Thread: What are the pros and cons Defender v Puma v Disco3/4

I'm not saying they are crap (except Freelander, they are crap and I consider it the shame of LR), but they are not reliable cars. As you have excellent roads, good technicians and all the resources cheap and ready, maybe you can consider them as the most reliable. Let me tell you here in Colombia I have seen a P38 getting broken due to pot holes in Bogotá (off course is a full size hole ).... their ECU thought, due to a combination of high speed and strong hit that the car was in an accident... do you believe it? I really can't..... my TD5 alongside my ex HDJ80 is the most unreliable car of the world, however, I wouldn't change it for any car in the world, no matter the price, I love Defender and Series, and am really proud of Disco and Range, but I can't cover the sun with a finger, their quality sucks (doesn't need to read happy owners, I'm one of the proudest and happiest in the world). Here is full of 2009 and 2010 Discos and Ranges on sale with really low km... do you know why? it's because their new owners have seen how many problems they are having with them (problems maybe you don't have there due to good maintenance schedules, excellent fuel, good spares, the opposite of Colombia).......... problems the won't have with their Land Cruisers, Patrol or Cayenne once they have sold the LR.

This is a video of that day with the Disco 3. You know why it's so static? why there are only photos? because it get broken after that little hole....... sorry but I can't say it's a good car............ facts? that day the other Disco 3 couldn't get off that "mud bog".... a Series rescued it and it simply get in "limp mode" due to the "hard" conditions of the terrain...... what????? even a Subaru goes for a ride in that track with no troubles at all..... I don't know, but if 2 of 2 cars get broken the same day, it's kind of a fact.....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whS6EJ0IjvI]YouTube - Land rover LR3 with a lot of mud!! in festival 4x4 colombia[/ame]

This was the same day and place (different track). Believe me, I wouldn't have a Jeep in my life, but I can't deny that this Grand Cherokee made circles around the Disco 3 (real circles) when it came for 4x4...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aicChzlaeA&feature=related]YouTube - JEEP Grand cherokee amazing all wheel drive! in festival 4x4[/ame]

Besides, here we don't have your vast spaces, our off road tracks are a little more "shrinked", as you can see in these videos. Can you imagine getting into this kind of track (17 hours for 1.3 km) that big server (due to the big quantity of processors)? i can assure you it would die just getting into the first mud ramp (must car's can't get off it earlier than 2 hours, no matter if they are Land Cruisers, Patrol, Unimog or Series, with or without winch):

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/user/carlosbeldia#p/u/23/Y-8n4dlmHT0]YouTube - carlosbeldia's Channel[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K09p-AlvkEE]YouTube - Land Rover Series - Autopista del barro - Legion Land Rover[/ame]

Oh, I forgot... I really like Disco 1 and 2.....

Thanks P38 Ace those are some wise words and you are right that Defenders generally have quite a good resale value. I have had my fair share of P38 funnies which means that my vehicle is now very well prepared and for serious trips I carry spare front and rear airbags and other items so I understand your comment about never quite being able to relax in a P38. But I must say the trade off for covering miles in comfort has been great and I assume most defender drivers would carry some spares for a serious outback trip. . .

Originally Posted by carlosbeldia

I'm not saying they are crap (except Freelander, they are crap and I consider it the shame of LR), but they are not reliable cars. As you have excellent roads, good technicians and all the resources cheap and ready, maybe you can consider them as the most reliable. Let me tell you here in Colombia I have seen a P38 getting broken due to pot holes in Bogotá (off course is a full size hole ).... their ECU thought, due to a combination of high speed and strong hit that the car was in an accident... do you believe it? I really can't..... my TD5 alongside my ex HDJ80 is the most unreliable car of the world, however, I wouldn't change it for any car in the world, no matter the price, I love Defender and Series, and am really proud of Disco and Range, but I can't cover the sun with a finger, their quality sucks (doesn't need to read happy owners, I'm one of the proudest and happiest in the world). Here is full of 2009 and 2010 Discos and Ranges on sale with really low km... do you know why? it's because their new owners have seen how many problems they are having with them (problems maybe you don't have there due to good maintenance schedules, excellent fuel, good spares, the opposite of Colombia).......... problems the won't have with their Land Cruisers, Patrol or Cayenne once they have sold the LR.

This is a video of that day with the Disco 3. You know why it's so static? why there are only photos? because it get broken after that little hole....... sorry but I can't say it's a good car............ facts? that day the other Disco 3 couldn't get off that "mud bog".... a Series rescued it and it simply get in "limp mode" due to the "hard" conditions of the terrain...... what????? even a Subaru goes for a ride in that track with no troubles at all..... I don't know, but if 2 of 2 cars get broken the same day, it's kind of a fact.....

YouTube - Land rover LR3 with a lot of mud!! in festival 4x4 colombia

This was the same day and place (different track). Believe me, I wouldn't have a Jeep in my life, but I can't deny that this Grand Cherokee made circles around the Disco 3 (real circles) when it came for 4x4...

YouTube - JEEP Grand cherokee amazing all wheel drive! in festival 4x4

Besides, here we don't have your vast spaces, our off road tracks are a little more "shrinked", as you can see in these videos. Can you imagine getting into this kind of track (17 hours for 1.3 km) that big server (due to the big quantity of processors)? i can assure you it would die just getting into the first mud ramp (must car's can't get off it earlier than 2 hours, no matter if they are Land Cruisers, Patrol, Unimog or Series, with or without winch):

YouTube - carlosbeldia's Channel
YouTube - Land Rover Series - Autopista del barro - Legion Land Rover

Mate thanks for taking the time to attach the vids...pretty good stuff, but It's still subjective and I still disagree....along with a lot of other late model D3/4/RRs owners I'm sure.

Your average road in Columbia might be bad but Australia is a huge country that has a vast range of driving...snow, cold deep mud, tropical jungle, beaches, soft deep Bull Dust, rocks and desert to name a few...so it's all there for those who want to try. And as I said, read the threads, there are plenty of D3/4/RRS owners who are doing that stuff all the time......so there are the facts. The service for a D4 3.0l diesel can be up to 26000ks apart, so not sure how that factors into your point.

Your video shows a stage show......and it is obviously a fact that the D3 struggled and broke but mate there are so many variables to consider. The first one, the tyres. I could end the discussion right here and say, fit those tyres to a defender and see how well it would go and the answer would be "terrible".....wouldn't have got anywhere. No surprise really....the tyres are road tyres. If your tyres are slick with mud, it doesn't matter how good the car is....Traction Control and lockers will only do so much if you are still in the hole with all for wheels in the sludge. So do you think a Deffer would perform with that rubber on? Admittedly I've gone through a lot of stuff on my Wranglers but if I went through that, I'd expect that at some stage I may need some help....but not actually being there, I don't know......and what's wrong with being recovered anyway....isn't that an expectation when in certain circumstances?

Another point....no diesel option in Columbia did you say?...was it an SE....I thought I saw that on the badge. Does that make it a V6 petrol? So you already have traction issues due to the tyres and then you put a engine in place that can only handle the bulk (2.6T) with lots of revs....well that will never work in any car in that stuff. As to why it melted the ECU did you say?.....maybe the fact that it had the crap thrashed out of it due to the points I've made? You're probably right that it shouldn't have stopped running but I don't know the circumstances and how badly it got hammered. Would another car handle that treatment....being thrashed? A Subaru....it's a fraction of the weight....so maybe for the stage show it was fine.....but I think you're stretching reality a very long way to suggest that there is any competition in the real world between a Scubby and Discovery. Physics is physics though and there will always be times when things work against you or for you.

So, if it were a diesel with muddies on, how would it have gone? How good was the driver?

Did you take the video....? Why did the video not show the jeep going through the same spot?....what tyres did it have on it? How good was their driver? Incidently, there are many sites that say the Jeep is crap with regards to reliabilty and build quaility but the Quatratrack TC, I think they call it, is supposed to be great.

So as I said....a lot of variables....not a fair comparision at all. THe LR guy neede a kick in the arse for even thinking that it would do well, in deep slippery mud, with road tyres and a petrol engine.....but then again, I wasn't there....I don't know the circumstances. So I'd agree the combination was a failure but it's a stretch to say that all discovery 3/4 and RRS can't perform.

But as I said....put that rubber on a Deffer and tell me it would be fine.... Kit out the Disco properly and see how it would go....with a decent driver.

And leaving LR for Toyota ....haven't you been reading the reports for the last couple of years....?

Nissan.....same story....

Cayenne....probably great if you never really leave the road or get too far from a petrol station....LOL!!!


And your final vid.....nothing unmodified would get through that...and judging by how often it showed vehicles on their side, you just wouldn't do it to a Discovery. Modify it and live with dented panels and broken glass....don't see why you couldn't....but who would do that? But just cause you wouldn't doesn't mean you can't.

You see shows in Australia all the time with modified 4X4s....any make or model, LC's, Patrols, Range Rovers and even ones you'd never expect to see....they can all do amazing stuff. But once you modify a car....all bets are off....where do you stop? Lived round the corner from a guy with a Daihatsu called 'Piglet'.... It had every modification under the sun...god knows how he got it street registered.....I recon it would give the trails you show a real run......but it would probably run out of petrol a hundred yards up the road....LOL. You can't modify something to that extreme without a trade-off.

So, is a Discovery 3/4 or RRS more orientated to road use....I'd say yes....but that's marketing. Can it perform very well off-road and be mod'ed to be great off road.....absolutely. Read the threads.

Reliabilty....I'm going to write on another thread soon about that. Read the D3/4/RRS threads.....there are problems....sure.....read any make or model's threads....same. But I'm not seeing a pattern of blown engines, transmissions, drive train...etc. There maybe some out there....but there is not a pattern. That's what I call a reliability issue. Broken light fittings and annoying crap shouldn't be happening but let's keep it in perspective. Look at all the Bad press Qantas and Rolls Royce are getting over the A380 incidents. There is obviously an issue with that engine type....and as extreme as it was, it may have been one batch of bad components and now Qantas and Rolls Royce will cop a hammering. The press are now even jumping on other engine stories on Qantas aircarft....they are not even the same engine.....and RR engines are usually bulletproof.

I see this as being the same with LR......they've had years of issues and they are far from perfect.....but credit where credit is due.....let's not sustain stories that are no longer true. Tata's value increased X10 after an initial slump, on the back of LR and Jaguar....something must be going right....wouldn't you think?

Cheers mate.

Originally Posted by P38ace

JD Power's reports are exactly that.

From their website; "The 2010 Vehicle Dependability Study is based on responses from more than 52,000 original owners of 2007 model-year vehicles. The study was fielded between October and December 2009."

LR has consistently been near the bottom of the table for years, but we still buy them.

Capt,
You need to carefully consider descriptions of successful off-road use and your own definition of what constitutes "off-road" use.

To me off-road means "no road" while some may consider it to be driving up the beach. The beach on Fraser is gazetted highway with speed limits, radar traps and rescue close at hand.

I often travel alone in places a recovery truck won't reach. The P38 always got me there and back without a problem and I loved the thing, but, and it's a big but, there was always that uneasy feeling.

Whether it's more reliable or not is impossible to say, but the difference with the Defender is it always instils a feeling of well-being, total control and unstoppability, that let's you get on with the job in hand rather than worrying about what may be.

Obviously it's more effortless on the bitumen in a road oriented vehicle, but being effortless takes away a lot of the enjoyment of actually driving and becomes just a mode of transport.

Brucet said above that the Defender is a lifestyle and I think that sums it up nicely. It is, and a relaxed and friendly one at that. Never had anyone coming over to talk to me about Range Rovers. Now everyone seems to want to stop and talk about Defenders.

If you're still unsure I suggest you buy a Defender first. You'll recover most of your money if you ultimately decide to swap it for a Disco. That won't be the case the other way around.

Just remember to wave.

I said facts....not stats....they are very often not the same. Maybe I should have expanded and said 'facts that would stop you buying a vehicle'. You only have to look at political stats and anybody who's worked for a large company will know how stats are used by their HR department to insist that remuneration isn't that important to employees...LOL!!! Stats gets manipulated easily and even when a genuine outcome is sought, too many variables can dilute the outcome, making it impossible to find the important stuff.

I don't know as I haven't looked into the JD powers stuff....and I don't take much notice of magazine articles, etc (In this regard I look for testimonials). Do they actually concisely list what the reliability issues are? One batch of bad light fittings can affect thousands of cars. Statistically that is a reliability problem but it's obvioulsy not going to stop people buying the car. I'm sure you read the D3/4/RRS site as much as I have. There are still issues....nobody is denying that. But I'm not seeing a pattern of huge failures of engines, transmissions, suspension, steering, etc, etc.

I held off for years before buying the D4 because of the history but I did my research...which was very hard due to emotive input from LR haters and idiots who heard the same stories that were circulating for years. I'm sure there will always be cases of serious failure but I don't know of a brand that hasn't got those either.

So are those figures of reliabilty tainted by annoying minor stuff or real bad problems? That's my question.

Don't get me wrong, having a swath of ****y, stupid stuff going wrong with my car would drive me insane and is not acceptable but does that truely make it an unreliable car? When you say reliabilty, most people would think of performance related issues....something that stops the car operating safely or operating at all.

Maybe people on the threads just aren't writing about it.....but I don't see that pattern of serious concerns.....there are plenty of people having lots of less serious issues....but as you said, it isn't stopping them buying the car. I've had a couple of crappy things too....but nothing major. To me the general finish and build quality of the D4 is very good. Wiring protection however, could be better in some places. Other than that, it's great and is noted by everybody who's been in it!

Guess that's why they are selling so well.....

A Disco is a very enjoyable 'mode' of transport as you call it! Your comment sounds like a 70's Ferrari comment. They are just a very different vehicle.

Oh and BTW, plenty of people have stopped to talk to me about my D4....even LC and prado drivers.

Originally Posted by Michael2

Last years boys w'end was 4 Defenders and a D3 (on 18" rims) from Mt Hotham to Mt Buller the back way. The D3 was phenomenal, until it got 3 simultaneous punctures! 2 were side wall damage from a partially buried concrete slab from a disused DSE gate, but I think 16" tyres would probably have survived the scrape. Luckily it was at the top of the Zeka Spur track and a flat bed truck could come up the Licola - Mt Howitt Rd and carry him out.

This years boys w'end on the Border Track, and the same car suffers side wall damage from a twig sized root sticking out of he ruts. Then we had to empty the whole car, to access the bolt for lowering the spare tyre. Who wants to be on an expedition or road trip, and have to empty and repack the car for a tyre change!?

On both trips, all the passengers preferred the D3, it travelled fast and was very stable over all sorts of terrain. Thanks to active rather than passive suspension.

If you're thinking D3/4, I'd recommend the 2.7 D3 with 17" wheels and a Kaymar wheel carrier with 2 spares.

If you've only got one kid on the way, the Defender will be fine. I've travelled for 3 weeks on the road with 3 kids (and a wife) in a 300Tdi Defender, and no one felt uncomfortable. Plus for the price of a D3/4 you can get an 'old school' 300Tdi defender totally refurbished and kitted out. The Defender has timeless charm, so it will always look good in photos too.

Sounds like your mate was the problem, not the tyres....LOL!!!

What type of tyre was he running? Are you saying that every tyre smaller (smaller wall size) than a 17 has weaker side walls or is that just the reality of the tyres available? Cause I know it's a technicality but your not saying the size of the tyre stopped your mate getting anywhere but the lack of sidewall strength. If you can't get a tyre smaller than a 17 with strong sidewalls....well......I'm looking pretty sick on my 19s.....LOL

Originally Posted by Celtoid

I said facts....not stats....they are very often not the same. Maybe I should have expanded and said 'facts that would stop you buying a vehicle'.

.....

I don't know as I haven't looked into the JD powers stuff....and I don't take much notice of magazine articles, etc (In this regard I look for testimonials). Do they actually concisely list what the reliability issues are?
.....

I held off for years before buying the D4 because of the history but I did my research...

.....

So are those figures of reliabilty tainted by annoying minor stuff or real bad problems? That's my question.

Getting away from the original post here but to try and answer the above concisely;

Stats are derived from facts. JD Power is a world leader in stats and is therefore well worth a read. The stats are derived from owner feedback.

Owners of all marques are asked the same questions and "Study results are tabulated using a “problems per 100 vehicles (PP100)” metric"

2010 Initial Quality Study Results | J.D. Power

Various studies are undertaken including initial quality (first 90 days) and dependability (3 years). It is not reliability which is studied (that's very subjective) but overall owner satisfaction.

Manufacturers certainly take notice of the results tables and for good reason, they are their paying customers opinion.

The worrying thing about LR's latest models is that the faults largely seem to be completely random failings so you never quite know what's going to go next. At lease with the Japs the faults seem to be consistent, and deemed to be design features !!!

If the results are based on facts why is Toyota in the top half?,is the JD Power survey saying that all 12 MILLION Toyota owners that had thier vehicles recalled 2 years ago are satisfied with thier vehicles running away out of control?.I can't imagine the 80 odd that died would be to happy. Pat