Good morning! With the service manual in hand, I removed the rear door panel and then installed some foam and taped some wires at a few junctures. The project took about 2 hours and you definitely need the proper mechanics tools. My wife was convinced I would never get it all back together. From a 1-hour drive, I think I may have it licked—but, in the past, the noise seemed to worsen at less than 1/4 tank—so, I am going to run her down and see if it returns—in that case, it’s related to the fuel tank in some manner and, on that one, I will let the dealer handle since I only have 2K miles.

Had the car coated with ceramics which was a 2-day job. Lots of bad swirls in the high gloss black paint and the car took nearly 10 hours of solid work. License plate captures my son’s college and # playing Lacrosse. Go Royals!

I will send a separate picture of the tubular welded tire rack that my brother-in-law cranked out for the holidays so that I can remove the 22’s and have a back-up set of rims with a more aggressive lock.

BTW—although I had reservations on the 22’s and never would have ordered the ride with these, they are quiet, the ride is comfortable and the handling excellent four a vehicle of this ride height and brick box.



Queens University, Charlotte NC.

The upper black plastic around the rear glass was terrible. Terrible swirls. I had the rear tire cover painted as well. It’s Santorini Black.

Victory at last! As long as you take that final screw out of the door handle, it pops right off. Don’t try and pry it open.

Making progress…

A surprising number of wiring looms and attachments to disconnect.

 

Looks brilliant. You’re a braver man than I. And I think 22s look good. Just not great once you’re off tarmac. Hopefully you’ve fixed that rattle. Most annoying thing in any car. Quick question. Why is the front plate different from the back? Is that legal?

 

In NC, front plates are not required on vehicles. They are decorative only. You can put pretty much anything you want up front so long as not profane—although, I have seen a few borderline ones.

Yes, the 22’s will be going into the rack for storage at appropriate times. I will be swapping them out with 20s for seasonal use. I am looking at clear film or wrapping the lower sills. I like the look, but, all black painted surfaces are a mess off road.

I will say, it’s the first time I disassembled something like this. Last time I popped a door off was a Honda Civic 30 years ago. But, now that I have a flavor of the clip design tabs, I am less concerned. I am trying to decide whether to replace the speakers. I really don’t find the Meridians that good in the mid-section, although mostly the subwoofer is terrible.

if you guys take apart your Defender, send pictures and learned lessons.

BA

 

Looks great, @Simon14 ! May be too late, but if you are still in there - I JUST found the section titled "Rattle from Door Trim" (501-05) in the workshop manual. I would recommend checking out that section if you haven't to see what they think could also cause door rattles. Complete with pictures!!

 

I don’t see that in my workshop service manual—although, I only have the 2020. Is this in a later manual? If so, can you push out the link.

 

It's the 2022 version. I think it's the one @_Allegedly shared.

 

How about a Land Rover issue. This morning it was well below freezing in the teens (f) I'm about to shower at 7am EST and want to warm up the Defender because it's going to take at least 20 minutes to do it. The In Control app says Servers Are Down. That's the second time in a week this has happened otherwise I wouldn't bother to post it, c'mon Land Rover, I can buy a Renegade for $300 per month and probably start it reliably with the fob. Please, fix your junk when I'm paying over 1k per month for it, and add heated seats, windshield and steering wheel to this app of yours because yes that too is part of my remote 'climate'.

To make matters worse when the server is down it then subsequently makes you re-enter your username and password, reactivate touch ID etc. Ugh...

 

Have to agree, their app is absolutely terrible. Light years off of Mercedes, and that app isn't very useful either

 

As a prior Range Rover owner with absolutely horrific technology, I tend to think the Defender is light years ahead. I found my BMW app on my 2019 X5 pretty much a joke except for finding the car. I think I used in 2 times. Same with the Volvo app on my wife's 2018 XC 90. I have not owned an MB in a while though--so, perhaps they have it licked.

I do find myself bracing a bit on this ride. I took my own door apart because the dealership already is backlogged getting folks into service and with a very short-supply of loaners since they pretty much sold a huge chunk of these as they are out of cars. The showroom floor is spooky at both locations in our market--there are no LRs or RRs in the showroom floor. It's like a big open ice-skating rink other than a Jaguar F-Pace.

I do wonder when they PHEV will hit our market in any supply--but, not sure even there I want to be a year 1 experiment with software updates and what not. But, starting to feel the pressure of moving away from fossil fuel...Although, I am not really certain that will truly happen until the 2030's. Not enough charging stations to make that plunge.

As far as the app goes, it sucks. I am just not certain I used my app much in the other vehicles we have owned of late. They had a car locate feature (geez, I typically remember where I park), a navigation upload feature to the car navigation system (I use car-play), BMW had the ability to schedule service visits (but my dealership never paid attention and I still had to schedule by phone call or dealer website) and that left auto-start to warm up the car. I am remarkably surprised with the updated software for the PriviPro itself. I can actually make quick adjustments to settings as I tinker a lot--far, far faster than the BMW's which had sub-menus upon sub-menus. The automative journalists typically rate that system one of the bests--but, I found it antiquated and BMW is racing to update the X5 and X7 for 2023 with new screen and software systems, hampered by chip shortages. Honestly, our 12 inch system on the Ram 1500 Limited is probably the best---although, I have not even looked at the app.

Keep the postings and updates on technical issues.

BA

 

When the app fails to connect to the server, I’ve usually found killing it and relaunching fixes it (I use iOS so do this with the swipe up to get to the app selector and then swipe up on the app) and it will then work as normal without any need to re-enter credentials.

With that said, it does occasionally log you out for some inexplicable reason. But the failure to connect to the server glitch can sometimes be cured just by an app restart.