"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"

It needs the driver to have knowledge of how to drive off road.
You can't just point it at the trail and set the adaptive off-road terrain response like you can on the new one.
You actually have to drive it.

 

This tame track would likely pose no challenges to anything. Something's amiss. An unlocked rear diff most probably.

 

You can turn the closed captions on and see everything they're saying in English. Just press the CC button at the bottom right.

They spinning one front and one rear wheel, indicating they have locked the center differential, but the Defender's axle differentials are open. It's not an indication of how bad the stock Defender was offroad, but how badly they are driving it without regard to its characteristics. Essentially, they've set it up to fail by choosing an obstacle and driving it in a way so that it won't work. Both the obstacle and the driving method are contrived. If a driver of an open differential vehicle were to be confronted with a similar obstacle, they could use momentum to easily overcome it.

Nevertheless, the stock Defender was equipped with open axle differentials. So if a person wanted to crawl through cross-axle situations, they would need to fit limited slip or locking differentials or have some kind of traction control which I believe late production Defenders did come with. For Defenders, traction control was not necessary and there were and are a wide variety of axle differentials to be fitted be the owner according to their choice. Detroit and Ashcroft Lockers, TrueTrac Limited Slip and others are roughly $500 and ARB air lockers are about $900. Some people could argue that its unfair to compare a "modified" Defender to a stock Defender 2020, but the Defender 2020 has plenty of "options" that are a lot more costly than a $500 locker. What it doesn't have, is very many options from the aftermarket. One of the key characteristics of the Defender has been its broad aftermarket support. This not only makes up for supposed deficiencies of the stock vehicle, but it does so in a way unlike factory "options" that gives owners the ability to customize their vehicle the way they want it, or to omit high spec components and just save money.

That has been the most compelling criticism of the Grenadier -- it comes with too high spec and therefore doesn't permit practical customization. It's not practical to toss the Recaro seats just to put in Corbeau or Sparco, so if you want Corbeau, you get the Recaro whether you want them or not. INEOS knows best and will spend your money for you.

In any event, the Defender should not be criticized just because the axle differentials can be demonstrated to be open. We should not be ignorant of what we're seeing in that video and that it doesn't matter. To come to the conclusion or believe that the Defender, even a stock Defender, was rubbish off-road is simply ignorance. We ought not to watch a Ferrari, badly driven by a moron, and come to the conclusion that the car can't perform.

I have not ever been the owner of a Defender of any model nor do I ever want to be, and I am not defending or advocating for my pet vehicle. I am simply aware of the fact the original Defender was far more capable offroad than the new Defender. There is nothing practical that can be done to the new Defender that could change that. Post #54 is an honest and truthful assessment of the new Defender's actual strengths. My posts here aren't to bash it, but so that it is understood where its capability and utility actually are. #54 is contains a good description of the kind of "wants" or desires the new Defender can satisfy. For me, I wish it had something different, and that's the topic of this thread.

 

Yeah but then I couldn't allude to me being an idiot.

Pretty obvious in the video that they're intentionally, hampering the old Defender by leaving the rear +/- front diffs open. Not a very useful comparison

 

The claim was that a stock old Defender was more capable than the new one. Anyone with an ounce of off-road knowledge or experience would know that’s absurd. The old Defender was not available with a front or rear locking diff so you can’t use what you don’t have. You can only do so much with only a center locking diff. You don’t always have room to use momentum. Tell me you know very little about off-roading, without telling me you know very little about off-roading. You can use the brakes to limit diff slip only so much. Both Defenders are stock except the old one was on better tires.

They drive all of the vehicles the same to see what they can do on their own. You can clear just about anything with enough momentum. Where do you draw the line for that? Is that really a practical test? Do you have to use so much speed that you risk bending or braking something before you decide if it can make it? The level of ignorance here is quite sad honestly.

 

Not my claim, but 'tis true. You could fill a library with what I don't know about the old Defender and off-roading. I assumed it had some sort of locking diffs that weren't being used. I guess not.

Only OG Defenders I ever drove were mossy farm vehicles with natural aircon via the rust holes in the floor.

The new one is certainly well built and well equipped. Takes me to a lot of fun places and allows me to challenge my meagre driving skill-set. Out of the box they are a tremendous product. A decent set of boots, smaller rims and they're even better.

 

My statement wasn’t directed at you. No one would expect the general public to know specs for every vehicle out there. You seem to have common sense. It’s sad when individuals are so biased and argue objective performance limitations of a vehicle. I’ve never beed a fan boy for any brand or model. I stick with facts and reality. I make no assertions that the new Defender is the best available off-roader. In fact, I’ve pointed its weaknesses and several examples of other vehicles that are better. The notion that the old Defender or any prior Land Rover model for that matter, is more capable off the showroom floor is delusional.

Unfortunately , I have noticed there tends to be a disappointing amount of miss information on this forum. I remember reading a rant by someone about how alloy wheels are the “stupidest” thing to put on an off-road vehicle. That steel wheels are superior. This is the second most ridiculous thing I’ve read here, second only to some of the things in this thread. I’m not even going to try to explain that one. I’m not sure if it’s nostalgia or just pure ignorance.

 

Back to topic,
We know we are driving an English designed car, with their own 'awkward' things. Not always matching with our western thoughts and values.
We all know the rear door will be opening on the wrong side for 80% of the buyers worldwide.

But what lately annoys me is the layout of the switch packs on the steering wheel, those are also designed for RHD cars.
(at least they exchanged the indicator handle)

Now how hard would it be for JLR to design this to exchange the cruise control to the left side and volume to the right ?
To my knowledge the same switchpacks are used along all models, so why not make LHD and RHD switchpacks ?
Is it all about cutting costs ?

 

Probably because they thought few would care which side they were on.

You have a valid point, but in three years of being on the various Defender forums l've never read any other complaints about switches being on the wrong side for LHD

 

I actually prefer the placement of the switches and location of cruise control etc. as to me they seem more intuitive.