So today I took my D300 110 out on local 4WD trails in Victoria, Australia. Being early winter, there was plenty of mud and standing water. I’m no an expert by any stretch, but my son and I decided to tackle some of the medium difficulty tracks, and one in particular had a very steep section with deep ruts and some significant holes, rated as difficult (black diamond) on the Newtracs app. Ahead of me were three heavily kitted Land Cruisers, with mud terrain tires, lift kits and other serious equipment. All three went up the steep slope, sliding, dropping into holes, churning up mud, slithering from side to side, belching smoke and revving loudly.

To be honest, I shouldn’t have proceeded, but I didn’t realise how deep some of the holes were until I reached them and by then I was half way up and committed. Anyway, I put the Defender into Low but in my anxiety forgot to engage any terrain modes. My aim was simply to skip along the top of the road between the ruts. My main stress was falling into the giant holes about two thirds from the bottom and becoming beached. Gently on the accelerator, I drove up, carefully steering to avoid dropping into ruts that the cars in front had fallen into. The Defender didn’t even blink. It was like I was driving up a sealed road. It just trundled up, kept a steady pace and came to a halt beside a bunch of 4WD. One of the guys ahead of me waved, came over and said “that’s unbelievable”. Then he realised I had only the Goodyear 20” AT tyres, and added “How did you get up with those tyres?”. I shrugged and said it was all the car, because I have no idea what I’m doing.

Unfortunately, I was so anxious that I didn’t actually capture any of it with a camera. My son, in his old Nissan Navara ute, had to give up and find another way around because he didn’t have the traction (I don’t think his Ute has a locking diff). My wife was shaking, and said perhaps we shouldn’t try that in the future. I think in hindsight I should have followed my son around the other way, but it proved to me how unbelievably capable this vehicle is…

 

I'm very happy to hear how pleased you are with the capability. You provide an excellent example of how well our new automated systems perform.

Our terrain modes should be thought of like the settings on a modern camera. Under most circumstances the camera will select the appropriate flash and shutter settings when left on automatic. However, you can further optimize performance for very specific situations by selecting a dedicated mode. However, it is not necessary in many off-road driving scenarios.

Lastly, I'm glad to hear you found the factory tyres sufficient for the task at hand. While they are frequently criticized on the Internet-they do provide good traction in a range of situations while maintaining low noise, good performance and reasonable fuel economy.

 

^^ I think that the OEM 20” Wranglers are a great compromise tire that reflects the fact that 95+% of the miles are on pavement even for trucks whose drivers take them off-road a lot. I would be disappointed if my street tires were as loud as my off-road RT tires (RT is a newish category between AT and MT), since weeks or even months often go by when the truck sees nothing but tarmac.

The weakness of the Wrangler Adventure is a) demonstrably weak sidewall compared to other true offroad tires. We’ve all seen “the video,” and I personally currently have one of my offroad wheel/tires on the spare mount because I went over a gentle curbing intentionally to get around a driver too terrified to make a left out of a gas station when I was making a right. Slashed an inch gash in the sidewall of the right rear Wrangler, and it took a week to get a direct replacement in and I had to go out of town. Having pulled a similar move many times I was struck by the sidewall weakness. And b) the tread pattern isn’t very deep and does not clear gooey mud with nearly the efficiency of an RT or MT tire, which can be problematic in the types of mud we have in the southeastern US.

However, “solving” the sidewall and mud problems will ALWAYS come at the expense of Noise, Vibration and Harshness, which significantly degrades the on-road experience to near Jeep/Bronco levels. So I think LR made the right call with the Goodyears, but I also think they’re a potentially poor choice for some off-roading situations. The answer is clear: two sets of wheels and tires. . Same as with sportscars — street tires and track tires.

 

Owning a ‘21 Bronco and a Defender, I gotta say that even with 10-ply mud terrains (General Grabber X3s) the Defender is levels above my Bronco on road in terms of comfort, vibration and noise.

I’d go so far as to say if you have any roof rack/side ladder the wind noise from it will drown out any added noise from your tires.

Anyways I agree with OP’s sentiment on the capabilities of the Defender from my just-wrapping-up 6 week stay in the Moab area. It’s extremely capable on the rocks, more capable than I need it to be in fact (rock crawling i find tedious most of the time).

edit: also lets not lump the bronco and wrangler together when it comes to on road driving dynamics. The bronco is clearly superior in all trims

 

If the video you reference is the one made by TFL then I'm afraid we can't take that seriously. Instead of following our recommendations they chose to deflate their low profile tyres before entering a rocky area. Low profile tyres should not be deflated beyond our recommended settings in this type of environment. In fact, none of our tyres require deflation below our recommended lowest setting.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where anyone with a digital camera can pose as an automotive expert. While there are some people on Youtube that possess engineering backgrounds or have extensive experience with advanced off-road theory- the folks at TFL are not in that group.

 

The TFL guys are more about ad revenue and "entertainment" than facts. I feel they knew what they were doing and did it to draw as many views as possible, despite it being a fabricated failure. I otherwise don't know how anyone could be dumb enough to do the same obviously wrong thing twice and expect different results.

 

It's kind of funny, I got the air compressor in the rear cargo area so I could air down / air up my tires! Which is -- totally not needed apparently.

Oh well... @insider thanks for your sage wisdom here. I did take my L663 on a really rocky trail (only about 30mins on the trail) and didn't air down. Totally fine with my 20's with factory AT tires (which I'm trying to wear out a bit more before I replace with a bit beefier of a tire)

 

Oh you can definitely air down and use that compressor, but not below our recommendations. All US Defenders have two recommended pressures from the factory (Normal and Comfort) and there is a sizable gap between them. You could also air down below the comfort setting in a deep sand situation where you will not be encountering rocks and obstacles that could damage the sidewall or rim. However, it's rarely necessary to go below the comfort settings.

 

I was JUST about to reply that TFL under-inflated their tires, but @The Insider beat me to it. I think they over-thought the technology and actually did it a disservice. But, in all fairness - without their tuition payment, a lot of us wouldn't have believed it. Now, we all know. (Or at least it is reinforced for those who do/did).

 

The sidewalls are so small on the 20"s. Driving over even small rocks or tree roots, even at full fat PSI, there is absolutely nothing between rim and tread. Every bit of sidewall is needed. Sticking my head out the window to confirm line from the off-road camera (brilliant BTW) was quite unsettling to see how these tires have no meat. After seeing the extent of sidewall deformation I don't even feel comfortable going down to light load for rough terrain. Agreed for 99% of situations/users they're a well suited tire. Quiet highway, mileage, light weight etc.

If you plan to actually make use of these fabulous vehicles' capabilities, open up your nature's playgrounds, push your comfort zone and generally have grin-inducing fun, the OEM 20"s are less than ideal. Sadly the only non-city based LR SUV in their line-up has been castrated by the designers dumb alloy/caliper combo in all but the lower trims.

The right tool, for the job is key. As a seller of cars, this equates to silly city alloys for most of JLR's customer base. Just look at what the RR has become compared to how it started.

The right tool is very different if you're a certain type of end-user.

Every time I walk by a 4Runner at work with the TRD Pro package I gaze in envy at its 265/70R17 A/Ts.

Disallowing 18" on the bigger engines. Just dumb. Pure and simple.