We purchased the 2023.5 Defender SE back in October 2022. Just in time to go to the Overland Expo East and drool over what we wanted to do to it.

It's been a year, and 8400 miles on the clock, thought I'd look back at what we've been up too. I use my electric car primarily (Polestar 2) and this is only used for road trips (>250 miles) so while some of this is city miles when I want to take it out and 'knock the dust out of the pipes' most of the miles are highway miles.

In short? nothing worked out like we hoped.

Two months after we purchased it, my wife lost her job. I got a few things started, added the redarc brake controller, replaced the speaker with a molle like mounting plate, and bought the mounting kit for the ARB compressor, and then no employment for six months for my wife. So there went all my savings, rainy day funds, etc. So the Defender wasn't used a lot (except for June when my Polestar 2 was in the repair shop due to an incident with a orange barrel appearing on the highway at 70 MPH) and as far as work on it goes, we have had zero issues in the car. I had to replace the windshield due to a giant rock which was annoying, and Safelight was able to get me LR Glass but not recalibrate and Progressive has been terrible at helping me fix that last few bits.

I optioned the heck out of it with the intent of doing the LR Experience in March of this year, but no working wife meant we didn't get to do that, we didn't get our camper ordered/purchased, and I feel like I wasted a year. I did manage two road trips, one during the bomb cyclone over Christmas and that's where 2200 of our 8400 miles came from. We did one beach outing but without any experience I didn't want to try driving on the beach as we were there on a lark. Every time we've used it for a longer road trip things have been great, but my dreams of offroad trails have not happened. Hoepfully 2024 will be kinder to us.

I'm getting ready for my 'first year' service I guess I should have them swap the oil and move the tires around. I'm hoping after the spring we'll be able to decide on a camper. My 'win the lottery' spare no expense would be the Kimberley Karavan but for now I don't really have anything picked out. We thought about the Ember 191s as well as they fall in the 6000-7000 range as I don't want to be right at the max GVWR if I can help it. We opted to skip Expo East this year as it would only be frustrating to see things we can't afford right now.

There are a few things I'd like to do, I did get more reverse lights to install but haven't done it yet. I need to pick up the ARB compressor I wanted, and i'm still waffling on a roof rack. Not much of a RTT person but being able to put things up there instead of the cabin might be nice, but the investment for one of those is a bit high. I'm still iffy on rock sliders, as with anything for this thing they seem to be 4x the price of Bronco/Jeep. I don't think we'll ever do crazy off roading as we live in NC but mud and trails would be fun.

But, for what I know, the car has been rock solid with no issues the first year. Sure we probably drive it less than most folks but if you believe the 'reviews' the thing should fall apart as you drive out of the dealer. Its been as more reliable in the first year than our Tesla Model X was. I miss the X's gas mileage but it was under repair every few months, and with the Defender that's never happened.

 

Hopefully you'll get to do those things and more this coming year instead.