[RoadFiend]

Originally Posted by mathranik

- Long term reliability and servicing are a shot in the dark : Would update my experience here

Congratulations on completing a year with the magnificent steed! Request you for an update on 1st year experience, please!

[morphin1]

Hi ,
Any update on how your defender has fared so far ?

[GTO]

Had loved the Defender over the weekend I had with it. Will be closely watching the reliability of later builds and hopefully add it to my garage one day.

Spotted this black beast. Absolutely nothing matches the style & personality of the Defender:

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

I watched “No Time To Die” recently. Ironically, 007 did not trust the Defender. He managed to outrun and beat a bunch of them in a decade old Toyota Landcruiser!

It is Toyota who should be launching a “007 Bond” edition!

Attachment 2316315

Jokes aside, this chase is one of the most exhilarating sequences I have watched in some time. Beautiful backdrop of Norway certainly helped I guess. I enjoyed this more than the opening sequence in Italy with the Aston Martin.

I thought the opening car drift sequence in Italy was too over the top and improbable, even by James Bond film standards. I vastly preferred the Landrover and Landcruiser scenes.
But overall, none of these new age Bond films car chases are as good as the ones in the old films. The main reason is that nowadays one never knows where reality ends and CGI begins.
I, for one, am quite happy that the Bond Franchise seems to have ended.
As a lifelong fan and collector of Ian Fleming’s books and other memorabilia, I ve never really been too much in favour of the extreme artistic license that the film franchise took. Particularly in the later films.
And I m decidedly not a supporter of this new ‘woke’ inspired tinkering and tampering with the plots, scripts and storyline’s and characters. Let them leave well alone.

[Hells Bells]

I test drove the Defender 110 2.0L earlier in Jan. My observations from a ~30KM drive are:

1. Presence - enough said already! I had drivers in Fortuner craning their neck upwards to ogle at the beast. Never thought I would see myself looking down on a Fortuner.
2. Comfort to go anywhere - coming from a Octavia vRS, I genuinely appreciate it! I assume this would be true for many of the SUVs but since was the first SUV I have test driven in a long time, I couldn't miss the sheer comfort.
3. Road manners - It is a SUV, and at a tall one at that. It is no vRS but it drove so much better than what I feared. I have taken rides in Fortuners and Innovas and this was neither of them. I appreciate this is a monocoque chassis as against my references being frame-on-ladder. However, it was very well mannered for sharp turns and with none of the boaty feeling. The true test would have been my better half sitting in it but she was not very amused at me doing such a test drive in the first place so she never came onboard ...
4. Build quality - The test drive car has 38K kms on odo and it didn't have a single squeak! I had read about its robust build and it came through in this car. I can only hope this was not an exception and is the rule for Defenders.
5. Power - 300 bhp is not a whole lot for such a heavy vehicle. However, I have already made peace with the idea that if you want a rocket, don't buy a SUV. Horses for courses. While some SUVs can be a rocket and yet be an SUV (think Cayenne), SUVs are often just SUVs. Don't buy them for drag racing! Therefore, the power seemed adequate for the intent of munching miles.

Overall, very impressed with this SUV and if my stars align in a few years, hope to buy one if there are no maintenance horror stories of JLRs for this vehicle!

[dj96]

Do the P300 and P400 if Defender require a higher octane fuel?

[Hells Bells]

Originally Posted by dj96

Do the P300 and P400 if Defender require a higher octane fuel?

For P300, I was told that standard 91 Octane fuel suffices. However, I did not check for the stated fuel as per the manual. In all honesty, with the Indian Oil's XP95 availability and cost competitiveness, I do not see a challenge with even 95 octane requirement.

[indusboy]

Hi,

Considering buying a Defender. Needed advice & suggestions on which model/fuel to go for. It is just the two of us, so a 4 seater configuration is sufficient. The usage will be mixed. Daily work/city commute, weekends to the farm (60Km away) & trip or two to BLR-HYD in a month.

Thanks!

[kashesh]

Originally Posted by indusboy

Hi,

Considering buying a Defender. Needed advice & suggestions

Thanks!

HSE or X are great specs to begin with. Absolutely go for Air Suspension, I find the ride quality better than my X5. I will also suggest going for Comfort and Convenience Pack as they alone worth it for Meridian sound system. I think 110 will be a great fit for you. While it feels like 2 liter engine is going to be insufficient but it does a decent job over all.

My favorite spec will be X variant (as it covers all essential add-ons) with 3 Liter petrol or diesel engine however if its too much of a stretch then

HSE Petrol with Air Suspension, Comfort and Convenience Package at the very least. We recently picked up a HSE with above specs.

[LionX]

Originally Posted by kashesh

HSE or X are great specs to begin with. We recently picked up a HSE with above specs.

Does it come with ADAS features? The specs sheet reads ADAS is limited to just Adaptive cruise control.

[RoadFiend]

Aren't there Defenders in the pre-worshipped market in India? The few I see are almost at brand-new prices. Is there still a supply chain slowdown effect persisting? Or the grand total sold in India is too less to trickle down to the pre-worshipped channel?

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by RoadFiend

Aren't there Defenders in the pre-worshipped market in India? The few I see are almost at brand-new prices. Is there still a supply chain slowdown effect persisting? Or the grand total sold in India is too less to trickle down to the pre-worshipped channel?

Partially inflated due to a wait list and inflated expectations

[BlackPearl]

Land Rover Driving Experience, Eastnor Castle

One of my friends, Arijit, had bought a new Land Rover Defender 110 and got a voucher for Land Rover Experience. Land Rover runs quite a few experience centres in the UK. One of the best out of them is the Eastnor Castle (https://eastnorcastle.com/land-rover). Eastnor Castle shares a proud heritage with Land Rover Experience who have been based on the Eastnor Estate for over 50 years and a valuable relationship still remains in place to this day.

Arijit asked me if I would like to join him for this driving experience and I was elated. So on a fine summer morning we started from London for Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire situated at the foot of the Malvern Hills on the edge of the Cotswolds. It was going to be a 3 hour journey. While starting for the trip I was surprised to be given an option to drive the Defender and I jumped on to the driver’s seat. I cannot remember saying no to driving a car, ever in my life! The journey was uneventful, I was very cautious driving a new car and that too one that is much bigger than I what I am used to. Stopped for short coffee break at one of the service areas and reached Eastnor at 8:30 am.









Arijit's Defender 110



Saw this G4 Range Rover and later found that it belongs to one of the driving instructors.



Saw a 6x6 Defender as well!



We were given some refreshments and after validating our licenses we attended a driver briefing session with our instructor for the day, Adrian.



The car allocated to us was top of the line Defender 110 with only a couple of thousand miles on it. I will not go into much details about the capability of the vehicle or the driving experience as there are plenty of articles and videos on the internet from people with much more experience than me. All I can say is that I loved the experience. It is quite costly with half a day course costing more than £300 pounds and a full day costing close to £800 if I am not wrong. I don’t think I would have spent that amount of money from my pocket, but I am chuffed on being able to experience it, thanks to Arijit. It is definitely worth experiencing if one can afford it. It is a fantastic marketing idea to give a voucher for these experiences to Land Rover customers as they can witness what these cars are really capable of.

Posting some photos from the experience.

[RM Motorsports]

The Land Rover Defender lineup has been rejigged in India. The SUV is now available only with the 2.0-litre petrol and 3.0-litre diesel engines; V8 and PHEV variants have been discontinued.

https://www.autocarindia.com/car-new...x_7c69Vfg6-DYg


Source - ACI

[4x4addict]

Originally Posted by GTO

Had loved the Defender over the weekend I had with it. Will be closely watching the reliability of later builds and hopefully add it to my garage one day.

Have had the LR Discovery 5 with the Ford V6 3.0 deisel, bought new in 2018, no clocked about 80K kms. So far no major issues faced except for a minor issue. After using on rough terrain, when vehicle was parked, the alarm used to go off. And the hood open light used to stay on in the IP cluster. I figured out it is the hood lock sensor. Had the dealer order it and replace the hood lock sensor. Cost was about 3000 Rs including parts and labour. Other than this only routine maintenance.

Had the Defender 90 for a couple of months now and one issue has cropped up. The motor mechanism to slide front passenger seat is not moving back fully. Parts have been ordered more than two weeks ago and still waiting. The front seat will not go forward enough to give clear access to the back seats. I can understand the delay as hardly any 90s are sold, so i am sure they don't stock parts specific to 90, but I don't think this will be a problem with the Defender 110s.

I can say that ironically it took Tata to improve JLR Quality. This is funny given that Tata is not exactly known for quality control in India .