New Defender Rage/Hate Thread

Pilat

Tossing ewoks on Titan
Except the Expedition Portal thread I highlighted on EAS to Coil was driven by a air line rupture that was not rubbing on a nearby object. In addition the bladders eventually have leaks. As you mention valve blocks need servicing. Or maybe the height sensors? Or maybe the wiring (good luck finding it) At what point to you say, hey it's worn out. When it is below zero and on bump stops? Or do you just address the issue with coils and be done with it?
Railing against wiring? And air lines. How simple is your LR? Do you have hydraulic brakes, or are they converted to wire-pulls?
It's not more difficult to maintain air lines than it is hydraulic brakes. Both are quite simple systems.
 

DieselRanger

Well-known member
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DieselRanger

Well-known member
So you took a Subaru to place like this ? Eco canyon in Death Valley?
Sure sure
View attachment 552795
Not Echo Canyon specifically in the Subie, but disused mining roads, lakebeds, and old rail beds across central/northern Nevada and Cali - yep, all the time. Drove to the trailhead on White Mtn Peak. Jumped it over cattle guards at 85mph in Utah. The Yota was DV, did Echo in that (buddy's car) but dialed in some oppo and a little Scandi Flick in the Subie in DV too - the Subie didn't have TC or ESC.

Daily drivers on NTTR were the Cherokee and Blazer. Touareg was all over New Mexico and Colorado. Same with the D5, but add Wyoming to that list.

LR4 made it on your trek - New Defender should have no problems. Pic with the Hummer? D5 = no problem, so Defender will likewise have no problem in the hands of a competent driver and spotter.
 

mpinco

Expedition Leader
As for leaf springs I'll take the middle ground. They do sag but the timeline can vary greatly and can be several hundred thousand miles. So yes, they last a long time and do have a finite life. Yes they can break but I have never seen a broken leaf spring on the trails. As I said leaf springs can be 'serviceable' for many years before they should be replaced. OK, they sag a little when loaded. Pick a different line. Now, pic a different line with a EAS on bump stops .............

As for leaf spring serviceable life vs air spring serviceable life, leaf springs win out from my own personal experience. My RRC EAS has been replaced due to failure and no desire to repair it. My LR4 experienced a 'sag' on the front left after a day of 4wd trips, waking up in the a.m. at roughly 65K miles. Resolved itself at startup, but still. Do I like EAS? Sure. Do I admit its limitations? Sure. Will I initially repair my LR4 EAS? Sure. Will I go for multiple repairs year after year? No.
 

REDROVER

Explorer
i Think I know what ppl don’t like about the new defender or Land Rover or basically any new 4x4,
It’s not the capabilities it’s the fact that it can’t be field repaired.

the lr4 that was with us did great, if it had better tires it would of made everything at first try.
 

REDROVER

Explorer
Wait a minute, isn’t this defender hate and rage tread? Haha
So if I say something bad then why em I a bad guy ? Lol

Why don’t we start Land Rover love tread and give up on this arguments,
the bottom line is this, regardless how much some of us including me dislike the defender, at the end of the day it’s a Land Rover brand that we all like.


LETS STOP THIS.
 

Red90

Adventurer
I'd argue exact opposite....if designed correctly, using the travel as required and cycling through the travel properly, aka not over sprung and uneccessarily stiff, they do have a finite life.

Wrong. Springs should be designed for infinite life. It is simple first year engineering school level stuff.
 

nickw

Adventurer
Wrong. Springs should be designed for infinite life. It is simple first year engineering school level stuff.
Yeah, elastic limit, learned that one too. The issue isnt that a spring couldn't be designed to last a lifetime, rather, it would severely compromise the ride, articulation and performance, so no OEM is going to do it.

Put some up-armored HD Humvee springs on a Jeep Wrangler, yeah, it would probably out last you....

*Relative to your HUMVEE, looks like they have a front sag problem with service bulletin from manuf:


"As the springs sag the camber goes negative (wheels splay out). If it's bad enough there won't be enough adjustment in the cams (98 and newer trucks) to overcome the negative caster."
 
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soflorovers

Well-known member
I've read the last 40 pages, and honestly, you people are exhausting. It's clear that nobody's opinion is going to change. These arguments/discussions have been had for years and there's no convincing anyone otherwise. I'll probably be buying a new Defender once there's a diesel option. I've driven plenty of new JL Wranglers (Probably 15+ between Sport, Sahara, Rubicon) and Gladiators. Bottom line, they're still nowhere near as civilized as modern LR product. Everyone touting the virtues of the old solid axle machines also probably still use leaches for medicinal purposes. There's more to a vehicle than just that last 5% of capability. Are solid axles better than independent suspension? In a vacuum, sure. However, I'd argue that the cross-linked air suspension in a modern LR is 90% as good and the vehicles have been designed to tuck the axles up into the body of the vehicle to avoid getting snagged. Short of a vehicle with portals, nobody has yet to mention that downside to a solid axle vehicle. Furthermore, most people don't address the fact that solid axles severely compromise a vehicle's ride on pavement, in addition to handling. ********, the previous owner of my rig put 170k miles on it and would wheel it frequently and hard; my guess is that maybe 1% of that mileage was done off pavement. Unless you're trying to go 37" or larger, a modern LR can do anything that any of the aforementioned solid axle vehicles can do. I've got 35" on my LR3 and even with the Trepadors, I'd take the ride, NVH and capability of my rig over a JL Wrangler for anything other than hardcore rock crawling simply due to the size/weight of my truck and the fact that I'd need to destroy less of a JL than an LR3 to fit that size tire (However if you've got the money and commitment, you can go nuts on a modern LR). Furthermore, I see plenty of keyboard warriors here **************** on this new Defender who claim they need greater capabilities despite never having driven a modern LR or their own vehicles equipped with 33" or less tires on a challenging bit of trail. All I ask from all these naysayers is to give it a fair shot. If you were in the market for a hardcore rock bouncer/crawler rig then this was never the vehicle for you, and I'd argue that neither is anything "New". Literally, the only detriment I see with these new JLR products since 2005+ is that it takes commitment to fit a tire larger than 34". Is it as easy as other vehicles? No, but with some time and confidence, you can hack up an LR to make clearance.
 

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mpinco

Expedition Leader
You can usually tell what parts/subassemblies will be on the short list for upgrade replacement or fail early in life by looking at the secondary market. While AB carries all the usual EAS components for even the latest LR's, they also offer a complete coil conversion for LR3's and RRS's of the 10 year old variety. Would expect the LR4 to be next, followed by the new Luxury Defender roughly 6-10 years down the road.
 

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