Our discos have nearly made it 20 years and we still love them so much. What are all your thoughts about these Defendy boyes lasting that long?

 

Check back in 2041.

 

That's a good question, as we had our Discovery for about 12 years and there was plenty of life left in it. I think the biggest challenge will be the electronics in the Defender. If third party tools come out to fix problems, a long life could be possible. There were some cool hacks for the Discovery (like the 3 amigos reset tool), so I suspect if the user base is large enough there might be a market for someone to create these things.

Our plans are to keep our Defender 10+ years. We bought the extended (7 year) warranty, and we'll keep the Defender depending upon how it does reliability-wise during that period.

 

I'm thinking 15 years is realistic based on my experience with our LR3 & LR4. LR4 is almost 9 years old with 136K miles. Runs great, engine will definitely go 200K miles & more. Then again, I changed the oil more often than the recommended 15K interval. Doesn't use oil and the timing chain is quiet. However, we have put $20K in repairs into it in the last 36K miles. Brake calipers, rotors & pads, new parking brake, wheel hubs, steering rack, front and rear control arms, tires, valve cover gaskets, alternator, battery, rear coolant manifold and front crossover pipe. However, we're done "investing" in the LR4 as the kids leave for college in a few weeks and my wife is going to drive their Honda Passport. LR4 will be posted in the classified section in September.

 

If they get the hydrogen powered Defender worked out, nobody will want a 20 year old truck with labor rates at $600/hr and $12/gal gas.

If the best they can do is electric, people will be fighting you in the parking lot to buy your last ICE truck.

 

If anything else, this would be a reinvention of the defender. It should last just as long,

 

Yep, I see the main obstacle being a constant connection with the dealer, mostly due to interfacing with the computers on-board. Here's hoping Blackbox can crack out a Nanocom-ish thing for the Defender.

 

20 years is a long time for a daily driver. I think a lot would depend upon where you live, the climate etc. Is it a daily driver or is it a weekend vehicle etc. Like up here in the northern US at the shores of lake Ontario the roads are iced over and salted for months at a time, chewed up badly with potholes and what not, the bitter cold takes a toll on wiring, rubber, harnesses, suspension all kinds of things that will catch up to you after a while.. If you're daily driving out here I don't see many people with 20 year old cars. They're generally starting to rust after 6 or 8 unless you're washing them all the time. Down south I can see it. People buy old LRs and bring them up here from Florida, you can tell right away it isn't from around here.

What I would want to do is know when to bail, that is when to get rid of it before things do start to go wrong en masse and while the vehicle still maintains a good amount of trade equity. To me in a ballpark sense that's probably going to be 6 or 7 years. 20 years I don't think would be a sensible goal but if you really love it and care for it impeccably who knows. Certainly if you financed and finally get to a point where you have a year and then two with no payment + minimal repairs it's going to be hard to give up on that situation but I think considering trade equity and inevitable repairs that's probably about the time to start looking for a new one IMHO. YMMV.

 

Scrolling through a price list of electrics for this truck is painful. The one I saw was something like 16 pages and it's $540 camera after $1800 controller module after $280 wiring harness. Nothing below $80 except trim bits and there were at least 20 parts well over $2000. Forget suspension, mechanicals, and labor.

Quick math tells me you couldn't build yourself a Defender out of parts for less than double sticker and they aren't going to get cheaper as the vehicle ages.

Have to agree with your 6 or 7 year sweet spot. I'd be surprised if anyone can go years 5 through 10 without dumping at least $20k into it for repairs. It's just not a soulless Toyota with $40 oil changes and $90 brake jobs but life's too short to drive a bowl of oatmeal.

 

That needs to be quoted