Thread: Disco vs. Defender?

The answer is easy Jeff, buy a D3/4 secondhand and let someone else suffer the lions share of depreciation and you can get a great secondhand Disco for less than the price of a new Defender.. ...

Anyway enough about safety the point has been proven beyond a doubt so let's get back to off road prowess.

As you have seen my good old D3 is capable of going anywhere the Fender brigade went on the last jaunt and did it often easier then the Fenders and it did this on 31" A/T's which means it is legal to drive on road in NSW's. I only once got hung up because of lack of ramp over angle because of the long wheelbase and small diameter tyres.

How many of the Defenders had road legal size tyres on them on that trip? Not many I would hazard a guess.

I'm not sure why being more prepared to risk damage to ones 4x4 when off road suddenly makes one model better than another, even though that has been inferred in this discussion a number of times.

cheers,
Terry

SAFETY

The Defender can carry more cargo safely than the Disco.

So crash safety aside, what has a greater risk on being in a crash
- a Defender on a dirt road?
- a Disco towing a trailer on a dirt road?

Bigger wheels means that holes are proportionally smaller (compare hitting a pot hole with a skate board or a wheel barrow to understand what I mean by proportionally smaller). Obstacles are also proportionally smaller, so that the Defender wheel is more likely to roll over an obstacle rather than be deflected by it (such as a gutter, rock etc). Also the Defender is far less likely to rip a tyre on impact with an obstacle - resulting in loss of control.

Now compound this with what speeds each of these vehicles is capable of travelling at.

This means that while a Disco might better survive a catastrophic crash, the Defender is less liekly to be involved in a catastrophic crash.

Terry, I was actually going to mention on this thread how impressed I was with your D3 off road, but the focus shifted away and got rather nasty.

At least two of the Defenders on that trip were straight out of the showroom, not counting roof rack and side steps and most had road legal tyres (I think mine are road legal, just the rims have excessive offset putting them outside the flares).

Buy a second hand Discovery? No thanks, been there done that, got burned, badly.

Jeff

I didn't read anything actually that I considered being nasty Jeff, maybe I have thicker skin than most.

I considered trying to have a shot at some one who was talking about vehicle safety for riding a motorcycle as being bad taste and a try to divert the discussion off topic, but such is life.

Re legal tyre sizes in NSW's, from memory, without an engineers certificate a vehicle is not road worthy if tyres are fitted that are over 20 mm wider or 15 mm taller than standard.

cheers,
Terry

the lack of defender crash data make all comparisons on safety conjecture.

A decent bullbar would have made that audi crash an entirely different event. Now what conjecture could I spin off that? Just that I would rather have a bullbar but have no 'crash data' to back that choice up (on a defender anyway).

the lack of defender crash data makes the landrover boffins look like they are trying to hide something. Why not just smash a few up and see what happens? typical corporate thinking; if we can get out of something we will.

Having said that, why didn't the disco driver see that car coming? was it the surround sound stereo? kids fighting over the DVD player? was he getting sleepy in his rolling lounge room? admiring his in-dash SatNav, adjusting his gazillion disc CD player? My point being; Did he see it coming at all?, what type of driving habits did he use at that speed? Competent long distance drivers are taking note of exit routes and oncoming traffic continually and would steer to avoid a head on at just about any cost.

i drive with the window half down, no stereo, or on only softly -never relaxing music, and I'm taking note of on coming vehicles lane position and type, all habits picked up from a truckie father, but quite easy to learn for anyone serious about driving safely at speed.

Replicate that particular accident and I would want the disco as the evidence is they survived, but real world, I'll keep driving without the distractions and keep my eyes/concentration on the road.

Ironically, it may be because I do tend to daydream that I am so 'against' all the luxury trappings, perhaps others are better able to stay focused than me. Again, that has always been something I'm aware of and take into account.

Originally Posted by TerryO

[snip]

Re legal tyre sizes in NSW's, from memory, without an engineers certificate a vehicle is not road worthy if tyres are fitted that are over 20 mm wider or 15 mm taller than standard.

cheers,
Terry

Yep, AFAIA the NCOP 50mm tyre OD increase hasn't been adopted in NSW as in other states.

The weird thing in NSW too is that once upon a time the RTA allowed a 50mm track increase on live axle 4x4's, but sometime in the last decade they've brought that back to 25mm as per normal IS cars.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Perhaps the Disco owners are talking up their vehicles to reduce their terrible depreciation, hoping Defender owners will buy their second hand Discos when they buy new D4s.

If that were true, then discos would be cheap enough that my wife would overlook the mercedes van-like appearance.

But it ain't. The bloody (diesel) things aren't depreciating much at all.

As has been stated, NCAP type testing is artificial and does not necessarily represent the real world.

A comprehensive and rigorous study of accidents in the UK between 2000-2004 showed that the defender (no airbags) was safer than all other cars and 4x4s on the road. Including the discovery (D1 at the time) and Merc ML.


http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps5e76ffd3.jpg

Note that the study only looked at chance of injury to the driver - since the vast majority of vehicles are driven with a driver only and no passengers (hence the vast majority of crashes are the same).