Thread: Which is better Off Road a D3/4 or a late model Defender? ... Puma 110

Originally Posted by TerryO

Ok this is not meant to create friction between the flat earthers over in the Defender section and the Latte set here, so, believe it or not I am asking a serious question.
Why? Well with all this talk of how rear new or late model 110 Defenders (Puma) are and how expensive they have become I went and checked Carpoint and found a 2015 Limited edition 110 second hand for over $90k. The only thing that looked different was the mainly orange paint. But even so other older higher mileage 110's were still in my opinion very expensive for what you get, so are they worth it and are they better off road than a late model similar spec Disco?

My thoughts on this well the only real claim to fame a Defender has is its serious off road ability, but seriously is a late model fairly standard Defender better off road when it gets in to the serious rough stuff than similar modded D3/4?

Now I'm not talking about a twin locked Defender on 35" muddies with a four inch suspension and body lift. I'm trying, if possible, to compare similar modified and spec vehicles.

To make it fair both vehicles need to be similar in spec and the closest to a Disco is a 110. To also keep it fair and comparible they need similar sized and spec tyres so let's say up to the standard OEM Defender size which is just under 32" from memory, but they can both be Muddies plus what ever wheels required to fit those tyres. I have included a couple of other mods that you commonly see added to many 4x4's if you go for a day out bashing the tracks up around Lithgow or I bet most other favourite weekend distinctions.

Front bull bar.

Rock sliders

Snorkel

And that is it, no other mods, yes you can remove things like mud flaps etc put the spare in the back if you want to as this costs nothing.

Sure there are plenty of other bits but this is just about trying to compare their off road ability with them as standard and similar spec as possible. I have put rock sliders in because I'm not talking about actually testing these machines with the least amount of panel damage. Plus compare their value for money now a Defender can cost as much as a new D4.

So given this fairly mild spec which is better bush bashing a Disco or a Defender?

you forgot one very important criteria: drivers knowledge and ability

a Defender will require a better more experience driver to get the same out of the truck then a D4 needs.

In a D4 the driver has far less involvement and decision steps to make...

one of the reasons for me to switch to Defender....

Originally Posted by Steve223

having owned a D3 and still owning a Defender 110 TD5 as well as well as Discovery 2 TD5. Without modification except good tyres in my opinion the D4 is the more capable truck. This will shift when we start modifying as the options for the Defender are far greater then the for the D4. My trucks are both heavily modified and for technical driving the Discovery 2 is more capable and in my opinion the better truck. For tough touring the Defender is the better truck.

Steve is the only person I know who has owned and driven seriously off road a present generation Disco, a Defender and a D2 having owned and used each off road for several years. All of his vehicles were / are modified, the D3 the least though from memory. So if anyone can pass a long term observation about a direct off road capability comparison then I reckon it's him, so his words above are quite telling.

If I remember right his Defender has 35" MUDs and lockers and as has been noted by SimmAus this gave his Defender roughly a 50% larger footprint than the D4, which is a real good thing if you are both charging up soft Sandhills or driving through bog holes.

I noticed with our D3 when I swapped from 245/70/17's to 265/70/17's, both sets of tyres were MUDs, that the off road capability of the D3 greatly improved and that is a relatively small increase in size. That is why For this comparison I put the Defender and Disco's on roughly the same size tyres because size of tyre makes such a big difference. With the same size and spec tyres fitted to both vehicles then what is actually being compared is the vehicles ability not the tyre advantage.
Anyway I think Steve summed it up pretty well above, I will be interesting to see if any of the hardline Defender crew challenge him on his observations.