The eagle has landed..finally

[Summiitt]

Well I went to Sydney today and picked up the new 90..having never driven the 90 D250 I am blown away not only with the engine and performance, but its handling on really crap rural roads. I was worried it would feel like a small vehicle, quite the opposite, its heavy at 2.35 ton empty, but is actually quite a big solid lump of a car that handles very well. Only 350km home today but have absolutely no regrets on the purchase. Ill keep this thread going as I have the expedition rack, snorkel and mud flaps already in the shed ready to fit, as well as UHF, dual battery and hopefully a bulbar soon.
One thing to ask the dealer if your ordering a tow bar-it doesn't come with the tongue..WTF? I made them order one for me at their cost but they agree that it should be part of the tow bar option..just a heads up..

[Pedro_The_Swift]

no tongue... nobody does. All the things people tow are different heights, and you wont know how bent a tongue you need until the first hitch..

More pics Please [biggrin]

[JessicaTam]

Well I went to Sydney today and picked up the new 90..having never driven the 90 D250 I am blown away not only with the engine and performance, but its handling on really crap rural roads. I was worried it would feel like a small vehicle, quite the opposite, its heavy at 2.35 ton empty, but is actually quite a big solid lump of a car that handles very well. Only 350km home today but have absolutely no regrets on the purchase. Ill keep this thread going as I have the expedition rack, snorkel and mud flaps already in the shed ready to fit, as well as UHF, dual battery and hopefully a bulbar soon.
One thing to ask the dealer if your ordering a tow bar-it doesn't come with the tongue..WTF? I made them order one for me at their cost but they agree that it should be part of the tow bar option..just a heads up..
Excellent! Now you can go play.

[Summiitt]

no tongue... nobody does. All the things people tow are different heights, and you wont know how bent a tongue you need until the first hitch..

More pics Please [biggrin]

Sure!

[one_iota]

This might be useful:

https://www.ownerinfo.landrover.com/document/3E/2023/T22693/50973_en_GBR/proc/G2392100

[grey_ghost]

Keep us updated - at this stage I am looking at a UHF install and that’s about all.

I just clocked over 25,000km 90, P300, 7 months old. Absolutely love it - the 90 suits me just fine.

[scarry]

More pics Please [biggrin]

And a couple of better pics of the series vehicles hiding behind the new toy would be good.[thumbsupbig]

congratulations on the new Defender.

[Summiitt]

I managed to get the above fitted up in varying degrees of difficulty.

The mudflaps were very straight forward requiring the drilling of the existing plastic trims, the genuine kit comes with spare clips as you are gauranteed to bust some no matter how careful you are. I would definitely recommend the classic mudflaps as they give great protection down the side of the vehicle. Took me about 2-3 hours to install all 4.

The snorkel was a real challenge by myself, the instructions actually require you to remove the passenger door to access the 2 bolts in the guard. I managed to do it after a lot of frustration and dropped nuts. The big issue was the rivet in the top of the pillar, the hole size was to big for the rivnut supplied, and has a double lip, so the bigger 8mm rivnut really didn't secure as well as a would have hoped, I ended up epoxy to make sure it held..not an easy job, and personally I would wait for the aftermarket to come out with a true snorkel, There is actually no hard seal around the air intake to make it even remotely sealed and probably doesn't serve any purpose??

UHF was also interesting-this thing is so well sealed and put together that getting from the outside in is quite difficult, I ended up with a window mount UHF, until a suitable bulbar is sorted, ran the antenna above the rear window trim, down into the seatbelt cavity, under the floor into the passenger under seat box, where I mounted the remote head unit.
I took ac power from the powered seats and then fed the mic cable up into the centre console. If you remove the torq bolts on the side trim of the centre console you can feed the mic cable into a slot below the cup holders and bring the small junction box out without any drilling. Its fiddly but was is a neat finish, I used double side tape to secure the small box to the underside of the cup holders out of site.

[Samblers]

Looks awesome, good work. Are you going for the wheel arch trims as well?

IIRC the accessories blurb specifically states that the raised air intake is not a snorkel. Don't know the height of the standard air intake but doubt i'd want to be wading $100k+ car to that depth anyway!

[loanrangie]

When are the morris minor wheels being replaced, don't know what LR were thinking with those hideous things.

[one_iota]

......

IIRC the accessories blurb specifically states that the raised air intake is not a snorkel. Don't know the height of the standard air intake but doubt i'd want to be wading $100k+ car to that depth anyway!

900 mm is the maximum wading depth with the air-suspended Defender on it's tippy toes...that's plenty deep enough. I would want mine floating downstream.:eek2:

[Summiitt]

When are the morris minor wheels being replaced, don't know what LR were thinking with those hideous things.

Picked them deliberately..bloody love it..much better than any of the alloy crap thats on offer

[Summiitt]

Looks awesome, good work. Are you going for the wheel arch trims as well?

IIRC the accessories blurb specifically states that the raised air intake is not a snorkel. Don't know the height of the standard air intake but doubt i'd want to be wading $100k+ car to that depth anyway!

Its hard to see but the wheel arch trims are black..sets it off nicely I think

[JessicaTam]

Its hard to see but the wheel arch trims are black..sets it off nicely I think
I think Samblers meant these: You are being redirected... (https://www.powerfuluk.com/vehicles/land-rover/new-defender/exterior-accesories/land-rover-defender-2020-110-model-extended-wheel-arch-set-genuine.html)

[Samblers]

I think Samblers meant these: You are being redirected... (https://www.powerfuluk.com/vehicles/land-rover/new-defender/exterior-accesories/land-rover-defender-2020-110-model-extended-wheel-arch-set-genuine.html)

Yep

[Summiitt]

Yep

Ahh I see, Nope won't be going with them..not really a fan