Thread: Disco 4 vs new Defender comparison

Looking forward to the new Grenadier.

Cheers

Originally Posted by AlexRS4

There are a massive amount fewer deaths and injuries on today's roads as a direct result of vastly improved vehicle (and tyre) design.

No. There is almost no evidence to support this. Yes, there is a massive decrease in deaths and injuries compared to the past - how massive depends on what time gap you look at. But the rate of accidents, deaths and injuries have been decreasing fairly steadily ever since statistics started being collected in the 1920s. The only innovations that made a noticeable drop below this regular decrease were seat belts and random breath testing.

Data from insurers shows that in real life, accidents and their results are surprisingly independent of the vehicle's safety features.

The reduction is almost certainly a combination of a large number of factors - attributing it to vehicle design is very one eyed. Road design and standards have possibly the largest influence - to see this effect, you just have to look at the relative safety records for divided roads against two lane roads - and freeways are even better. No such comparison can be found for vehicle standards.

Minor changes, from road edge markings, to tyre design, to road signage, curve straightening, turning lanes etc etc all have cumulative effects, and one of the most important (but almost impossible to quantify) is driver attitudes. You just have to think, for example, about the attitude to drink-driving; thirty years ago, the response to a mate getting caught would be "bad luck". Today it would mostly be "the idiot had it coming".

Originally Posted by JDNSW

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The reduction is almost certainly a combination of a large number of factors - attributing it to vehicle design is very one eyed. Road design and standards have possibly the largest influence - to see this effect, you just have to look at the relative safety records for divided roads against two lane roads - and freeways are even better. No such comparison can be found for vehicle standards.

Its also about the type of accident. I think modern cars are safer when they run off the road and hit a tree, hopefully at under 60KM when they hit the tree. A big tree I am talking about too.

When I bought my Prado in 1996 (I still own it too but don't drive it much) I looked at safety issues. At the time, the safest vehicles on the road according to NSW road injury and deaths statistics, 4 of the top 5 were 4WDs. A Mercedes E class type vehicle was also in the top 5. The top vehicle was a Jackaroo. For two years in a row. Obviously in a city accident, mass matters, and in the city if a car runs into the side of a vehicle, weight and height also matter.

Agree - lots of factors but a big heavy vehicle with lots of crash zones and air bags etc. is going to be safer than an old light vehicle.

Originally Posted by Melbourne Park

Agree - lots of factors but a big heavy vehicle with lots of crash zones and air bags etc. is going to be safer than an old light vehicle.

It will also be safer than a late model light or small vehicle.

It’s all physics.

As far as replacements for my D4, I pulled into a caravan park in Euroa two weeks ago (checking up on some family history) and we stayed in the other side of the river there, and only one other van was there - an early Australian Off Road Quantum being towed by a D4 much like mine. The owner owns a considerable engineering business, has a beachfront home ( sand at his fence and right on the water in Bayside area) and talked to him about his vehicle. Incidentally his van would weigh around 2.3 tonne. He said his service people (in Seaford) told him since there was nothing at all wrong with his D4, why replace it? His mileage was over 250,000 km. And he can afford anything. For Australia, if you want to add a bullbar, increase the diesel tank size, thereby needing a rear tyre carrier, you need a chassis.

As others have said, such vehicles are not driven in much of the world the way we drive them. And the D5 does handle better than a D4 around town - its wider and lighter, so it handles better. But that is it I reckon. Same too for the new Defender.

While its a shame LR didn't just clad the D4 in aluminium, they would not have saved much weight after all. Whatever I replace the D4 with, its going to have a chassis. But hopefully I have many years before that is necessary. And I had a 150 Prado too and it drove much worse than my 1997 version, although it was marginally quieter, but it felt a whole lot cheaper, despite its Kakadu model status.

My D4 has had three problems so far: the driver's door rubber failing, and LR would not replace it despite my 5 year warranty (now expired). One of the rear seats will not fold up - not repaired by LR despite it being under warranty. And twice my gear selector had not instantly selected - I presume that will fail sometime and I'll have to put some preventative work in there for when it does.

Its a remarkable vehicle and I suspect that if ever the engine fails I'll put a replacement in it (they seem to be more available nowadays too). I changed my gearbox oil at 70k so I presume the gearbox will keep going. Mine's now got 90k on it with a lot of easy highway miles. If there was an adequate replacement available I'd have much higher mileage, but I avoid driving it round town more and more due to the lack of a decent replacement.

Re the rotary selector..you can confuse it if you suddenly shift from drive to reverse and back again after which it will stop working. A restart puts it right. I've done it twice now backing a trailer and being far too hasty on the gear selection...

Early versions of the system were even more sensitive to sudden selection changes.

Mine did fail but since resoldering the internals (as detailed b 4 on AULRO) it has worked fine.

I think that thread may also have mentioned the selector time constraints.

Originally Posted by Melbourne Park

Its also about the type of accident. I think modern cars are safer when they run off the road and hit a tree, hopefully at under 60KM when they hit the tree. A big tree I am talking about too.
......

Yes - but this is where the error in deciding what causes the drop in the road toll arises. No question that the modern car is safer when it runs off the road and hits a tree, although tow things should be pointed out - anything much over 60kph and it doesn't much matter the type of car, and you do not need a a big tree. Most fatals round here are exactly this scenario, usually well over 100kph, usually about 0200, and the tree is rarely seriously damaged if it is over 150mm trunk.

But the bigger influence on whether someone is killed or injured is whether it left the road and hit the tree in the first place. And road construction, signage, and driver attitude has far more influence on this than car or tyre design.

Originally Posted by scarry

It will also be safer than a late model light or small vehicle.

It’s all physics.

This ^

And wasn't there an accident stat that the 110 had a better accident survival rate than most cars on the road?
Yet who would want to have a serious prang in one??

I think that could only come down to physics (mass) and perhaps crash speed, ie most Deefers aren't driven like sports cars so the speed they crash at would possibly be lower than the average?