New Model Defender - more non info

Maybe Im less fussy about wanting my defender to drive like a sports car, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how quick and powerful the 2.2 is in my 90. Its more than enough engine to keep me happy.

Wish list for a new defender

New body that still looks like a Defender (like the new mini relates to the old one) still alloy and still bolted together but wider so your not leaning on the door cards. Better seat placement so you are not sitting next to the B pillar,,,and doesnt leak. Lower rear seats (why are they so high?)

Same suspension

Lower ratio Low range gear set.

Bigger engine , no brainer.

Tougher diffs and axles. and propshafts as well.

better noise suppression.

Why cant new cars be bought with factory draw sets in the back, a decent fuel tank size and a snorkel as standard . A fridge plug at least.

I know it wont happen its just a wish list.

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Originally Posted by harro

Yes I agree, those figures really represent a mid range engine by today's crd standards and would have been ideal in the Defender as I am sure the smallish engine and 90kw has put off a lot of prospective buyers but......
Those sorts of figures would probably mean a new drive train and bigger/better brakes and I am sure there would be other upgrades needed.

The vnt has brought the torque figures up from the td5\tdi era but the kW output has stayed pretty constant and I think this has helped to keep the Defender the way it is (which I am pretty happy with).
There is no doubting this will all change with the new one.

Who knows with the output being achieved by the 2.0 litre sequential turbo Amarok we may even see a smaller engine yet!

Cheers,
Paul.

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The drive train would have handled the 3.2 puma fine, the gearbox is almost the same as the ranger/bt50 which also has a 130 in wheelbase:o
as for braking??? Defender already has 4w discs compared to most others with rear drums, the wrangler has a 2.8 tdi with far more go, along with a 3.6 petrol, navara has both 2.5 and a 3.0tdv6 with drums on the back, hilux has the old 3.0tdi and a 4.0 v6 with 200kw and drums on the back. AND they all run with rear leaf springs.
The 3.2 td5 puma is built in both the u.k and Thailand, but was uk only built for the first 12-18 months. This means LR knew about it well before ford put it into the ranger/bt50 but chose not to bother putting an engine in the rest of the world would want more. This could have seriously increased sales outside the U.K as it would have made the auto option as simple as fitting the mounts, along with greater demand for all manual models outside the u.k.

To me basically the defender for a long time has been the poor cousin, getting hand me downs and patched up bits to keep it going. Any real investment was taken elsewhere to build up other models, in the fear that giving the defender any more appeal would steal sales from other LR products.
In the mid 90's they chose not to put in the disco1's airbag setup so lost the USA market for defender, result is a 83 on defender we pay 5-45k for they pay 40-120k for and are! In australia we had the 3.9 Isuzu which outsold the petrol and relegated the landrover diesel akin to selling ice to Eskimos , it was competitive with toymota and Nissan , but did LR take notice and make this a ROW model option?
As to cost, a merc g-wagen 350 diesel(3.0 v6td with 155kw) costs over $150,000, there is no way putting in ashcroft axles, cv,diff, either a 3.2 puma or a 3.0 tdv6 an x-eng disc handbrake, and a basic airbag setup is going to add more than $10,000 to a defenders cost. It already has a 6spd manual, throw in the fords auto for the one legged and some sound proofing for those who like to hear what others say in the car and it will be another $2k at best.
Which would you chose, a $50-$70k defender with a 180kw tdv6 , 7 seats and factory 255/85's (33in)or a $145-180k g-wagen 5 seats and 265/70 r16 ,31 inch tyres?
2013 Mercedes-Benz G350 BlueTEC MY13 7G-TRONIC All Wheel Drive
Merc sell these happily alongside their ml and gl SUV which are all in the same price bracket with the same engines. They do the AMG version at another $120k on top of the standard price gl350 (around $260k for one of those)as a draw car, would LR honestly lose any RR sales with a special edition defender with the supercharged v8?

frantic, love your work mate,..brilliant post.
Couldn't agree more, Pickles.

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Originally Posted by frantic

The drive train would have handled the 3.2 puma fine, the gearbox is almost the same as the ranger/bt50 which also has a 130 in wheelbase:o
as for braking??? Defender already has 4w discs compared to most others with rear drums, the wrangler has a 2.8 tdi with far more go, along with a 3.6 petrol, navara has both 2.5 and a 3.0tdv6 with drums on the back, hilux has the old 3.0tdi and a 4.0 v6 with 200kw and drums on the back. AND they all run with rear leaf springs.
The 3.2 td5 puma is built in both the u.k and Thailand, but was uk only built for the first 12-18 months. This means LR knew about it well before ford put it into the ranger/bt50 but chose not to bother putting an engine in the rest of the world would want more. This could have seriously increased sales outside the U.K as it would have made the auto option as simple as fitting the mounts, along with greater demand for all manual models outside the u.k.

To me basically the defender for a long time has been the poor cousin, getting hand me downs and patched up bits to keep it going. Any real investment was taken elsewhere to build up other models, in the fear that giving the defender any more appeal would steal sales from other LR products.
In the mid 90's they chose not to put in the disco1's airbag setup so lost the USA market for defender, result is a 83 on defender we pay 5-45k for they pay 40-120k for and are! In australia we had the 3.9 Isuzu which outsold the petrol and relegated the landrover diesel akin to selling ice to Eskimos , it was competitive with toymota and Nissan , but did LR take notice and make this a ROW model option?
As to cost, a merc g-wagen 350 diesel(3.0 v6td with 155kw) costs over $150,000, there is no way putting in ashcroft axles, cv,diff, either a 3.2 puma or a 3.0 tdv6 an x-eng disc handbrake, and a basic airbag setup is going to add more than $10,000 to a defenders cost. It already has a 6spd manual, throw in the fords auto for the one legged and some sound proofing for those who like to hear what others say in the car and it will be another $2k at best.
Which would you chose, a $50-$70k defender with a 180kw tdv6 , 7 seats and factory 255/85's (33in)or a $145-180k g-wagen 5 seats and 265/70 r16 ,31 inch tyres?
2013 Mercedes-Benz G350 BlueTEC MY13 7G-TRONIC All Wheel Drive
Merc sell these happily alongside their ml and gl SUV which are all in the same price bracket with the same engines. They do the AMG version at another $120k on top of the standard price gl350 (around $260k for one of those)as a draw car, would LR honestly lose any RR sales with a special edition defender with the supercharged v8?

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All good points but unless you can quote actual torque ratings for the gearbox etc,
Really more of a rant
As for allwheel discs vs disc drum
Well they didn't just put 19 inch wheels on the D4 because they look good .
It was my understanding that engines were getting smaller because of crd technology and to save money on drive train etc upgrades.
But then without some stats to suport it that's robably just a rant to.
Don't know about the puma box but the r380 certainly was not up to the
500 plus nm mentioned and ther is more than enough complaints going around for the rover diff so probably just the lt230 that may accomodate the extra horses.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Deefa

Wish list for a new defender

New body that still looks like a Defender (like the new mini relates to the old one) still alloy and still bolted together but wider so your not leaning on the door cards. Better seat placement so you are not sitting next to the B pillar,,,and doesnt leak. Lower rear seats (why are they so high?)

Upright seating is to reduce the length of body used by the seating. To lower the seating, move the B pillar back and make the body wider you are looking at a significantly larger and hence heavier vehicle unless the cargo space is reduced. Bolt together body and leakproofing are just about mutually exclusive.

Same suspension

I tend to agree, but unlikely to happen. Solid front axle is very difficult to meet collision specifications. Also likely to be heavier than independent although I am not too sure about this if you make it just as tough.

Lower ratio Low range gear set.

Means prop shafts, diffs and axles have to be stronger as they handle more torque. Combine with more power and you will have a substantial increase in size and weight of these bits.

Bigger engine , no brainer.

Not going to happen. Perhaps more powerful, but bigger is unlikely.

Tougher diffs and axles. and propshafts as well.

See above - without technology advances, which may happen, combined with the above could rapidly see big increases in weight, including unsprung weight.

better noise suppression.

Hear! Hear! Although current models really are not too bad.

Why cant new cars be bought with factory draw sets in the back, a decent fuel tank size and a snorkel as standard . A fridge plug at least.

Drawer sets unlikley, although if the market penetration increases to the extent needed for a new model, they are possible. The other items really should happen, but I won't hold my breath.

I know it wont happen its just a wish list.

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My wish list would be a bit different, but as you seem to realise, wish lists, either mine, yours, or the engineers', will be tempered by a strong dose of commercial reality. The Defender is really a casualty of the increasingly stringent design rules across the world.

These constrain any new design very closely, and also make it very expensive to develop, which means that niche vehicles such as the original Landrover become either impossible to produce or so expensive as to be unviable as a utility vehicle (possible as a luxury or military vehicle you can sell for a lot more). The current Defender has been 'grandfathered' in for just about as long as has been possible, and is probably the last widely sold vehicle anywhere whose basic design goes back to before any real design rules existed.

A new design is certainly going to have to share its basic design with other models, and I would guess the only question will be whether this platform will be the current Discovery platform or its replacement. There is virtually zero chance of the platform being designed specifically for the Defender replacement.

John

@ harro... Well, I stopped reading yours after the first few lines...

Toyota are the biggest auto maker in the world with more money than they know what to do with,they are dropping the Land Cruiser because it's too much work to make it compliant,if it was so easy to do all the things mentioned don't you think Toyota would just do it?.To answer the question about why they don't simply fit other engines etc,remember they make vehicles on production lines,not in a back shed,the tooling needed for the change would cost tens of millions of dollars for the engine,tens of millions more for an auto gearbox,tens more for diffs,I came from that industry,the money needed for tooling for the smallest plastic part is staggering,that is one of the reasons Land Rover are designing a new Defender,to make it compliant with modern regs and easier to mass produce. Pat

Quote:

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Originally Posted by harro

All good points but unless you can quote actual torque ratings for the gearbox etc,
Really more of a rant
As for allwheel discs vs disc drum
Well they didn't just put 19 inch wheels on the D4 because they look good .
It was my understanding that engines were getting smaller because of crd technology and to save money on drive train etc upgrades.
But then without some stats to suport it that's robably just a rant to.
Don't know about the puma box but the r380 certainly was not up to the
500 plus nm mentioned and ther is more than enough complaints going around for the rover diff so probably just the lt230 that may accomodate the extra horses.

Cheers

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The MT82 would be the least of your worries,it is fitted to many V8 mustangs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by harro

...
As for allwheel discs vs disc drum
Well they didn't just put 19 inch wheels on the D4 because they look good ....

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They didn't put them on to improve off road performance.

If they road bias the defender to sell a mass load to D4,RR,RRS,FRLDR,EVO markets they may as well kill it off, they have that market covered already. It's supposed to be the ultimate 4x4 utility vehicle not a family/yuppy/urban run about. It does not need to go 200+kph - what's the bets they make a defender sport!?