This is my first Land Rover and I was pretty concerned with the quality of build and reliability as that is most of what you hear about and worry about before purchasing one! I constantly see lots of posts asking about that and what people who have owned them have experienced so I wanted to share my experience in terms of work done to the car since buying it in November.

First, I have driven this car all over the US, off-road all over in Moab, through rivers and snow in Colorado, and the car has never once stranded me or thrown any significant errors. In the first 5-10k miles I was constantly worried about that everywhere I drove but that feeling has pretty much gone away at this point. I do also want to say while this list may look long, none of them were ever that irritating and I just scheduled service appointments and got them knocked out in chunks (service from my dealer was worse than any issue).

OK, now what has happened/been done to is (sorta in order) -

1. Driver and Passenger grab handles in the roof had to be replaced due to excessive rattling. This was like this since the day I got the car and after being replaced they are completely silent.
2. The trim piece on the dash next to the left tweeter was loose when I got the car and resulted in constant squeaking. I know many people have had this same issue but after being fixed it's been dead silent after 10k miles.
3. Since I own the car I have been doing oil changes at 5k miles so five of those have been done. The average cost of these for me was right around $300.
4. Air conditioning randomly turning off completely - This one sucked in Texas haha. Wasn't a very big deal but I would be driving and it would randomly stop blowing and I would have to turn the car off and back on and then it would be fine. When bringing it in they saw air conditioning fault codes and after resetting it around 10k miles I haven't experienced it since.
5. Left tweeter blown. This seemed to be blown from the factory, I noticed on drives when listening to podcasts or taking calls it would get super distorted and sounded awful. It has been replaced but still doesn't sound right and is being looked at again so curious to see what they find.
6. The glove box lock completely fell out of the glove box - I went to lock the glove box one day and the lock just fell right out. The entire glove box is having to be replaced (not a big deal to me).
7. Front left and right air suspension strut replacement- This has been pretty recent (maybe at 20k miles). I started to notice every time I would get to a light that the front would raise up evenly on both sides. Also when camping the front would always be sagging in the morning and the rear would look totally fine. They said that both struts have to be replaced. I do have lucky8 sliders and wondered if the extra weight could have been a factor but I doubt it.
8. Front rotors warped- Noticed recently when going down a mountain pass that the rotors seem to be warped. This is currently being looked at and will be curious to see what LR says and if it is an issue already.
9. Auto high beams not coming on - This is also recent around 20k miles. I noticed that the auto highs would never turn on but could still be turned on manually. This is being looked out now and I am sure will just be some software reset.
10. Door Unlock antenna thing relocation- I believe this was required for all Defenders in order to get the door handles to allow for locking and unlocking after a software update.
11. 21k service - So the DT Austin service dept is terrible and has given me some terrible service so this was free for me. I was quoted ~$1,200 for this service including an oil change. They said it included cabin filters, break line flush, and the oil change in that price. I would say if you're handy you could do this yourself and I know @GavinC has a tread on this.
12. Lastly and the most frustrating thing.... I keep randomly getting an alert mainly when under massive articulation that my emergency systems and adaptive cruise control are unavailable. At this point, it has pretty much been tracked down to a module connector losing connection when the body is flexing but no matter what they do I still keep getting this fault. When I did my LR off-road experience a customer in a new heritage(or whatever you call it) Defender was getting the same error on the same part of the course.

Weird things that I have learned/wish were different -

1. In order to have recirculation stay on you have to hold the button down. Pressing it only puts it on for a minute I believe to help when passing smelly countryside farms (very LR). Never seen this in any other car.
2. Almost all my miles have been done with a bike rack on the back of the car. Having to always turn off the parking sensor each time is a pain and I wish there was a permanent way to disable this. I also noticed that if I throw it into reverse too fast and start to back up it will slam on the brakes and think I am about to hit something.
3. Just the all-terrain modes - I would take your free LR off-road class just to learn these honestly. Having computers always trying to do stuff can make it tricky when offroading because you don't expect wheels to start individually braking or momentum to be killed. There have been multiple times when I thought I was stuck in/on something and tried a different mode and the car just walked right out of the situation.
4. Order those Tow Hooks from the factory!! Man, I wish that was an option when I spec'd my car. Unless you for some reason hate the look def tick that box when ordering the car and save the $1,200 bucks to install them (unless you're handy).
5. The plastic cover over the front hook is trash.... If you plan to off-road and think you will need it I would either just take that piece off or replace it with the bash plate as soon as possible. I had the pleasure of rescuing someone that was stuck in a deep snow crossing and was all pumped up until I had to lay in the snow and take 10 minutes to carefully break it off of my car and then throw it in the trash.

Again, I wanted to make this post for the silent stalkers who haven't received their cars yet or are thinking about ordering them or anyone who just got theirs and is wondering what ownership might be like. I feel pretty fortunate to have had a great experience so far and absolutely love the car. If I made a post about everything I loved it would 2-3 times as long. The car is just amazing to drive on long road trips and knowing that you can turn down any road you see and be ready to tackle any terrain is a great feeling.

 

Great post. Great pictures. Totally agree on the tow hooks. A must have. Best $200 I've spent and an easy DIY. They saved my dumb a$$ a couple of weeks after doing the instal.

Only thing I didn't do at my service was a brake flush. It wasn't listed by my dealer as being done in their 1 yr/21k service. Maybe I'll do it 6 months out when I'll be at about 25k.

I've done a flush before but never at such small miles. 60k on my last car (Acura MDX) I flushed the lines.

 

Great post.

 

That picture where you’re standing on the roof with the LaSals in the background… where exactly is that?

And great write-up! I’m a little behind you at 20,000. I’ll have the 21k done at my indy. I noticed the long-press for recirculating air thing this spring in pollen season. Took awhile for me to figure that one out. You don’t think to consult the manual when it’s time to recirculate the air, right?

 

Great post!
I'm at 28K miles now. My dealer's service department is always booked so I took the left side of the dashboard apart myself and added adhesive felt to stop all the squeaking. Been changing the oil myself every 7500 miles, moving up to 10K intervals now. I still need to have that PVC recall done sometime.
My biggest problem was software updates not installing correctly, resulting in a blank screen, no audio sound and once no power steering. All solved by disconnecting and reconnecting the negative battery terminal. Traced the problem to really poor cell service at my house. So I added another wifi router in the garage and when I'm alerted to a software update, I turn off the Defender's cell service and connect it to my home wifi before running the update. That solved the software update problem. And I need to get a dent in a rear door taken care of after someone parked next to us at college move-in carelessly bashed something into the door.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences and share these awesome pictures.

You may have said this but I didn't see it (happens a lot as I become more vintage) - what year is your Defender?

Next on my list of to-dos are the rear recovery loops!

Matt

 

Words of wisdom there! I think the front skid plate and rear tow hooks should be standard on all Defenders. Thanks for pointing out your service loc. I go to them when I'm willing to drive 2 hours into Austin and have only gone once. Seems like you've been thru a LOT with them. I'm tone deaf so no idea how many sound/speaker problems I'm really having, but the rest - nada. Just like you, I do my own every 5k but haven't gotten to the 20k and now am trying to figure out what the heck comes with that! I'll search for @GavinC 's thread, but I don't remember seeing anything other than oil changes. Not a full 20/21k service. Thanks for the tip and the great write up!

 

Ya, I found it a little odd that they said it was required already but I had a big discount (was going to be $500 for everything) so went for it. Then they returned the car to me with brake fluid somehow all over the hood and fenders and the check engine light on so that became free.

Ya so funny.... this is also the first car where the recirc doesn't stay on when turning the car off. Cool!

Wow that's interesting I didn't know you could even connect it to wifi when doing updates.

I know many people here have done it without issue! I paid to get it done and the main thing I learned when watching was that the tech kept all the electricals in the bumper plugged in and hung the bumper with bungee cords. He said he's done 20 or so of them and its the easiest way he has found to do it and doesn't require completely removing the bumper.

Also, mine is a 2022 base.

 

Please!!! Don't waste your time at the DT dealer.... my issues went all the way up to the GM and still could not get resolved. I went to the Sewell dealer in North Austin after all that and they have been incredible so far. Loaner cars right away, loaner started with water in it when I arrive, and techs that text you each day with updates. At DT Austin they would ask me to remind them when I had an appointment and also remind them what parts to order and when to order them, such a mess.

Ya, I think Gavin commented here that he hasn't done the brakes. Again, this dealer was not great but they said 21k is an oil change (for most people the first), cabin filter, engine filter, and brake bleed. They quoted me $1,200 for it and $350 of that was for the oil change. I called around to SA and North Austin and they quoted around the same, so the price seemed to be correct at least.

 

A little less here but no brake bleeding. ~$900 if I recall.

@GrouseK9 Here is the 1 year service thread