RE: Land Rover Defender | Frankfurt 2019

[anonymous-user]

InitialDave said:

I agree, most of the "green lane damage" you're likely to get would be due to overgrown and very aggressive hedges etc encroaching into the path.

Is this not why LR have the factory vinyl wrap/PPF option for the new car?

It's also worth noting that vehicles bought on a business to do a task are less likely to be looked after, simply because they will be depreciated to zero over their expected life in the business. ie, a private individual buying a £100k range rover is likely to want to sell the car at some point, for as much money as possible, hence things like paint work damage matter. But a farmer buying a defender to use round the farm is likely both to keep the car for longer and to effectively consider it to be worthless when it is scrapped. This means things like scratches, dents and non critical damage are a lot less of a problem

[andy43]

Farmers won’t buy these for farm use unless they are already ‘scene’ people with LR bobble hats. Gritted, sorted etc.
L200 or Isuzu double cab is where it’s at for workhorse use - which is why LR aren’t bothering with pickup specs - others do it cheaper, basic-er, possibly tougher.

[Munter]

InitialDave said:

I agree, most of the "green lane damage" you're likely to get would be due to overgrown and very aggressive hedges etc encroaching into the path.

Is this not why LR have the factory vinyl wrap/PPF option for the new car?

Self heals in the sun apparently. Neat trick.

[Mintbird]

https://build.landrover/2F89D7FD

55k , everything I need.

[Pesty]

Well I’ve seen this guys reviews before. He knows what he’s doing and he uses these in areas that pretty much none of us do.


Without testing it, looking at the stats he claims this will be the best off the shelf off roader..

Worth a watch he does have caveats and he qualifies some issues at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utZRGNCeZFM

Edited by Pesty on Sunday 29th September 16:18

[soxboy]

On the subject of farmer’s market, when you see these being pumped out at this price, you can see there’s not a cat in hell’s chance LR can get to this level (and not viable to do so)
https://www.ktgreen.co.uk/used-isuzu-d-max-leeds-w...

[Pesty]

soxboy said:

On the subject of farmer’s market, when you see these being pumped out at this price, you can see there’s not a cat in hell’s chance LR can get to this level (and not viable to do so)
https://www.ktgreen.co.uk/used-isuzu-d-max-leeds-w...

I was at some kind of country fair last year. I’m sure there were atv type things being pushed as farm tools not far off that

[DonkeyApple]

soxboy said:

On the subject of farmer’s market, when you see these being pumped out at this price, you can see there’s not a cat in hell’s chance LR can get to this level (and not viable to do so)
https://www.ktgreen.co.uk/used-isuzu-d-max-leeds-w...

What self respecting dead sheep wants to be seen in the back of that though? And how will it climb over that glacial boulder in the middle of the field that your father, grand father, great grandfather, great great grandfather etc etc just used to work around bit you now must drive over for some reason?

[A.J.M]

Pesty said:

Well I’ve seen this guys reviews before. He knows what he’s doing and he uses these in areas that pretty much none of us do.


Without testing it, looking at the stats he claims this will be the best off the shelf off roader..

Worth a watch he does have caveats and he qualifies some issues at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utZRGNCeZFM

Edited by Pesty on Sunday 29th September 16:18

He’s great, but a little off the mark in a couple of areas.

Air suspension doesn’t leave you stranded if it fails.
It drops to the bump drops but you can still drive it. It’s not comfy but as long as you haven’t stuck silly oversized wheels on it, the car will bounce along but is still driveable.

The height sensors aren’t as fragile as he claims.
In nearly 15 years and 198,000 miles.
I’ve changed 2 on my D3. Both fronts, drivers side at 155k and the passenger at 180k.
Both rears are original. A set of 4 genuine LR ones cost £80. A TX25 screwdriver is all you need to remove them. Then refit the new one and recalibrate into system.

For that, you get an IID tool. Any modern LR owner should have one in the car.
Mine cost £360, 5 years ago, and runs off an app on my iPhone and has full main dealer diagnostics plus extras on top.
I calibrated the sensors outside my house. The IID tool manual has a full guide and it took 30 minutes in total to sort it and get the car up and running.

He now lives in Australia, the Australian LR owners take some spare sensors along with other bits for the travels into the outback.

Just as you take spares appropriate for the older models.

Some LR dealers even offer outback spares packages, you leave a deposit and take the kit with you, when you return, hand the package back and pay for any items needed on the trip.

[Pesty]

Good info.

I assumed he meant if you are in the middle of some rocks and it dropped down.

Damnit back on best of the best again.

[unsprung]

soxboy said:

On the subject of farmer’s market, when you see these being pumped out at this price, you can see there’s not a cat in hell’s chance LR can get to this level (and not viable to do so)
https://www.ktgreen.co.uk/used-isuzu-d-max-leeds-w...

+1

[anonymous-user]

A.J.M said:

Then refit the new one and recalibrate into system.

And at a push, in the middle of nowhere, no need to recal, just drive. Handling and ride height won't be perfect, but who cares when you're 1000 miles from nowhere on an unpaved track anyway!

[Clivey]

A.J.M said:

Air suspension doesn’t leave you stranded if it fails.
It drops to the bump drops but you can still drive it. It’s not comfy but as long as you haven’t stuck silly oversized wheels on it, the car will bounce along but is still driveable.

The problem is if you're on terrain where being on the bump stops means you can't progress. Still, if it's a sensor fault it's not a big deal for the reasons you already stated.

Funnily enough, the air suspension's the one thing I haven't had issues with on my Discovery!

[Cold]

If the potential for air suspension failure is an issue for you, surely you'd just buy the model that's on coil springs?

[BlackLabel]

This thread must be a PH record breaker for the number of times ‘farmer(s)’ has been mentioned.

[A.J.M]

Clivey said:

The problem is if you're on terrain where being on the bump stops means you can't progress. Still, if it's a sensor fault it's not a big deal for the reasons you already stated.

Funnily enough, the air suspension's the one thing I haven't had issues with on my Discovery!

Shame you can’t say the same for everything attached to the air suspension...

The answer to your first point.
Turn car off and back on, resets system and lets you get further down trail to somewhere suitable.
Or change in situ and continue.

[camel_landy]

If you don't want to run a car with air-springs.... Don't buy one. No-one is forcing you.

Personally, I don't have a problem with running an air-sprung car on a trip. It's all about 'risk'... What is the risk of 'X' failing and what would the impact be?

When you take a car into the 'bush', for an extended period of time, you make an assessment of what could possibly fail and what you would need to do to get back to civilization. It's not about carrying every single spare part available, nor is it carrying every single tool possible, it's about being sensible and having enough bits (and know-how) to be 'creative'... AKA Bush mechanics.

For example. if you're worried about air-suspension failing, learn how the air-suspension works, where the various components are on the vehicle, how they interact and take the suitable tools (which includes your laptop). IIRC - With the correct software, you should be able to manually activate the various valves in the system to at least raise the car to a fixed point, much like running on coil springs. Even with a compressor failure, you will probably have the raw components available in your toolkit to put something together (tyre air-compressor... pipe unions... etc...). To mitigate against compressor failure, you might even consider getting a length of pipe made up, so you can connect up a tyre compressor or foot-pump.

Same goes for the other major components in the system.

M

[loudlashadjuster]

camel_landy said:

If you don't want to run a car with air-springs.... Don't buy one. No-one is forcing you.

Personally, I don't have a problem with running an air-sprung car on a trip. It's all about 'risk'... What is the risk of 'X' failing and what would the impact be?

When you take a car into the 'bush', for an extended period of time, you make an assessment of what could possibly fail and what you would need to do to get back to civilization. It's not about carrying every single spare part available, nor is it carrying every single tool possible, it's about being sensible and having enough bits (and know-how) to be 'creative'... AKA Bush mechanics.

For example. if you're worried about air-suspension failing, learn how the air-suspension works, where the various components are on the vehicle, how they interact and take the suitable tools (which includes your laptop). IIRC - With the correct software, you should be able to manually activate the various valves in the system to at least raise the car to a fixed point, much like running on coil springs. Even with a compressor failure, you will probably have the raw components available in your toolkit to put something together (tyre air-compressor... pipe unions... etc...). To mitigate against compressor failure, you might even consider getting a length of pipe made up, so you can connect up a tyre compressor or foot-pump.

Same goes for the other major components in the system.

Yeah, I'm quite sure a 1970s off-road veteran would baulk at taking even the most rudimentary of 21st century vehicles on a long trip, he/she would be panicking about the dozens of electronic doodads and all that wiring, yet we have managed to adapt over time to knowing where to mitigate, where to protect and what to do when things go wrong and now take such vehicles as our baseline. Stuff that seems complicated (electronic ignition, fuel injection) or fragile (catalysts, EGR, ABS) when it is first introduced soon becomes 'just another thing'.

The days of setting off into the wilderness with just a couple of screwdrivers and a socket set are long gone.

[DonkeyApple]

Woa! We were way off!! It’s not about being able to sling a dead sheep in the back but about dead giraffes.

https://youtu.be/utZRGNCeZFM

Actually, I thought this was a good review. The chap explained some logical reasoning for many of the changes and seemed to have considerable overlanding experience.

I just found the giraffe mention 26 mins in rather amusing given our own obsession over dead sheep.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Tuesday 1st October 16:55

[InitialDave]

Come on, man, the same page, even!