'frippery'. Fantastic word I haven't seen for years. Nicely done.

 

That ball-bag is one insufferable pain in the hole. He's unwatchable. Rant videos and clickbait.

I'd leave him behind too.

New Defender is pretty darn good off-road. Fact is, most folks bemoaning it's off-road chops have never driven one off-road. Given that most every old Defender is no longer stock, doing an out of the box comparison would be impossible so opinions rather than data dominate.

Wheel lifts are par for the course with an IFS/IRS vehicle. It's a bit like driving an ironing board sometimes. The need for flex/articulation has largely been superseded by the traction control and the locking diffs that are far smarter than I. A wheel lift isn't the problem it can be in an unlocked live axle. Many people's derision is misplaced in this regard although the ironing board ride is less comfy on trail than a live axle with flex will get you.

Low profile tires on these is without doubt the biggest glaring design failure. 17" rims with steel an option on all should be the norm. Tires you can air down to elongate the footprint has not been superseded by any electrical whizzbang. Airing down appropriate tires, with tough sidewalls not only adds to the traction but improves, comfort, stability and is far gentler on the vehicle when out and about on the rough stuff.

For me that's the only change I'd like to see. 17's/18" on all.

Dropping to 18"s and getting proper tires was the biggest game changer in terms of capability and opening up new terrain for me. A live axle with more flex wouldn't be anywhere as transformative.

 

I hadn't heard of the INEOS, but I checked it out. That is pretty much exactly what I would have expected the new Defender to have been if it were to please me at all. No doubt the Defender and Evoque have turned out to please a different kind of owner, but the Grenadier looks spot-on to me. While I find the Grenadier very pleasing, I'm hesitant to covet one for myself. First of all, it's availability in the US has yet to manifest, but I would expect it to be very costly when it does. There are a lot of other things that can be accomplished with that kind of money. For example, a person could conceivably forsake concerning themselves with the matter of income production for a considerable time and use it instead to drive their old Land Rover around in the bush and enjoy the adventure. That sounds more appealing than having a Grenadier on the driveway whilst working continually to pay for it. But I could have hope for the future that these will one day be old and depreciated and accessible to those who would rather spend their money on adventure. Still, I wouldn't fault someone for buying a new one, especially if they were young and could expect to get 30 or 40 years of adventure out of it. As for me, if I had the means, I think I might prefer to buy a Series and go about it that way. As it is, I don't have the time for that. My middle-aged Land Rover is more practical and the lifestyle it suits is more affordable than either the very new or very old ones.

 

Suspension articulation (flex) is a massive part of a vehicle’s capability off-road. It’s not just the ability to keep the tires on the ground but the weight distribution on the tires before tire lift even occurs. Contact patch of 4 tires is always better than just 3 or only 2. Not rocket science. It’s far more significant than airing down because a vehicle with good articulation also maintains better weight distribution across the tires as well. A lot of people don’t understand this. When you lack articulation, even before a tire lifts, there’s very little weight on the tire about to lift. This shifts the majority of “work” on the opposite tire. That tire can only do so much before you exceed the coefficient of friction, given the weight, inclination, conditions etc. No amount of software can defy the laws of physics. With good articulation, you not only have a better chance of keeping 4 tires on the ground, but the 4 tires are more likely to be sharing the load more evenly. The reality is, the vast majority of Defender owners (or any SUV owner) will never do anything truly challenging in their vehicle to even notice these limitations. It’s when you truly get into some difficult terrain that the limitations of the Defender will show. I say this coming from the Jeep world where I had a heavily modified JK that would routinely clear sections of terrain that would be a challenge to clear by foot. It was always a shock to people I would take off-road. They always “thought” they were doing serious off-roading in their rig. I loved my Jeep, however, the more capable you make a vehicle off-road, the less capable and comfortable it becomes on-road.

Having done the hardcore off-road thing, I now have different needs and the Defender checks more boxes for me as a daily driver primarily. The current Defender is far more capable than what the majority of owners will ever need of it off-road. I’m blown away by how effortlessly it can eat up miles on a long drive and not be fatiguing, yet do a very impressive job off-road (given how good it is on-road). I can’t understate how difficult that is to do for a manufacturer. I have a mechanical engineering background so I can appreciate this.

I should also add that the lack of articulation isn’t because if independent suspension per se. It’s because virtually all production vehicles with independent suspension have short suspension arms due to the space requirements of a practical production vehicle. IE engine, passenger space, cargo space etc. Long arm independent suspension can have an impressive amount of articulation.

The last thing I’ll touch on is the Defenders terrain response system, it tends to depend a bit on wheel spin to determine what to do for traction management. This is fine for a lot of terrain but a limitation on certain conditions/climbs. Sometimes, you can’t afford to spin tires and need to have good throttle control to crawl and maintain grip. Especially on wet rocks.

 

🤔 consistent reliability

 

Here you go brother. I have no idea what they’re saying but it’s a bit comical how bad a stock old Defender is off-road.

 

these engines also need to be tested and certified, both federally and separately for California. it appears the powers that be at JLR decided it's just not worth it for the diesels. shame.

now a bit of a tangent...

personally, I think JLR has decided to just punt on new powertrains for the U.S. until they start rolling out BEV's. but they are continuing to fall behind the curve. First Rivian, and now with the just released Kia EV9, even though the latter is not in the same class as JLR SUV product (but priced to match), some potential Defender/Disco buyers that are EV-curious just won't want to wait for another 2+ years for a JLR BEV.

 

My Spanish is barely good enough to follow along. The difference is striking. But it looked like only the center differential was locked. Do the old Defenders have locking front/rear diffs? That would likely have made a major difference.

Regardless, the New Defender was impressive even with its independent suspension and lack of articulation. Thanks for sharing this.

 

modern light vehicle diesels are not super reliable in general (and google 2.0 JLR diesel failures).

 

lt's to do with the emissions paraphernalia. The 2.0 lngenium diesel had big problems with the EGR system if the vehicle was used for short journeys.
The oil would get diluted with diesel due to incomplete EGR regeneration.

Fortunately the 3.0 lngenium diesel in the new Defender has no such issues.

Almost all my journeys are under 10 miles and l've had no problems at all.