Hello everyone. If you are part of the new defender group on Facebook, you might've seen this already.

first post on Facebook:
2020 Defender 110 X.
46,000 miles. Car started to shake while driving and engine light came on and started blinking. Pulled over and called AAA. Got it towed to Land Rover Chandler. I purchased a full platinum (most expensive) extended warranty through Penske Automotive Group a while ago, thank God!! Cost me over $8,200 (an additional 7 years and 75k miles of full coverage). Had the Defender towed to land rover dealership that is operated under Penske. Service advisor said that there are "grey areas" in the warranty and dont be suprisded if he calls me tomorrow to tell me that I owe thousands out of pocket. I stated that I spent over $8,000 cash for an extended warranty, why would I be told that there are "grey areas?" Didn't get a response and had no explanation other than he has seen it happen where warranty work isn't covered. I asked why would I spend over $8,000 if there are grey areas? No response.
long story short, not very happy about that. Defender is at dealer now and I am awaiting word. I believe it is a cylinder misfire and not good. Maybe even a new engine. Which under the warranty, is covered. I will update as time goes on. But I'm wondering if I should get my attorney involved with this. Any recommendations would be helpful. thank you for reading.

2nd Facebook Post:
Just got off the phone with Land Rover. After almost 2 weeks of waiting, I am getting a new engine put in. I just want to say thank you for all the comments and helpful tips. Very relieved at the moment. While unfortunate, I’m very happy that I purchased the extended warranty and things worked out. Maybe lucky? Expected wait time is around a month until completed.

I have a 2020 Defender 110 X. owned her for about 8 months now. Original warranty expired in November of 2024 so I decided to buy an extended warranty through Penske, full platinum coverage (the best option). for an additional 7 years and 75k miles for over $8,000. A couple of weeks ago I was driving and the car started to shake and check engine light came on and started to blink. Had to get a tow. Warranty is covering a new engine replacement. According to the tech, one of the spark plugs "exploded" and they figured that replacing the spark plugs would fix it. It didn't, cylinder 6 was not firing and there were much bigger issues. This resulted in me finally getting an answer 2 weeks later that I will be getting a new engine. Will take around 3-4 weeks for it to be completed.

Im just curious, have any of you gone through this before? In my research, the MHEV P400 is a pretty reliable engine. Since mine is a 2020, I'm wondering since it is the first model year of the defender, that there are more issues with this engine than lets say a 2023 and up.

Yes, it sucks. But I am very thankful that I purchased the warranty and I am only having to pay for the $500 deductible.

pics for fun:

 

The AJ300 I6 Ingenium engine has been around since 2018 and has a very good track record so far, but obviously no engine is perfect. I don't recall anyone on here having this problem in the two years I've been on here. Regardless, I'm glad the extended warranty paid for itself and that you seem to be somewhat happy with the outcome.

 

Glad to hear it has worked out for you!

I bought a third party 1993 Range Rover LWB in 2000, did some online research and came up with $2k a year average on upkeep for a Land Rover. Since then I’ve had an LR3 and LR4 and found that number to be pretty darn accurate. I did not buy an extended warranty on LR3 or LR4 because it was> $2k per year, but with my new D130 I bought it as the warranty was <$2k per year.

I hope it works out… one major issue will easily pay for the warranty. Unfortunately, it does not pay for headlights/DRL.

 

Glad to hear it worked out for you. There can definitely be gray areas with an extended warranty. Even with the exclusionary ones that cover a lot there can be limits of liability in the fine print. With my 2022 Defender I purchased one but I didn't keep it long enough to need to make a claim, I did get a pro-rated refund on the extended warranty but even though it was still under the factory warranty when I got rid of it the pro-rating is calculated from 0 miles so in my case say I was 22k into the 100k warranty, they'll refund less the 22%. That pro-rating may be different depending upon the warranty company but I'm pretty sure that's how most of them calculate the pro-rating so at 50k when factory runs out if you had originally purchased the extended warranty up to 100k you'd still only get refunded back half of the cost even though you of course never needed it through the first 50k.

With the 2016 LR4 I just bought with 115k on it I really wanted an extended warranty but after reading the fine print I found that it made very little sense to buy one. First off not that many warranty companies will even sell one for a 2016 LR4 today, one that would was called Endurance, they sell a 4 year plan, they wanted $214 per month for 30 months and then 18 months with no payment so total for me would be $6400. I studied the fine print, they have a limit of liability written into it where they only cover up to the NADA wholesale cost of the car, currently on the LR4 that's only $7500 so if the engine fails and needs to be replaced you definitely will be paying out of pocket for the rest. In addition, they will not cover any more past that amount for the rest of the 4 years so let's say after 12 months you had the engine or transmission fail and needed replacement, they pay the $7500 and you pay the rest, now you've reached the limit of liability so for the next 3 years they would pay nothing more. So to pay $6400 for the potential of having them pay out $7500 is completely nuts. Plus depending upon what fails it isn't even covered, the $6400 in the bank will cover any type of repair. So I love the idea of having an extended warranty but make sure you really read the fine print. The maxcare plan for carmax might be worth it but it should be worth it when you're overpaying for the car by 8-10k in the first place.

 

This is a lot of great information. I'm curious, do you know anything about Penske's extended warranty? That is the one I bought at the Land Rover dealer owned by Penske. Costed me about $8,200 and covers an additional 7 years and 75k miles. I was debating going with Endurance or Penske for warranty. Endurance warranty let me pay monthly, the Penske did not. In my mind, the Penske warranty I could trust more because it was from the Land Rover dealership and they have all my service records. Based off the past couple of weeks, I believe I chose the right option, as Penske is covering a complete new engine. message me privately if you want.

 

Thanks, unfortunately I have no info on the Penske warranty but it sounds like they've done right by you so that's one good data point we have out here. I don't think they own any dealerships in my area but the name is a legend in the industry. I did similar to you when I had the new Defender, i.e. I purchased a warranty that was offered through the dealership with a new vehicle. I don't have the paperwork anymore so I don't recall the name of the warranty company (it was one my local JLR dealership worked with and respected) it cost me $3300 for a 7 year/100k $0 deductible warranty (which included air suspension)

$8200 sounds like a lot but hey if they're going to cover a lot without foot dragging over the duration it's probably worth $8200 for the peace of mind IMO. Endurance seems to have a fairly good reputation for paying on claims (from what I can tell) but I think someone would have to dig deep enough to make sure there's some value in it given their limits of liability. It might only make sense for certain cars and maybe ones that only have a 3yr/36k factory warranty. In that scenario the math might work but definitely in my current situation with the LR4 it seemed like it was a terrible deal. I was actually offered two or three different companies with extended warranty options, endurance was just one but the others had red flags in the fine print too so I ended up giving up on the whole thing and just plan to put a chunk of money in the bank to self insure. I just hope the engine and transmission hold up for 4 or 5 more years otherwise that will wipe out the 'fund' I'm setting aside.

 

And that, boys and girls, is why I change my oil and do other preventative maintenance at a MUCH higher frequency than recommended. As many stated, the engine is a proven one at this point and "anything goes" with random occurrences. It's just that I'll say my superstitious incantations as I frequently do PM and hope that Lucas, Prince of Darkness is held at bay.

 

I had my 2023 P400 engine replaced under warranty after it dropped a cylinder due to a “stuck injector”. Took a couple of months all told. However, the tech who did the swap did a sloppy job and I’ve had to have a few follow on visits to sort out other issues (he didn’t do a good job of securing all the hoses and wires nor tightening them up. E.g., I just had it in for a loose coil pack and chaffing wires. Hopefully you’ll have better results. Good luck!

 

I have had this problem however my defender which i imported brand new from uk, defender x p400, engine began misfiring at 14000 kilometres. Jlr refused to warranty the engine fault which i determined through using a bore scope was a manufacturing defect. The local zimbabwean jlr dealership could not cope with replacing the engine so i shipped the vehicle to south africa where it took 18 months to import and replace the engine at my cost. The vehicle is now back in zimbabwe and has had numerous faults requiring replacement of the oxygen sensors on the exhaust system, and replacing the turbo coolant pipe to mention a few. The vehicle is 5 years old and has now covered 19000 kilometres. This debacle and complete lack of service has left a very bad taste in my mouth and cured me from ever buying a land rover again.