I would agree that we do push the vehicles a bit more than most on the trails. The scary part of this is that the failure didn't actually happen on the trails. It happened after driving back from running trails. It just keeps bothering me that there was no warning. He drove 20 minutes on the road. Then it broke while parking. I cant imagine if it failed on the road! Either way, it will be peace mind knowing that the steering rack is now reinforced and supported in 2 more places to help with distribuing the load and keeping the rack in place even if there is a failure

 

Here are some pics of the reinforcement kit we have developed. Basically adding 2 additional mounting points to the front of the steering rack. This now makes a total of 4 mounting points. We will also be putting the original mount in a double shear configuration. I believe this will be some simple insurance.

 

Agree. That sounds super scary. I still suspect the failure happened (or mostly happened) on the trail and was held together just enough by the bolt and nut. You're right though. That sort of failure on the road could be catastrophic. Yikes. I'm very glad no one got hurt.

Wow, that reinforcement kit looks very nicely done! I really hope the aftermarket becomes more and more robust for these trucks, but Sarek, you are leading the charge! So cool.

 

Looks great. Are you thinking of adding that to your stage builds? Or is it a repair for the very rare cases of this failure?

 

Have you or the dealership contacted Land Rover about this issue? These vehicles are designed to be pushed on the trails, and this type of failure is simply unacceptable. I am curious to hear the response of Land Rover.

 

I said it before a long time ago on this forum. It's a mass produced consumer grade vehicle that off the showroom floor was built to offroad once in a while. If these were built to stand up to offroading all the time they'd have to be overbuilt for 9 out of 10 people. It's a balancing act between selling something that's very capable of doing it now and then but still being priced low enough so you can move units. That's fine IMO. If you're going to take them offroad all the time though I suspect you're going to be disappointed in how well they stand up to the abuse in stock form.

 

Definitely part of stage builds. We will also be offering it as a kit for purchase. i would suggest to add it before failure. Cheap insurance.

 

Whilst I agree that the majority of owners take their Defenders off road once in a while, this problem should not have happened. I have personally taken Land Rover Defenders on extremely rough roads and never experienced this issue, which is why I say Land Rover needs to be informed.