Hello everyone

I’m glad to join the forum. I’ve read with great interest many posts so far.

I’m buying a nearly new 4,000 mile V8 110 CE next weekend in the U.K. but can’t get to the dealership before then. I’ll do a test drive of course then but as I’m in France, I need to fly over to collect the car and want to try to make sure it’s right to avoid any delays or problems on collection.

The vehicle has the 20in satin grey alloys with the Goodyear Wrangler All Terrain Adventure tyres. That’s not the full on Duratec off road tyre but a good all rounder as I understand, which gets good reviews in general.

All the other vehicles for sale in the U.K. had the 22in wheels but it worked out that this vehicle wasn’t too far over list so I bought thIs one. It was still around £20,000 over list but that’s the market and all the others are more. I was looking for a D300 but they are even more over list price and don’t have all the extras I want so I’ve sold myself on the great press of the V8 and I’ll ignore the abuse from the environmentalists! I’ve had lots of RR before and a RRS SVR, but my first Defender.

I can see the appeal of both the 22in wheels and the 20in wheels but I’m most concerned about avoiding road noise, vibration and harshness on my longer journeys so I decided the trade off in looks for the smaller rims would allow my occasional off roading, make for less kerbing risk on the alloys but mostly give a smoother tarmac ride.

Does anyone here have the 20in set up with that all terrain tyre on a V8 to reassure me I won’t turn up next weekend and get a noisy ride?

I’m also hoping the slightly more compliant ride of a 20in rim will allow me to use the dynamic setting more as I’ve read in reviews that’s quite harsh on 22in wheels.

Once I’ve got the car, I’ll post pics etc and happy to share any details and my experience. Until then, relying on the folks here!

Plan is to fit the Urban chequer side steps and maybe the Quicksilver exhaust but the latter worries me from the JLR warranty perspective.

For now, focusing on the wheel size matter,

Thanks in advance.

 

Congrats on the purchase and upcoming delivery of the CE 110. A Carpathian Edition with 20” wheels is actually a rarity.

I have a CE 90 with the gloss black 22” wheels and the stock Continental tires, and I find the ride to be perfectly comfortable, even in Dynamic mode. I am changing to 22” Urban WX2 wheels next week with Yokohama Geolander AT tires. It’s probably one of the least aggressive all terrain tires on the market, but it’s supposed to have a great ride quality and very low noise output.

The Quicksilver exhaust sounds great! Let us know if you pull the trigger on that. An exhaust system does not affect the warranty.

I’m considering to remove the center resonators on my 90 or purchase a Milltek system. I definitely want more sound, but I don’t want to go overboard.

Post some pics when you get it. Here’s a recent one of mine. All my Urban parts are going on next week, so consider this the “before” pic.

 

Hi Polar

Your CE looks great. Where are you based?

i’m sure my 20in is rare. The garage in Milton Keynes told me the previous owner intended to do some off-roading so specified the 20in wheels.

i quite like the look of slightly smaller rims on the CE and as mentioned, the advantages, but I do wonder what the ride is like compared to the 22in wheel.on the stock tyres. I was hoping someone here had driven both or at least had the 20in set up.

Noted re the exhaust and thanks.

 

Congrats, Escapist!

I don’t have any advice on the 22vs20 question (except that 20s should be lighter, which pays benefits in every way over heavier wheels, and tire selection is greater, and tires are cheaper, and more sidewall is much better if you go off-road into any kind of rock environment.) Okay, so I guess I DO have some advice on the wheels.

As far as the warranty not being affected by the exhaust swap, Polar 993 (great color on a great car, by the way! C2 Coupe, I hope?) I assume is in the US, where we have a particular piece of legislation and some case law that says a car manufacturer can’t cancel a warranty or deny claims because of the presence of aftermarket parts, other than on the new parts themselves or any other systems that are materially affected by the new parts.

So put 35” tires on new wheels with different offsets on your Defender and they’ll certainly deny a claim on your wheel bearings; they could plausibly deny a claim on many of the other drivetrain components because it’s plausible that the extra rotating mass and leverage of the larger tire and different offsets caused additional stresses on the drivetrain that it wasn’t designed for.

But they couldn’t deny a claim on a failed window motor, or the infotainment system, or the seat leather ripping, etc.

So with a new exhaust, most potential failures couldn’t plausibly be attributed to that swap; maybe an internal engine failure that was determined to be due to an exhaust valve failure could be pinned on higher operating temps due to the new exhaust, but hard to think of anything else.

But… all of that has to do with issues in the US. I have no idea what, if any, laws cover vehicle warranties in UK or EU.

 

Thanks. That's really helpful.