Thread: Land Rover vs Ford Transit

Defender is DEFINITELY at the fly.
Pickles.

Originally Posted by bob10

The question must be, does it really need any more? Bob

Only if they actually wanted to sell more
It's getting painfully obvious the defender was just getting tarted up with a flash interior and the cheapest engine choice. The 3.2 td5 uses the same mounts so would have been an easy option to provide. The thing is they didn't want to lose sales of base model d4's but also in arrogance ignored market trends where you have dual cabs with identical drive trains to their wagon equivalent outselling the wagon, often by big numbers!
Toymota hilux outsells the identical engine/gearbox playdough, Nissan navara outsold both the old identical engine pathfinder( to the point that the new pathfinder is more like a territory with no low range and Nissan only have the patrols as a low range off road wagon) as well as the current one and that will be an even bigger difference with the top spec navara having coil spring rear solid axle, Isuzu ditto, Holden Colorado dc sells more than 7 , Mitsubishi triton sells far more than challenger.
Most of those manufacturers release the ute and dual cab well before the wagon, LR have instead neglected the defender to the point there will be a 2-3 year wait between shutting down the original and a replacement.
As to power, people want a ute to carry the sheep around the farm/tools during the week as well as the family to town, with similar performance to the wagons in town , like someone else said the number of power ups and entire engine exchanges in LR defenders is far higher than any other make especially for such a limited base to start from.

Land Rover are designing a new defender,they aren't going to spend money on this model,how many of you who constantly knock LR actually drive other more powerfull vehicles?,my stock TDCi is a damn sight better at towing than my LC V8,my old D4D auto Hilux couldn't hold 6th gear unless it was on dead flat ground and the Ranger 3.2ltre did not feel any more powerfull,it took off from the lights better but thats most likely because it's lighter,yes the TDCi would have been better as a 3.0ltre four but it isn't,get over it. Pat

Originally Posted by Sitec

Sure does.. Apart from massive V8's for racing etc, how many converted Patrols or Cruisers do we see....? Very few.. How many Land Rovers have had engine conversions? Quite a few! All of mine bar 1 have had larger diesels fitted. 3 to 4 litres in 90's and 110's, 4+ in 130's, and 5+ in 101's!!!! Pushing 5.9 litres and 500+ nm of torque thru an LT230 in my 101!

You must not get out much,Marks 4wd have built a whole industry on Toyota and Nissan conversions,me personally I do not know a single person with a late model LR with any type of conversion,I know lots of Jap owners with everything from seat changes to motors and gearbox's and a couple with body conversions. Pat

Originally Posted by PAT303

Land Rover are designing a new defender,they aren't going to spend money on this model,how many of you who constantly knock LR actually drive other more powerfull vehicles?,my stock TDCi is a damn sight better at towing than my LC V8,my old D4D auto Hilux couldn't hold 6th gear unless it was on dead flat ground and the Ranger 3.2ltre did not feel any more powerfull,it took off from the lights better but thats most likely because it's lighter,yes the TDCi would have been better as a 3.0ltre four but it isn't,get over it. Pat

Pat - you have about 10x as many posts knocking toyotas as anyone else on here, and even more saying how wonderful all LR products are in stock form, so it all starts to fall on deaf ears after a while. I reckon if LR released a rebadged Tata Xenon as the defender replacement you would be raving about how great it was. In fact it seems to have the same motor as the current defender - but for $23k!

I have done about 25k km in the past 12 months driving around the bush and farms in rental Toyota VDJ79s / LC200s / Prados. With the 4.5 V8D / 4.5 V8D twin turbo / 3.0 TD respectively. All 3 of them have better low down grunt than a puma and are much better to drive offroad (suspension aside on the leaf sprung models). The 3.0 is a bit doughy down low like the 2.2/2.4 though. Interestingly the performance of the VDJ79s has varied quite a lot - they are rentals though so have probably had a hard life even though most only have 20-40k km.

The fact is that LR (a) don't care about the defender and (b) saw it as a convenient means of getting under the EU fleet engine/emissions rules. The defender engine is the poor sister of the transit engine which has better filtration and more power. If LR cared about the OS defender markets they would have offered one of the ford V6 diesels as an option.

Originally Posted by PAT303

You must not get out much,Marks 4wd have built a whole industry on Toyota and Nissan conversions,me personally I do not know a single person with a late model LR with any type of conversion,I know lots of Jap owners with everything from seat changes to motors and gearbox's and a couple with body conversions. Pat

Marks and 1 or 2 others do engine swaps, but they also do them for LR , in the U.K you have dozens of large groups doing both petrol and larger diesel conversions to defenders , D1 and 2. Then throw in the 100's of shops who will flash the td5, tdci2.4 or 2.2, will do bigger turbo's on the tdi, all for around 25,000 sales in the U.K.
You are ignoring the RATIO of modified/converted LR defenders compared to the Jap/seppo's. If I went around the LR show in august, how many of the TD5's would be stock? Mine has an EGR blank, no cat/flow exhaust and silicon hoses, my plans are for a flash tune , intercooler, and boost box when $$$ let me.
The stupid thing is the number of people in the U.K, home of $2.70 + fuel putting in bigger higher consumption engines/mods yet LR still ignore the demand.
Every other manufacturer has far more go from either larger engines or more tech(all tick options), VW-125-132kw and 400+ NM same load, Ford/mazda 147kw td5 and 470nm with the same ****** gearbox as a defender, jeep unlimited 2.8 has similar output at 147kw and 460nm in a live coil axle 4x4.
There is an old political saying that applies here, if one person voices their complaint, there are 10 who will vote the same way, same applies here, if there is one who is willing to buy a new defender and modify/change the engine for more power/drop in an auto, there would be 10+ sales if LR provided that option themselves.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Pat - you have about 10x as many posts knocking toyotas as anyone else on here, and even more saying how wonderful all LR products are in stock form, so it all starts to fall on deaf ears after a while. I reckon if LR released a rebadged Tata Xenon as the defender replacement you would be raving about how great it was. In fact it seems to have the same motor as the current defender - but for $23k!

I have done about 25k km in the past 12 months driving around the bush and farms in rental Toyota VDJ79s / LC200s / Prados. With the 4.5 V8D / 4.5 V8D twin turbo / 3.0 TD respectively. All 3 of them have better low down grunt than a puma and are much better to drive offroad (suspension aside on the leaf sprung models). The 3.0 is a bit doughy down low like the 2.2/2.4 though. Interestingly the performance of the VDJ79s has varied quite a lot - they are rentals though so have probably had a hard life even though most only have 20-40k km.

The fact is that LR (a) don't care about the defender and (b) saw it as a convenient means of getting under the EU fleet engine/emissions rules. The defender engine is the poor sister of the transit engine which has better filtration and more power. If LR cared about the OS defender markets they would have offered one of the ford V6 diesels as an option.

Thats funny because you have 10x as many posts telling everyone how much better every other make is compared to LR's,I've had about 9 Toyota's and six LR's,I think that allows me to judge,LR don't care about the Defender?,so your telling me Toyota care about the 79?,obviously the narrow rear diff from the 80's is some type of improvement to name one example. Pat

Originally Posted by frantic

Marks and 1 or 2 others do engine swaps, but they also do them for LR , in the U.K you have dozens of large groups doing both petrol and larger diesel conversions to defenders , D1 and 2. Then throw in the 100's of shops who will flash the td5, tdci2.4 or 2.2, will do bigger turbo's on the tdi, all for around 25,000 sales in the U.K.
You are ignoring the RATIO of modified/converted LR defenders compared to the Jap/seppo's. If I went around the LR show in august, how many of the TD5's would be stock? Mine has an EGR blank, no cat/flow exhaust and silicon hoses, my plans are for a flash tune , intercooler, and boost box when $$$ let me.
The stupid thing is the number of people in the U.K, home of $2.70 + fuel putting in bigger higher consumption engines/mods yet LR still ignore the demand.
Every other manufacturer has far more go from either larger engines or more tech(all tick options), VW-125-132kw and 400+ NM same load, Ford/mazda 147kw td5 and 470nm with the same ****** gearbox as a defender, jeep unlimited 2.8 has similar output at 147kw and 460nm in a live coil axle 4x4.
There is an old political saying that applies here, if one person voices their complaint, there are 10 who will vote the same way, same applies here, if there is one who is willing to buy a new defender and modify/change the engine for more power/drop in an auto, there would be 10+ sales if LR provided that option themselves.

Reading the UK mags there's bugger all engine conversions,just performance mods,if the jap engines are so good compared to the under powered TDCi why do they have all the same upgrades?.With sales why do you think LR is developing the new defender?,to make it compliant with all of todays regulations,LR have written numerous times they are keen to get it back to America. Pat