail prices as if going from 60K to 100K is not a big deal. Lovely. That is why vehicles are going too complicated, because they can, manufacturers go full fat and over charge and with negligible reliability (even if it is tiny silly things rather than total failures) to get you back in the dealer. I read the last model Disco had an average of four faults on delivery. Awesome, add 10K please, I love the dealer making me feel important when he gives me such big bills.

Pinnacle vehicles. Troopy? Which year G Wagon? A Mog maybe?

When will the opposite of Pinnacle vehicles peak? Is this new Landy "Peak BS"? Or car's will get even more over-touchscreened, more over-indulgent interiors with irrelevant features just to make a profit? Sod saving the planet with less materials used as simply as possible.

As I said, I very much like this Defender. But it's a nice version of the the current bland rubbish. I had a '93 90 Tdi, and a Series III Lightweight before that both daily drivers which were fab. This should not be a rehash of that. But this is a 19.99 Latte when it should have been a 1.99 doppio espresso.

Drives me nuts.

 

[DorB]

I agree, this new Defender is more capable than the old one- it'd be hard not to be- they had no lockers and terrible articulation..

The former Defender had poor articulation?
That’s new..
You can say that it had significant issues with durability, relatability, lack of lockers, nimble axles and so on..

the Defender 110/130’s OEM suspension and articulation was way better then OEM Jeep or 70’ or Gs.

 

[Red90]

I applaud you gentlemen because you are without a doubt in the distinct extreme minority of LR owners.

You must be in a strange land. Every Land Rover owner I know goes off road. Very, very few Jeep owners do.

As to the articulation point. My wife owned and wheeled a Rubicon at the same time as my 90. Stock articulation is almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is the 90’s ride is much smoother and it has around 3” more ground clearance with everything higher than the frame.

Land Rover was on multi link coils in 83.

 

[DorB]

same time as my 90. Stock articulation is almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is the 90’s ride is much smoother and it has around 3” more ground clearance with everything higher than the frame.

Land Rover was on multi link coils in 83.

The 110/130 has a very good oem suspention.
But 90’?

90’ is one of the most uncomfortable vehicle I’ve even driven.

Worst then an unloaded African Hilux on OEM 1 ton springs.



Slowly..

 

[grizzlyj]

I think with the range of available springing for a 90/110 you could quite easily end up with something not very nice outside of your comfort range.

I was told ages ago that when the UK army started going from leaf sprung Series vehicles to coils they started having chassis problems. The ride on the leafs meant you would have to be a fan of crumbling vertabrae to maintain any speed off road, the suspension controlling right foot deployment. But as soon as a 110 came along the squaddie could and did go way faster everywhere so broke all sorts in new and exciting ways

I'd really like a Wolf 110 but the ride in that unless totally laden is supposed to be horrendous.

 

[DieselRanger]

Personally, I'm liking what I see in the new Defender... my biggest gripe (as it is entirely untested by the public at this point), would be the lack of diesel offering in the US market... and yes, given the published GCW/tow capacity ratings, that diesel needs to be more in the neighborhood of 450 lb ft of torque.

My last 5 vehicles have all been diesel, perhaps I'm biased but justifiably so IMHO. While I agree small displacement turbos and mild hybrids are beginning to blur the lines between diesel and gas, there is still no substitute for a diesel in terms of low end power and range/mpg. To make my point, I did a bit of digging. Since the EcoBoost was mentioned as an example of a [superior to diesel] small displacement turbo, I dug into the Ford EB vs baby (3.0?) Powerstroke to do my best to compare apples to apples... The difference is significant - dyno tested stock at the rear wheel: 280 lb ft @ 2000 rpm for the diesel vs 200 lb ft @ 2000 rpm for the ecoboost. As far as mpg across the two: the baby diesel bests the ecoboost by 100 (towing) -170+ miles of range... that's the difference between needing to fill up every 200 miles vs every 300 miles when significantly loading the engine. Significant and important to me and how I use my vehicles.

My real world example of the benefits of low end power... towing my buddies old Shasta camper into Kane Creek trail (Moab area), with two dirt bikes in the bed of my Cummins 2500 and having a hidden campsite all to ourselves right off the trail. After climbing back out of there while hauling a trailer, crawling over rocks on a steep incline with zero tire slip, my buddy who is a diehard Toyota guy, said, "no way we coulda done that in my Tacoma." (granted that's not a small displacement turbo gasser)

Fast forward about 5 years and I no longer need to haul boats and horses, I'm in an EcoDiesel WK2, sufficient to haul my 12' enclosed trailer with 2 motorcycles and gear around the Rockies... Same buddy, always giving me crap that it's a soccer mom car is jealous I'm getting 13mpg towing with 275/55R20 AT's (the biggest that will fit my WK2 w/o mods). My buddy remarked he's lucky to get that driving Telluride to Denver w/o a trailer in his latest model TRD Pro Tacoma with aftermarket tires and ARB bumper... Meanwhile, I'm still driving down "Jeep" trails and finding campsites like this one from last month...


View attachment 539327

Outside of regular maintenance (oil change, fuel filter change, brake pads, etc.), I've had zero reliability issues with my past 4 Cummins and my current EcoDiesel - but yes, modern EPA/CARB stuff has complicated matters. I went from a 2004.5 Cummins to a new 2010 Cummins and then back to a used 2006 Cummins because of the ULSD/DEF stuff absolutely killed the mpg (about 17 mpg empty highway on the 2010 back to 22 mpg empty on the 2006). And now with the EcoDiesel and the "Approved Emissions Modification" I've noticed my mpg suffer yet again. Of course there are always examples of this one or that one failing - doesn't mean they are all unreliable. I towed my buddies wakeboard boat to the lake last weekend (comfortably at 70 mph when conditions permitted), because... His F150 EcoBoost had been at the dealership for 2 weeks.

And if diesels are (should/will be) going the way of the dodo bird, then why is the entire domestic 1/2 ton truck segment, many SUV's and Jeep (hopefully) offering them now/recently? It's a good thing to have options and no two overlanders are alike.

Back to the Defender - there's the old vs new argument, but time hasn't stood still for me. I drove to Alaska when I was 20 in a 1974 VW bus; took the Cassiar Highway (that was long before it was paved) and we survived (minus a broken rear shock we had to wait a week for in Whitehorse), and up to Manly Hot Springs where I had to change a tire. Today, I can afford a $70-80k car, and because of that I also appreciate and like to have AC seats and IFS with air suspension. If I were to drive to AK again I'd happily do it in a new Defender, but I'd have to go out of my way to find some roads the Defender couldn't handle and in the meantime I'll lower the suspension to save some fuel and be comfortable.

I'm with you on the benefits of diesel. When I was shopping around for a replacement for my to-be-bought-back Touareg, the JGC EcoDiesel was on my list as was (at the time) the RRS Td6, but the EcoDiesel was in a stop-sale and the JeepForum.com horror stories put me off. Jeep even had a social media person on the forum like a genie who would pop out of the bottle to try to get people to engage with them directly instead of post problems on the forum - I watched that forum for 2 years. There were no similar horror stories in Range Rover / Land Rover forums for the current generation RRS, or even the LR4. I even posted in a couple asking what problems they'd had or heard of and got few replies, and no real "common" problems. Not so for older models...the problems all have names. When problems get names ("The _______ issue" -- "The Three Amigos"), then that's a bad sign. And no Land Rover social media people are obviously policing posts. They do read them (this thread is a good example). The only thing that seems chronic is that the Td6 ECU is really bad at estimating when your oil needs to be changed - it generally wants you to change it well before its service interval because it incorrectly believes that your motor oil has reached its fuel-in-oil limit. This "problem," if you go by its recommended "service required in XXX miles" notification, causes nothing more than added expense rather than any kind of failure mode. Independent testing across many vehicles reveals there's virtually zero fuel entering the crankcase, which is actually unusually good for turbodiesels that rely on post-injection to help actively clean the DPF, even new ones.

There are diesels being sold, yes, but right now light-duty pickups like 2500/3500 and F250/350 with the big high-displacement V6 and V8 turbodiesels are still in their own class of emissions - they are allowed to emit more NOx and particulates than passenger cars and SUVs (heavy duty diesels are things like semi trucks and dump trucks for purposes of emissions classification). All Land Rover vehicles fall into the passenger car/SUV class, as does the Wrangler (which will be getting the 3.0L EcoDiesel soon) and the JGC. Those regulations continue to tighten. CARB literally wants to ban farm implements from using diesel - tractors and plows! ************** tractors! ******** them. The problem is, 17 other states have signed on to their emissions regulations, which are tighter than the US EPA's rating. So if you want to make a car that sells in the US, and you want it to have a diesel, it has to be CARB-compliant. And if you are a small automaker and you need to make a world car with world engines, that means a cost-benefit analysis as to building and certifying a diesel to meet the world's strictest emissions standards, just so you can sell it in 17 US states *and* the rest of the world. I'm not optimistic we will see an inline 6 turbodiesel from JLR in the US - they are selling a twin-turbo V6 diesel in the ROW (the SD6) that makes 300hp and almost 500lb-ft of torque that replaced the Td6 for MY19, but we will never see that one here.

As to your complaints regarding the "fixes" in your JGC and Cummins engines....if you're out of warranty, happiness is just a downpipe or a chip away. Plenty of those on the market, still legal in most states, and there are ECU flashes that can be removed or easily reverted when it's time to get smogged.

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[onemanarmy]

You must be in a strange land. Every Land Rover owner I know goes off road. Very, very few Jeep owners do.

As to the articulation point. My wife owned and wheeled a Rubicon at the same time as my 90. Stock articulation is almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is the 90’s ride is much smoother and it has around 3” more ground clearance with everything higher than the frame.

Land Rover was on multi link coils in 83.

It's easy to get blinders on when hanging out with the small off road LR club.

See its easy....'All the LR I see are running around town and taking the kids to private school' Or 'all the LR I see are broken down'

There are tons of Jeeps at our local wheeling lands every weekend....CJs to JLs. Stock to modified. Very few of anything else. Small sprinkling of Toyotas, maybe.

 

[DieselRanger]

Follow few land cruisers and Few H1s and you will see it, don’t have to hear it.
It doesn’t even come with lockers

It’s a medium duty 4x4

What doesn't come with lockers? If you're talking about the Defender, then you're right, you can't lock your diffs by getting out of the vehicle and turning a locker at the hub, you have to do it from inside the vehicle. You can lock the center and rear independently, and even control the auto locking behavior and thresholds. No need to get your wellies wet.



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[Bayou Boy]

You must be in a strange land. Every Land Rover owner I know goes off road. Very, very few Jeep owners do.

You're the one in the strange land. In the VAST majority of the United States, where a huge portion of LRs are sold, they are pavement princesses. I would imagine the same is true in most of the developed world. They are status symbols, period.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Good to know! I didn’t realize it was restricted to those roads; most articles have not been very clear. Fluid Film and RustChek are our friends at any rate.

I am curious how well these will sell here — I see there is a second LR dealership opening in town, so there’s obviously a market (or at least, obviously someone thinks there is!)

For sure rust prevention is a good idea.

Oh, I'm sure they'll sell here. Not sure if they'll sell in the same volumes as the other models, but I'm sure they'll sell some...

I imagine most on the lots won't be the basic $77,000 model. They'll be the loaded up 100K models. In which case, I wonder if most would just buy the Range Rover then?