Thread: Why have Land Rover only made minor changes to the DEFENDER over the years??

All I will say is both my defenders have been more dependable than my cruisers or hiluxs,yes my 16 year old Tdi leaks,in real world accidents the defender stands up well and I haven't broken a rear diff.I like the defender because of what it is,an old world hand assembled vehicle,most defender owners would feel the same. Pat

Originally Posted by PAT303

All I will say is both my defenders have been more dependable than my cruisers or hiluxs,yes my 16 year old Tdi leaks,in real world accidents the defender stands up well and I haven't broken a rear diff.I like the defender because of what it is,an old world hand assembled vehicle,most defender owners would feel the same. Pat

Agree with your statement, and typically all old cars tend to have their issues and depends how well you look after them.

One more thing,I drove my mother in law to the airport in the Tdi the other day,we hadn't gone 5k down the road when she said ''you can hear everything working in this thing can't you''.Classic. Pat

Originally Posted by PAT303

One more thing,I drove my mother in law to the airport in the Tdi the other day,we hadn't gone 5k down the road when she said ''you can hear everything working in this thing can't you''.Classic. Pat

EVERYTHING must have been working very quietly as you could hear the mother-in-law.

Originally Posted by voltron

Since I have bought the Defender, a million questions pop to mind. One of them that never stops bothering me is why didn't Land Rover improve on it in leaps and bounds over the past 2 decades??

My only uneducated guess is if they did, then it may have an impact on sales of the Disco. Or maybe they make good money from such an old design with minimal financial outlay and don't feel they need to as every Defender sold must certainly be a profit would it not???

Any thought's from those who understand Land Rover better then me.

Because nobody at LR had the vision, drive and creativity to make it happen after 1990.

"You can have only one engine and one gearbox".

But the Series vehicles had engine options, petrol or diesel, 2.0, 2.25.
Even the early 90/110 had petrol and diesel engine options. Early Defenders were petrol AND diesel.

How much work to drop in a 3.9/4.0/4.6V8 and auto box in the Defender as well as offering the 300TDi or TD5?

None: most of the work had been done on the Disco 1 & 2!

Airbags: could have been incorporated in the Puma dash redesign.

Side impact: well there is place behind the bottom sills outboard of the outriggers for side impact bars, and the doors would need minor interior bracing.

LR should have followed Jeep's lead : Jeep has consistently and successfully updated the Wrangler over the last 20 years, and the Wrangler is now more successful than ever before. Auto and manual box, standard and Rubicon trim and drivetrain options, petrol V6 and CRDi engine options with rumours of a 5.7 Hemi coming.

But the Luddites on the LR forums will never admit this.

Originally Posted by jakeslouw

Because nobody at LR had the vision, drive and creativity to make it happen after 1990.

"You can have only one engine and one gearbox".

But the Series vehicles had engine options, petrol or diesel, 2.0, 2.25.
Even the early 90/110 had petrol and diesel engine options. Early Defenders were petrol AND diesel.

How much work to drop in a 3.9/4.0/4.6V8 and auto box in the Defender as well as offering the 300TDi or TD5?

None: most of the work had been done on the Disco 1 & 2!

Airbags: could have been incorporated in the Puma dash redesign.

Side impact: well there is place behind the bottom sills outboard of the outriggers for side impact bars, and the doors would need minor interior bracing.

LR should have followed Jeep's lead : Jeep has consistently and successfully updated the Wrangler over the last 20 years, and the Wrangler is now more successful than ever before. Auto and manual box, standard and Rubicon trim and drivetrain options, petrol V6 and CRDi engine options with rumours of a 5.7 Hemi coming.

But the Luddites on the LR forums will never admit this.

V8 auto defenders were produced in limited numbers. You could also have whatever you wanted through LRSV.

I think fuel economy standards and previously engine displacement tax bands were the big reasons. 2495cc engines when the next tax band is 2,500+ etc.
Remember Jeep had very different market conditions and regulations in the US compared to LR in Europe.

Originally Posted by Dougal

V8 auto defenders were produced in limited numbers. You could also have whatever you wanted through LRSV.

I think fuel economy standards and previously engine displacement tax bands were the big reasons. 2495cc engines when the next tax band is 2,500+ etc.
Remember Jeep had very different market conditions and regulations in the US compared to LR in Europe.

PRECISELY: Euro-centric marketing. Let's just ignore the rest of the world. And now they sit with the result of this blinkered conservative vision.

The NAS spec auto-box V8 Defenders are BIG BUCK items in the US.
The BMW engined South African versions are collectors items.

LR had access to CKD and partial KD factories in Australia and Africa, they could have gone mental.

South Africa is still one of the biggest producers of RHD vehicles for export: up until recently, all the RHD BMW Series 3 and Toyota Corollas sold in Australia were made in South Africa. LR South Africa could have and would have built whatever LR HQ wanted.

In fact, our early 90 and 110s were built to a much higher standard than the rubbish that came out of Solihull at one stage.

Main reason they have not changed it is because most safety laws work on the firewall

If the firewall on a car is changed then it has to have a new set of safety rules and regs. Then has to be retested and crash tested

I was told this at Solihull by the land rover techs

The defender sold today is working on 1960's S11 specs and safety rules. Due to the firewall / bulkhead being the same.


This is why the bulkhead was not made wider for the defender and they just put on arches.


Laws around the world are changing and one by one less places the defender can be sold. Hence why it needs to be replaced.