Just wondering if anyone knows if JLR is planning on getting Diesel Defenders in the US? I recently drove a Defender 110 Diesel for about 2500 kms in Africa and was pleasantly surprised with the performance, smootheness and how fuel efficient it is.

 

I know few people with Defender diesel in Central Europe/Eastern, it is efficient, but if you do short trips it will suffer from oil dilutions badly.
4 cylinder also had some issues with software running too hot and causing scoring of the block. It was D200 for sure, but maybe even D250
Some timing chain issues were reported but I don't have much info on it.
Particulate filter messages also will be present, just extra nuisance.
And my guess, EPA won't allow diesels here.

 

We were driving the D250 and yes it would run hot at times in extreme high temps (50 celsius). We would stop the vehicles and throw cold water on the engine and the temp gauge would immediately come down and everything goes back to normal. I was told that the sensors were getting hot and pouring water over was the remedy. This happened during extreme off roading only.in very hot temps outside. The D300 is the one to have I was told.

 

I would sell my current Defender and order a Deisel one in a heartbeat of it being announced. I tow a big trailer and fuel mileage is terrible to horrific. On that scale.

 

Oil dilution doesn't happen on the 6-cylinder Ingenium diesel.
The DPF regen is barely noticeable and l've not had any issues in 11,000 miles of short city journeys in my D250.

MPG (U.K. gallons) is 26-28 in the city, 40 on the highway.

l can get 30mpg in city driving if l use "ECO" and drive carefully.

Towing our 'van l get around 25mpg although it's only half the size of the one in the photos above.

The D250 performance is very good indeed. Power is 250bhp
Torque is 600Nm at under 1500rpm.

There's also a D300 if that's not enough for you.
l think the D300 torque is 670Nm

The unit is very quiet even when cold.
Diesel clatter is pretty much nonexistent in fact l can catch up with pedestrians walking on unmade roads and they sometimes don't hear me coming.

 

I would've definitely favored the diesel Defender in the US if it had been available. I had a VW TDI Sportwagen in 2010, enjoyed that quite a bit and never had a problem with it. Thanks to VW though and the scandal beginning with that model year sadly you can forget about diesel in the US market. It's pretty much completely dead now. You'll see some super heavy duty pickups and of course commercial big rigs which those will be running diesel for a long long time to come but the consumer market is finished IMO. When I first rolled into my local JLR dealership to see what they had on the lot it was probably 2019 or 2020 they still had one diesel leftover from I dunno 2018, not even sure what it was, were there ever disco sport diesels? It might have been something like that. I was a little interested to be honest but oddly they acted like they didn't even care to sell it.

 

Diesel was very popular in big SUV's here in the U.K.
lts still available although generally in MHEV form now, which is effectively diesel with a battery to work the stop/start.

l think all Land Rover products were available in diesel versions in 2020. lt's now heading towards electric of course.

 

I would line up for a diesel in the U.S., but I think it is very unlikely this happens. The winds are blowing in the opposite direction (gas-powered hybrids) from a technology, production and regulatory perspective.

 

Sadly diesel is dead as dead can be in the US market, at least.

can't imagine an automaker with an upcoming diesel launch product plan in the future here...