"Build your own" has the Explorer pack with the roof rack, gear carrier, and raised air intake which I want, matte black hood decal for which I'm indifferent, and the mudflaps.

Intended area of operation for this vehicle is starting in Southwest (dry heat, jagged rocks) and being mostly there, and all the way to Moab and Colorado mountains. I don't really care if there's mud on the car, I'm somewhat (but not too much) concerned about gravel damage, but I do have a hunch that the first decently sized boulder with sharp edges I'll be rolling off of will just either mutilate the mudflaps, or rip them off (possibly taking body parts with them if I'm unlucky).

Is my hunch right, or they're designed better than that?

 

Well, I have the non-traditional style mudflaps (lets say new style). They have not been damaged in any way by any of the rocks, etc on the generally poor quality roads and mines around the areas I frequent in my geological studies. Now as to the traditional style. I was just in Namibia and South Africa again. Naturally I had the usual POS Toyota Hilux truck, which has the traditional style mudflaps. I had to back up over a graded slight berm to unload a bunch of stuff at my emergency helipad in the Tankwa. In the process, the mud flap was pushed towards the front of the car by the berm, the wheel went over the now reversed mudflap and promptly tore it right off. The rental agency was non-plussed, since I brought back the remains of the flap. They said "happens all the time." So I suppose the traditional style is permanently off my wish list now.

 

Elaborate, please. A link would be worth a thousand words.

So I guess the hunch was right.

 

Not sure what you're after here. Here are some pics of my flap after a few thousand miles off-road and two years of heavy snow. What does get erosion is this piece in front of the rear wheel. The flap in no way protects it as it is the part in front of the rear wheel arch. My Range Rover also had erosion in the same place, not sure of the origin or the cure. BTW, I did the flap installation myself, as the dealer wanted an extraordinary fee to do it.

 

It wasn't clear if your mudflaps are a standard JLR part, or an aftermarket. Which is it?

I guess I'll just write it off as "Arizona pinstripe" Seriously, though, it looks like it's a cosmetic defect and can be fixed by replacing a plastic part that shouldn't cost that much? I also see you have the "wheel arch protection", did you get that separately or was it a part of a package? I'm considering getting that myself - curiously enough, the configurator only allows to select it for the P300 S trim, but not for higher.

Wait, you mean some people pay for it?

Side question, not to derail the conversation - do I get it right that the trim you have is X? I did my research back when Defender came up on my short list over a year ago (here's the result), other things distracted me back then, now that I'm back to it and the specs have changed, I still can't figure out the difference between X-Dynamic SE and X trims with the closest possible set of packs and options. Did you figure that out, or took a leap of faith? (not necessarily a bad thing; judging something you don't have is tough, I've learned more about trims and 110 vs 130 in a week of renting them than in a year of research before that - but alas, no X was available, so I'm in the dark there).

 

Yeah, some people pay for it. Some even pay to have the oil changed! Yes mine are the JLR ones. Well a lot of the erosion is let's say Nevada, Utah and Idaho pin striping overlaying the regular Arizona stuff. Yes I got the X trim. I did get the extended arches as part of the basic pin head package or whatever. I had to go a la carte on some items and package on others. Like I didn't want the fruity boxes on the sides meant I had to get stuff separately on the package to not get those. Really back when I ordered it, it was something like 8 months from placing the order to the car getting built. Then some of the items could not be installed, but got installed at the port and others not installed at all that I had to do. Then it had to sit at the port waiting for a telemetric cable for about a month, then at the dealer another month for yet another telemetric cable since the port installed one didn't work. By the time I got the car the battery lasted about three weeks. The windshield got busted driving it home on purchase day on I-17.

The car is great off road. The electrical system is total ****. The alternator is too small as is the battery and the tech overwhelms them both. Apparently I recently learned that the system purposely only charges to 80% to improve gas milage. This is a common trend in all the new SUV's to improve their numbers. The worst part is you really cannot replace the main battery with a larger one as it has its own computer interface, nor can you upgrade the alternator for the same reasons. OK, Now I have two extra batteries, one in the rear underfloor and one which plugs in and also provides extra juice. I have just come up with a solution to tricking the system to connect them all to the system bus with the car not running. This is after trying three different relay types and wiring work arounds. When I get it finished I will let you know. My main battery is just about ready to be the 4th one replaced in the car under warranty, lasting almost 8 months!

 

Yep, figured that our already.

My neighbor: "Ferrari is not a car, it's a tradition. It wouldn't be a tradition if it didn't leak oil".
Me now: remembering "Lucas, the Empire of Darkness"
re: J in JLR,
Jaguar lore: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...theory-224747/
Mercedes lore: "Q: How do they pronounce Daimler-Chrysler in Germany? A: The Chrysler part is silent"

Yeah, I hear ya. As I said about my 21 years old car more than once, "my car sucks but I love it anyway".

 

There's two options for mud flaps, as already noted.

The mud flaps on the new Defender aren't as flexible as the rubber ones on the old model. lf you're doing rock crawling and more serious off road l would go with the smaller mud flaps. l have the larger ones and they can snag on rocks although l haven't lost one yet.

 

I ordered with Classic, as they look very, well, classic on a Defender. Both of my fronts have been torn off, along with the trim pieces to which they attach. I replaced them quite easily (the trim pieces) for about $130 each, iirc, already finished in the shiny finish that comes on the X-Dynamic SE trims. But I left the flaps off. In fact, one was never recovered; it got sucked off in a mud bog and I couldn’t even find it with a shovel. (Deep, viscous goo that had only caught my right two tires — lefts were on solid trail. Winch wouldn’t get me out so I called my neighbor with a 4WD Kubota tractor; it just spun its wheels! So he went back and got his tracked Bobcat excavator, lifted the whole rear of the Defender off the ground (used a chain hooked to each of the rear tow hooks) and backed up to pull the Defender out, leaving the right front flap in the goo.)

The left front just came off when I went over a rock with that wheel and the flap took the weight of the truck when it landed on the rock.

I’d pull the rears off too except it looks fine with just rears and they may or may not ever get pulled off themselves, so why worry about it?

 

Seems they are "fashion flaps" made to look good rather than proper off road kit.

Otherwise they would have been made from flexible rubber, surely.