I have had the Defender for a year now, albeit I didn’t really get to drive it much before I left for a project in Namibia for two months. My personal impressions are what I like or dislike. First off, the only resemblance to my previous Defenders is the spelling of the name. It is not a noisy, smelly, uncomfortable, leaking (both water in and oil out) and finicky vehicle. Land Rovers have always had their issues, but never left you stranded in the middle of nowhere. I have even had one blow its transmission, get stuck in 4th gear and was still able to drive it back 500 miles, by shifting from high to low. This is in contrast to Land Cruisers, who also blow their transmissions far more frequently and you just need a backhoe to dig a hole and push them in and cover it up. They just die. Land Rovers, seems to be able to limp on in the amazing way, “heck who needs all those cylinders to fire anyway.” So the old versions were versatile in respect to how tough and simple they were. The new one has me looking at it through slitted eyes in suspicion. There are some very dumb things on the car that will render it inoperable.

Then there are the accessories. Most of them kind of leave me shaking my head. The boxes on the sides. Now what were they thinking? Obviously none of the designers had ever been in Africa or parts of the American west. Those just scream “let’s get a pry bar and see what is inside.” Lots of the stuff is not useful to me in the field. I have no idea what I would use much of it for and it is insultingly overpriced. I would have preferred storage inside the vehicle. I would have liked the rear seat bottom to come off far more easily in the 90 so the back could go flat (lets see, make the wires to the seat heaters 14” longer, insane engineering challenge), “ you know to actually put stuff inside!”. Perhaps incorporate the ski tube that was in virtually every Range Rover in the center rear seat segment instead of a stupid air compressor or shower unit (Pan of water comes to mind, been doing that for decades). It would have been super cool if the covers to those, empty, where there to store stuff in, like tools and perhaps some other items. All the roof top accessories are far too tall, unnecessarily so. It is a tall vehicle, why make it even more so! Making Thule the supplier of most of the mounts and racks was clever in some respects. Then again their roof top accessories tend to things that may be quite challenging to get to, considering the height.

Then there are the trim items. First off, if I had known the Defender X came with red brake calipers, I would have made a point to specify non-colored ones. Really, am I supposed to be some car tuner poser freak off road? Then there is, I believe the called “puddle Lights.” Those poser things cause even more groans in the field (again, I am a geologist and work around mines and such). I may look into opening them up and pulling out the graphic. Let’s see, can’t fold the seat down flat, since when you pull up the bottom section the wires are too short. But…I do have poser colored calipers and a light that advertises the car every time I open the door, Hmmmm. ”The tech is amazing in some respects. The HUD is actually useful, but would have been more so if other items could have been displayed, like maps aside from the pivi generated ones, like Apple Maps or Google Maps. I think the tire pressure readout in the instrument cluster is a good idea, except that it is three menu items down to actually see them. That would have been one better suited to a top level selection. The cluster also fails at maps as well. I use a mapping app from Garmin to supply far more useful maps, off-road. It is a Garmin/Apple issue that keeps that off the display, not LR. I do like the electronic rear view mirror, very handy with all the junk in the car obscuring the rear view. My wife hates it, finds it nauseating to look at. The little fridge is comforting at times. Nice to have a cool drink when you come back from anything strenuous. I still need to put a cool pack in there to keep it so. The seat heaters are very quick, better than the Range Rover’s ones. The seats are also more comfortable. After 45 minutes in a left hand drive Land Rover in the old ones, your legs were screaming for a bit more room. I swear they thought everybody that drove left hand cars was a, or related to, a circus midget.

The vehicle has much better gas milage than the old Defender 90’s. They had a pathetically small gas tank and the V8 was very thirsty. I am so strange in liking a lot of fuel in the car before I embark in the off-road portion of my journey. I always had to have a couple of spare fuel packs in the old one, not so much so on this one. It is much more like a normal road vehicle to drive in tractability and acceleration. Passing in the old ones, even with a V8 was a planned maneuver. I am glad I passed on the V8 on this one or the off road range would have been almost un-usable with out extra gas hanging on the outside. The off-road logic and software seems to function very well. The suspension responds well, but being so tall, it has far more body roll than I care for. Then if you put stuff on top even more body roll is apparent. Low traction start is a clever feature, almost negating the need to carry some old carpet (rolled up when stored) to aid in traction in soft areas. I did like the old Pioneer kit mounts for the shovel and pick. Although I really never needed the pick, perhaps it was there to dig a deeper hole for body disposal or the like. Mounts on the spare would have been cool, vice a built in shower.

The computer system, like all modern cars is simply amazing. It does everything better. Then again it also does super annoying things. There are far too many audible warnings that all like to come on at start. Even the F-18, which I flew a bit, had fewer (and the consequences of the warnings, if unheeded, were far more serious). Even our backup car, a Toyota Camry hybrid, gives you a bit of time before seat belt and/or and all the other chimes, buzzers and such come on. The Defender seems to think all this needs to be blaring the instant you press the button. Don’t know if this was due to some obscure regulation or just a choice by the programmers. I doubt very seriously I need my seat belt on for the 20 seconds it takes to pull the aircraft out of the hanger. At least the Camry gives me that long. Alas, it cannot tow airplanes. The tow package and camera system make it a snap to hook up the tow bar, so there is that. You just have to listen to all the warnings as you back up the twenty feet, jump out, hook up the bar and get back in. Again, even the F-18 had a silence feature on the loud warnings, “Yeah I know the engine is on fire, I’m working on it!” Like you were going to finish that snack before you got around to shutting it down.

Maintenance issues, aside from two batteries, nothing. I think both were due to storage time. The fist one had to endure an ocean voyage combined with a bunch of time in port, along with an extended time to get the “Telemetrics” cable shipped in from Mars or wherever. The second one, who knows. Present one seems to be doing the battery thing just fine now. I do have a suspicion that it could have been related to the touch lights above the mirror. There have been several occasions where they are inexplicably on, when I never touched them, at least on purpose. Now while the car has been reliable, I am un-impressed with dealer knowledge on one item: The Activity Key! Now this is not unique to the Defender, it was an option for many of the models. The older one required a module to be installed in the tailgate area. They new one works just like a key and interfaces with the KVM module installed in virtually all of them now. It is essentially a third key. Four dealers, e’ffing four of them! Had no idea of how to install it to the keyless entry system. I had ordered it with the car, but it was canceled. Being industrious, I found one on eBay. Naturally they all denied it could be installed, claiming it did not have the module necessary to be installed. So after poking around on the web, I found the “module” necessary is the keyless entry module, or KVM. They all have it. Now I have tried to have it installed since delivery and have the delivery service manager say it cannot be done, again three other dealers say impossible. So finally after 5 months, I was down with the original service manager, physically showed him all the necessary components are actually installed in the car, how to install it and so on. They agreed to do it with a big lecture that they do not install customer supplied items. Of course I had the order sheet with it being canceled and mentioned, “if you could have supplied it you should have, I ordered one.” Happy bittersweet ending; they installed something from my original order after charging me $245 labor to do so. That has always sat well with me and I did bring it up in my later questioning about how happy I was with the vehicle from Land Rover NA and I will continue to bring it up, just to be a twit, until the end of time.

So, after an Indiana Jones like adventure to get the Activity Key working. I am super happy with the Activity Key. Let’s face it, the supplied key is almost as large as an iPhone 1. It is just too big and more than likely to fall out of your pocket in the field, since few pockets accommodate it and it will wiggle out. The other solution is to put the key in the receiver hitch in some kind of Faraday bag, so you car cannot see it. Otherwise it will happily unlock and drive off for anybody curious enough to test the door. Loosing a key in the middle of nowhere has perpetually been a fear of mine. So much so I nearly always tie wrapped a key to the brake light bundle in the old Defenders. It was just a key after all. Not a semester's worth of tuition to a top ten university. Now in the olden days of yore, when Land Rover just re-opened up dealerships in NA. I had an issue with my wife’s Disco 1. It got T-boned and it bent the rear axel case. It was on intergalactic back order for over a year. It was the time between BMW and Ford ownership, parts were scarce. They were super nice, gave me, well the wife really, a new car to drive every 30 days until they fixed it. They also gave us a bunch of gifts, let’s see: a Land Rover rolling cooler, a recovery kit and a bunch of hat’s and T shirts. That was old Land Rover, new JLR is not in the same vein. Must be the Tata influence.

Options I do like, Blind Spot Warning. My neck is less flexible as I age, so it tends to save me the occasional embarrassment. Clear View mirror, for the already mentioned reasons. Adaptive Cruise Control, it actually works just fine. HUD, is clever and great in the mountains when manually shifting, just wished the logic on the shifter was reversed, must be an English thing. The Lane Keeping Function and the keep you from pulling into oncoming traffic feature is not quite there yet, either is a bit jerky or sees stuff that isn’t there. The Cruise Control actuation is a bit weird at times, some times it goes into speed limiter mode for no apparent reason, some operator error is possibly involved. Genuine Rubber mats are doing yeomen’s service this winter, much better than the Range Rover ones. Towing Package, as advertised. Off Road Software, no opinion aside from Low Traction Launch, win there. USB Ports, aside from lots of them, they are anemic. Glass Roof, kind of cool, wife hates it., funny since her previous car had one. Finally put the oil filter on top of the engine, that only took 75 years. Heated Windshield works like a champ. Then again, original windshield only lasted under an hour before a largish rock executed it. Luckily it was quickly fixed and free. It is kind of a pain to clean the rear lights, but folks think they are cute, price of beauty. Really, Really dumb thing. In the standby mode, where let’s say you’re at the ski area early and are waiting inside, listening to a book or the like. The Clock is not displayed, just the date. Not planning on sitting there for days, just 15-20 minutes. No amount of menu fiddling has showed me how to change that. I know they did this just to annoy me; the outside temp is on the far lower left of the cluster, just so my wife cannot see it. The Apps vaguely work well enough. Really don’t use the remote start feature, since it would just turn the garage into an execution chamber from the exhaust. Did have issues with the Snow Tire set of rims, original Land Rover ones, original Land Rover TPS units. Took about four months to get them to register, then suddenly the car and the TPMS were best buddies, dealer could not get them to work either. Really simple stupid small detail, I could not find the fog lights last time I needed them. They are not lit up and I was in a fairly decent snow storm. I resorted to the overhead light long enough to realize they reside on the stalk, just the hieroglyph is a bit confusing, Front/Rear, which is which? My Egyptian is a bit rusty. The smart headlight feature works so well, I didn’t realize I had selected that feature for about a month, clever little beast. Oh, do not forget the heated steering wheel, what a pleasure. Range Rover had that as well, but this one is better.

The Pivi. What can I say, I have the large one. It works. Sometimes a bit fiddly in going to and from CarPlay and again, the hieroglyphs can be confusing. Menu structure leaves a bit to be desired. My wife’s new Evoque has what I feel a better layout, two screens, upper and lower. CarPlay is…well Apple’s beast. Much of what I would like to be there is not. All this clever automation comes a a price, both in $$$ and electricity. Every time you open the door, 10 amps for 10 minutes as all the computers boot for quick access. It would be clever to have a camping mode, where it would not do this and flatten the battery over a day or two of getting stuff in and out of the car. Of course you can pull a few fuses, but that is a dumb solution, a switch or mode selection would be devilishly clever. Yeah, a shower, red calipers, dumb graphics projected on the ground, but no way to keep it from flattening the battery should you decide to use it off road for a week or two and not just go get groceries. While they tested the vehicle in Namibia, they obviously stayed in hotels and didn’t camp like the rest of us there, or they might have noticed this. Let’s get really silly here, the cupholders. They don’t come out for cleaning, little diminutive mats in other places that can be cleaned, not the cupholders. I really like the buttons on the door handles to lock/unlock the door. It works super with the Activity Key, especially when you have gloves on and skis over your shoulder. Oh…Silicone Silver is great in ski country, snow grime just blends in.

So yes, I have my personal heartburn issues about the car, some of which are just plain stupid, from an engineer’s point of view. As a car/off-road vehicle. It is overall great, I think I’ll keep it a while. Besides it is easy in my parts to find it in a parking lot, kind of the only one.