Just want to inform anyone when buying a Defender without the heated windscreen what to expect. I am beyond happy with my defender and honestly can't see myself in anything else as a daily driver for a very long time. However!, The remote start on this thing was clearly done by the Fail Team at Land Rover. I park outside in the winter and when I remote start from my phone when there is ice covering the car (very common in winter climates) the defroster does not turn on automatically. Also, the vents for the windscreen are only in the center and not evenly distributed along the dash which is odd. One morning (very cold) I was in a hurry and it took 20 minutes of driving to defrost the whole windscreen, I was leaning to the center console looking below at the small space over the vents while driving for the first 5-10 minutes. It does not help that I have the V6 and it really doesn't get much temp from idling but after 30 minutes of warm up on a 10º morning, I am not thrilled to have to scrap away with my ice scraper outside my window. If they did winter testing on this they would have caught this and put in a feature to automatically trigger defrosting on remote start since that is the #1 reason for a remote start in winter climates. I would hope you could turn on the heated windscreen from your phone if you selected that option which would solve all of this but I opted for the standard because of supply shortages. I will buy another defender and hope that LR can make a few changes to the remote app and solve this issue. Cause every time I'm scrapping away the ice I'm thinking in my head "thanks Fing new guy."

 

You don't say what year but I had a 2022 and same issues. Added winter package and things like heated steering wheel and heated windshield don't come on with remote start. That's TATA motors for you...really bad IMO. Such a waste. I also hated that the key fob wouldn't start it and the phone app which for the longest time auto-logged me out every day so I had to re-login to it every winter morning just to start the car. Another fun memory was not being able to leave the mirrors unfolded so after we had an ice storm overnight the mirrors were encased would not unfold without chipping all of the ice away, during which I of course scratched up the plastic housing on the mirror mount in an attempt to get to work on time. JLR need to rent a Honda Passport and do some testing. It's all done exactly right. I can start it with the fob, heated steering wheel comes on, heated seats and windshield all of it comes on automatically based upon the temperature. I get into the car the wheel is hot, it's a beautiful thing in freezing weather. This is just logic honestly and there's really no excuse for it especially for the kind of money you're paying. And I mean no disrespect to the owners out here, it's a cool vehicle and all but... they need to do better.

 

You both are so right. Being unable to disable the folding mirrors is a PITA in the wintertime.

 

My 2020 turns on the heated windshield automatically based on temp anytime the vehicle starts, including remote start. I use this all the time in the winter and have not scraped the windshield since I bought it.

 

Way to rub it in (mine's been great too ). Agree with OP's overall sentiment though. Was shocked that it didn't turn on the seats and steering wheel too. Hoping a future update enables this.

 

Ha, apologies. Just wanted to make it known that it is not a universal issue. The mirrors freezing is something I had not considered. Fortunately it does not get too cold here.

 

Ah, ok my recollection on the windshield was wrong. Sorry folks, I knew it was two dumb things though with the seats being even more brain-dead.

Clarification is much appreciated. A future update would be great but you might need to flag down that guy who rides to work on an elephant.

They're glacial to address much of anything IMO, 2020 had a-pillar flap, my 2022 still shipped with a-pillar flap. Turned out to be the least of my problems with it.

Good luck.

 

Your recollection may be correct in that I think I had to flip on the ability for the car to automatically turn on rear and front defrost for it to work. I could be wrong though, vehicle seems to work in mysterious ways sometimes.

 

It seems, automatic rear defrost can lead to shattered glass.

 

Wanted to add that while I’m happy the heated windshield turns on automatically, I do wish the wipers would do a wipe cycle as the heater turns off. The odd time I’ve left it running long enough, the windshield heater timer turns off and the melted snow/ice refreezes. I think having the wiper do a cycle as it turns off could prevent that.
That being said, it’d be handier to just have manual control to turn the defrosters or the heated seats/steering wheel on