Hi folks,

I’m new to this forum and looking to get some real life experiences in Land Rover reliability…
So I’ve put a deposit on a 2023 defender 110s, P300 model, we won’t use it for work commute, only drives during weekend.

We’ve owned two BMWs (one was a 2016 and one was a 2019), never had any issues other than a few infotainment glitch. My questions are:
1. how are the reliability of the new defenders compare to bmw? Should I expect to visit the dealer a lot more often?

2. What are some known common problems?

3. I’ve read some online comments that there were instances of check engine light pop up under a few hundred miles and car stopped working in the middle of road/highway. Have any of you experienced these?

my apologies in advance if this have been discussed in other thread.

any feedback would be helpful and appreciated

 

Does it matter at this point? You have a deposit down on one. Would you cancel your order if you knew they were riddled with problems? If it's a weekend driver, it can be unreliable and not really matter. Buy it and enjoy it. When something breaks or acts up, there are plenty of folks here who cann help. If you decide it was a mistake, you can sell it for more than you paid. Win Win.

 

I'm only 3k miles in but it has been absolutely flawless. Love it. There's nothing like it.

 

Currently at 9k miles which is a small drop compared to many here which have well over 20k+.

I had one minor issue at 570 miles where the air intake valve popped off or broke; choking the engine. But the whole JLR roadside assistance, dealer service and tow back to my place was really seamless and pleasant. And smooth sailing since.

I agree with the comments above. If you have it ordered and spec’d how you want. You’ll love it especially as a weekend drive. And if you don’t. Good return on the resale these days! Not that I would be letting mine go.

 

I also have an X P400 on order and come from the background of experiencing the reliability of 3x BMW's. In todays world and certainly for the price of a Defender a reasonable standard of reliability should be part of the package. I am expecting that at least. I hope I'm not disappointed.

 

I'm just over one year and 20K miles and love this vehicle. Solid, quiet and an excellent highway cruiser. So capable in winter ice & snow and summer beach driving.

Having owned other German brands, I'd say you should expect more issues than a BMW. It's an entirely new model for JLR and they are still working out some problems, mostly software related. My screen went blank a few times and the radio sound occasionally goes silent. Easily fixed by a simply holding down the volume button for 10 seconds to reset the infotainment system. Biggest issue was the missing power steering after a software upgrade. Had to do a whole vehicle reset by disconnecting the negative battery terminal for about 5 minutes and then it was fine. I recommend carrying a 10mm wrench in your glove box for that one. Sometimes the steering wheel button you press to change radio station ignores your thumb, but that is a feature they carried over from the LR4.

I had an annoying squeak above and below the far left vent. Easily fixed by removing a few screws and applying adhesive felt to the back of the rounded leather trim pieces. I had to apply silicone to the rubber door seals to reduce some noise but door and window seal squeaking is also a common BMW issue.

We like our Defender so much that we ordered another one. However the delivery kept getting pushed back and we need another vehicle by May when our kids come back from college. So we cancelled the second order and look forward to our new X5 arriving in a few weeks.

 

Just over 15k miles on my 21 P300. Only issue is the leaky front air suspension that LR will fix under warranty. They replaced one of my front air struts but it still seems to slowly leak over time when parked. There is a data range for affected front air struts. New builds shouldn't be affected. No other mechanical issues. Minor software issues, yes. But nothing that has left me on the side of the road.

 

@Ftbnc - Lots of discussions on this Forum re: Land Rover reliability. The Good: most forums & surveys are FULL of "negative bias". Most people are more vocal when upset. So every forum has a preponderance of folks who are upset with their vehicles. Same here. The Bad: There's likely a reason for it. Other threads have pointed out that Land Rover is at the Bottom of almost any & every reliability scale. For every 100 sold, I think something like 140 come back to the Dealer to have issues taken care of. The Ugly: Do not buy a Land Rover if you need it as your daily driver. Anyone who has more than 1 Land Rover in their vehicle history will tell you that weird stuff happens, Lucas is the Prince of Darkness, and that it is like a long term marriage: you know all her faults and you still love her.

I've had mine for about 10 months. I've had zero problems. I've had Land Rovers before and can likely fix anything that I don't need a proprietary computer to do (likely I could use the computer, they just won't let "civilians" have them). I've only put 5.5k miles on it, but they haven't been easy miles. I've messed with mine enough to likely void a warranty or two, but I predict that will be long gone before I need it. I've also developed a close friendship with a local 3rd party Land Rover service department and will avoid the Dealer's version like the first month of the COVID pandemic.

Good luck with yours!

 

@PaulLR - You inspire me! I too have a 10mm handy in my Defender. However, reading your post, I think I'm going to start looking for a non-conductive 10mm that I can just keep in the box below the passengers seat! Tape or clamp it so it's readily available.

EDIT: Just purchased a Knipex 10mm for less than a fast food lunch and plan to put it in a piece of pipe insulation I have leftover. Going to cram it in there and forget about it until I need to pop it open. Which isn't that infrequent...

 

I’ve had 2 Defenders - the first one (an X) I owned for about an hour before it had a catastrophic failure. The dealer canceled the deal and sold me a V8 instead after the X left me stranded in the fast lane of a major highway. My wife thinks I’m crazy for buying the V8.

It’s my 3rd LR. My Range Rover Sport only lasted 4 months in my ownership due to electrical problems.

I wasn’t going to buy a Defender due to reliability. I wanted a capable and comfortable off-road vehicle that I could drive everyday. I bought a new 21 Ford Bronco back in Jan as I was concerned about the reliability of the Defender and LR overall. Then, during the delivery of the Bronco, the dealer attempted to show me the different 4x4 modes and when switching modes it had a complete failure of the transmission. It sat in service for two weeks while they replaced the transfer case and 4x4 control module. It had 12 miles on it and I had never driven it. I still have the Bronco, and still have ongoing issues with it.

All of that is to say that every vehicle has issues these days. They are all too complicated and not tested thoroughly enough (especially the electronics).

But, the Defender is a unique vehicle in the market. If you write down all of the specs, nothing else compares. Literally nothing.
- Capable 4x4
- Comfortable
- Quiet
- Can carry a roof load (roof top tent)
- Can tow a reasonable trailer (6klb race car trailer)
- Goes to dinner as well as it goes to the woods

There just isn’t anything else to compete