But won't, in practice, "rugged and utilitarian" simply mean vinyl seats and rubber mats?
I can remember when people complained about coil springs and permanent 4WD - which are now considered a key part of the Land Rover ethos.
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No, much more than that - ability to repair at home without the stealer needing to work on it, parts availability the same, easy to service, etc. LR are one of the worst offenders regarding service information on their modern vehicles - will be interesting to see what ‘right of repair’ laws bring to the USA about supplying such info. Not everyone wants to (or can) drive to the dealer every time it needs a service, makes a ‘bong’ noise it shouldn’t or throw a fault code. LR are locking down their vehicles so third party repairs can’t even work on them, so you pay your money but it’s not really your car when it needs any work doing on it.
Except the 90/110/130 were still working vehicles.
This new iteration is the successor to the D4, it's not a commercial vehicle and probably shouldn't be called Defender, but that's a marketing decision.
Note that those who are excited about the new Deefer are either ex or current D3/4 owners, by and large not previous Defender users who bought it because it is customisable and rugged. It's a meccano set on wheels. The new car will be a capable SUV and is aimed at a totally different market.
Big difference.
Haha. History repeats. Same was said about series vehicles compared to the both then the new Range Rover and 90/110/Defender vehicle’s.
Once heavy vehicles exclusively used leaf spring suspension and carby motors. Now I reckon the IS trucking industry would be dominated by vehicles with air suspension and engines with ECUs. Yet these are working vehicles.
I don't think thats 100% correct,but then i stand to be corrected[biggrin]
I go to an Indie,they don't seem to have any trouble at all repairing the latest LR's.
In fact,on another topic,they also seem to have more commonly used parts on the shelf than the local stealers.
Now where is JC when we need him,he will know what there is access to.
It won’t be long before they complete locking down both service histories and diagnostics - there are quite a few OEM’s heading this way. Once the service history in the vehicles ECU an Indy can’t service it and record the service so your warranty will be void (That’s what they’ll want you to believe and most will although in Australia consumer law does protect from this in some way shape or form) - it’s already like this on some higher end euro cars. It’s what the right of repair legislation is trying to overturn in the USA. Legislation and legal action will stop this at some point but they’ll get their pound of flesh from owners in the meantime.