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The_hog



Member Since: 02 Aug 2020
Location: Reykjavik
Posts: 36

Iceland 
Reliability
Hi all.
I recently put down a deposit for a LR Defender 240 S.
Never owned a JLR before, but was totally mesmerized by the new Defender´s handling, looks and capabilities.
Have for the last four years had a faultless Porsche Macan, before that a 270 G wagon.
Guess I miss the off road capabilities of the G.

Now this morning What Car published this reliability survey for cars.
JLR is dead last!

So my question is: Am I diving headlong in to a snake pit?
Or might JLR be upping its reliability rating with a new plant in Slovakia for building the new Defender?

Rank Brand Score
1. Lexus 98.7%
2. Mitsubishi 97.9%
3. Toyota 97.7%
4. Mini 96.8%
5. Skoda 96.4%
6. Hyundai 96.3%
7. Kia 95.9%
8. Honda 95.3%
=9. BMW 95.2%
=9 Mazda 95.2%
11. Alfa Romeo 94.6%
=12. Fiat 94.5%
=12. Subaru 94.5%
=14. Dacia 94.4%
=14. Suzuki 94.4%
=16. Citroën 93.8%
=16. Volvo 93.8%
18. Ford 93.7%
19. Seat 93.6%
20. Volkswagen 93.2%
21. Jaguar 91.8%
=22. Audi 91.5%
=22. MG 91.5%
=22. Porsche 91.5%
25. Peugeot 91.1%
26. Mercedes 91.0%
=27. Nissan 90.1%
=27. Vauxhall 90.1%
29. Tesla 88.6%
30. Renault 87.6%
31. Land Rover 78.2%
Post #854218 4th Sep 2020 11:15am
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familymad



Member Since: 13 Dec 2011
Location: Bucks
Posts: 3481

 2016 Defender 130 Puma 2.2 HCPU Santorini Black
They rarely let you down mechanically. It’s normally that you get electrical and infotainment woes.
The new one is known for creaks and rattles and some water ingress through door-trims. Recalls out for wind-noise on a pillar trims.

It’s no Porsche for build 1951 80" S1 2.0
1995 110 300TDI
1995 90 300TDI
Post #854220 4th Sep 2020 11:45am
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Telemarkskier



Member Since: 20 Jul 2020
Location: Wiltshire
Posts: 126

United Kingdom 
I have had a Freelander 2 for 9 years, apart from what I call maintenance i.e. replacement turbo hoses after 7 years, its been totally reliable. I hope the more complex Defender will have the same level of reliability.
Post #854221 4th Sep 2020 11:50am
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custom90



Member Since: 21 Jan 2010
Location: South West, England.
Posts: 20333

United Kingdom 
It’s because they don’t maintain them, many out there will run any car into the ground. Won’t even get a service done unless told, not even a new car.

Sounds surprising but it often happens, hence the MOT after a few years. ⭐️⭐️God Bless the USA 🇬🇧🇺🇸 ⭐️⭐️
Post #854224 4th Sep 2020 12:04pm
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shropshiredefender



Member Since: 05 Jun 2017
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 834

England 2011 Defender 110 Puma 2.4 USW Santorini Black
Personally, even when driving company cars, I prefer to wait a couple of years after a new model is launched before committing to purchase.
That way the initial (inevitable) problems have been sorted out at the expense of the "early adopters". Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.
Post #854227 4th Sep 2020 12:10pm
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Tim in Scotland



Member Since: 23 May 2007
Location: The Land that time forgot
Posts: 3753

 
LR was at the bottom of the reliability listing long before the Nitra factory opened. Also check the article to see how old the vehicles being surveyed are - often they are owners of cars more than 3 years old who are surveyed, not the owners of brand new cars.
Also what do you mean by reliability? To me a car that stops for no accountable reason on the road numerous times is unreliable, a car that has to go into the dealership for software or QC issues but hasn’t broken down is still a reliable one BUT those faults are darned annoying on a brand new car, but it doesn’t make the car unreliable because it will still be drivable. Pangea Green D250 90 HSE with Air Suspension, Off-road Pack, Towing Pack, Black Contrast roof , rear recovery eyes, Front bash plate, Classic flaps all round, extended wheel arch kit and a few bits from PowerfulUK Expel Clear Gloss PPF to come
2020 D240 1st Edition in Pangea Green with Acorn interior. Now gone - old faithful, no mechanical issues whatsoever ever but the leaks and rattles all over the place won’t be missed!
Post #854228 4th Sep 2020 12:14pm
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The_hog



Member Since: 02 Aug 2020
Location: Reykjavik
Posts: 36

Iceland 
Here is a link to the survey.

Reliability by brand for cars up to five years old
https://www.whatcar.com/news/2020-what-car...nds/n20069
Post #854229 4th Sep 2020 12:20pm
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Tim in Scotland



Member Since: 23 May 2007
Location: The Land that time forgot
Posts: 3753

 
BtW I’ve now had more QC issues with my Nitra built New Defender than I’ve had on any other of the 11 new LR products from Halewood and Solihull that I’ve owned prior to it. It hasn’t broken down and none of the faults has rendered it undrivable but, while I accept it is a new model that will have teething problems, some of the problems only needed an eye to see they shouldn’t have got passed the end of the production line without rectification. Even more galling is that New Defenders on sale in the U.K. imported since late March have basically sat on a disused airfield for 3 months and LR could very easily have done an additional QC check on what are really really important cars to start sales with before releasing the early production cars to the dealerships. Then possibly the water leaks would have been corrected, I appreciate that they aren’t going to drive every car down the runway at 100kph to see if the A pillar trim will rattle, but a gazebo with a big fan in it would have revealed that design flaw very quickly and probably saved them a fortune in inconvenience to owners of early production vehicles. Despite all the forgoing I still love the car - FFRR ride and comfort in a car with wash down plastic flooring and trim that can be many things my old Defender cannot. It’s a fantastic all rounder despite not being the utility type vehicle a lot of people think it should be. Go for it if it suits your needs as it is a darned fine vehicle.
PS LR, you gave me Range Rover comfortable front arm chairs, what’s with no folding arm rests on them? Pangea Green D250 90 HSE with Air Suspension, Off-road Pack, Towing Pack, Black Contrast roof , rear recovery eyes, Front bash plate, Classic flaps all round, extended wheel arch kit and a few bits from PowerfulUK Expel Clear Gloss PPF to come
2020 D240 1st Edition in Pangea Green with Acorn interior. Now gone - old faithful, no mechanical issues whatsoever ever but the leaks and rattles all over the place won’t be missed!
Post #854237 4th Sep 2020 12:44pm
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Supacat



Member Since: 16 Oct 2012
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 11018

United Kingdom 2013 Defender 110 Puma 2.2 XS DCPU Keswick Green
You only have to look at the sums spent by JLR on warranty to see it is an issue and has been growing at a rate greater than the volume increases. It's nothing to do with running cars with no maintenance, the age of the vehicles (albeit warranty is limited by age), new factories, new staff or any other single issue.

That s not a personal opinion, the figures are stated in the annual reports and the issue was highlighted by the ex CEO as one of the biggest issues they needed to address. Over 4% of the new vehicle price gets turned around in warranty costs. If you have not seen that money put back into your car then feel sorry for the next person as they've had double that!

We had other threads on here covering the figures ~ the truth is nobody at JLR has been able to get a handle on it.
Post #854295 4th Sep 2020 6:32pm
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ChasingOurTrunks



Member Since: 19 Aug 2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 89

Chrysler (Jeep) isn't even on the list! Too few Euro sales to make the survey, perhaps?

These are neat rankings, but they've been pretty consistent for a long time and I'm wondering how much confirmation bias plays into this. For instance, my Jeep had tons of rattles and sqeaks and issues, but I only ever went to the dealer once and they were not helpful for warranty issues, so I ended up doing it myself. When I turned to the community for advice, Jeep owners generally were accepting my experience as part of it being "A Jeep Thing". So, as a Jeep owner, my vehicle use would not make some of the most famous car reliability rankings that use data related to dealer service. I see this survey used owner experiences, but I'm curious -- the answers you get to "How many unexpected dealer visits for broken or malfunctioning features did you need to make?" would get a different answer than "How many features broke and required repair?" (the latter catching the DIY person far more precisely). I don't know how they asked the question, I'm just speculating.

And for reference for my Chrysler experience, it was actually quite poor even though I loved the vehicle and would own it again in a heartbeat -- I had to replace a bearing in my clutch at 20k kms (Well within warranty, but the warranty coverage was refused twice and at a third location, felt like playing Roulette as coverage would depend on what they found after they did $2500 of labour to get in there, which I would be on the hook for if they decided not to cover it) -- that was the first of three occasions where I had to drop the transmission on that jeep in our garage in the time we owned it. Additionally, the top end of the engine was off frequently as I had to do an oil pressure sensor annually. It never truly left me stranded, but to say it was 'reliable' would be to ignore the good luck we had -- our clutch fully failed within 2000kms of driving after our return from Alaska. If it had failed 7000 kms earlier, we would have been in serious trouble. But again -- the surveys wouldn't reflect this because we turned all the wrenches ourselves, as many Jeep folks do. I know the joke is "Land Rover: Turning drivers into mechanics for over 60 years" -- but I promise, Jeep has been doing the same thing!

In the same vein, I know lots of people who love their Toyotas, because they love robust reliable equipment, and because of that love for their equipment, the odometer never goes past 5k kms without an oil change, and they tend to be eagle-eyed on maintenance. So, the type of person to buy a Toyota is more likely to keep it in good mechanical order, and I wonder if that plays a role given Toyota has had some very big issues in the last 20 years (Which to their credit, they addressed in good form with full recalls for things like the frame rust issue)

I don't know of too many typical Range Rover drivers who turn their own wrenches....generally if a person in North America can afford a Range Rover, they can afford to pay someone to turn wrenches for them, and that jacks up the frequency of reliability concerns on a lot of these surveys as a much higher proportion of RRs skip the shade-tree mechanics entirely. Plus, it seems many of the features on Range Rovers are fancy comfort features that are more novelty than necessity, which I don't think are a reliability issue in my books as Tim already pointed out.
Post #854296 4th Sep 2020 6:34pm
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markb110



Member Since: 22 May 2010
Location: Guildford
Posts: 2628

England 2002 Defender 90 Td5 HT Epsom Green
A friend of mine works in the service department of a main dealer.

He has had owners come in saying their Range Rover has suddenly gone slow - they had put it into low range

Others with a green 'car' light flashing on the dash - they were in a mode than included hill descent

Basically f wits who cant read the manual. How many of these 'issues' are recorded (incorrectly) as vehicle faults by owners too import to admit their lack of understanding.

I remember years ago during a heavy snowfall having to explain to a neighbour what and how the snow setting on their Freelander works and how it would help them.

I did ask them if they had gone on the half day introduction day at LRE, they hadn't, they weren't interested, it was just a car to them.

Does make you wonder
Post #854311 4th Sep 2020 7:20pm
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Pacha



Member Since: 23 Feb 2020
Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 772

United Kingdom 2008 Defender 90 Puma 2.4 HT Stornoway Grey
The issue with 'driver surveys' is that most folk have no idea - as posted above.

No doubt there are some who genuinely have had issues and right for them to complain and influence the results. Rgds.

Chris
Post #854324 4th Sep 2020 7:50pm
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J77



Member Since: 04 Nov 2019
Location: Fife
Posts: 3391

Scotland 
Land Rover has been bottom for decades. My Velar is my 10th LR product and it’s been the worst, but it’s never left me stranded, in fact only my D3 did, it required a new engine at 2 1/2 years old. So in my experience Land Rover have been reliable.

It’s their build quality and electrical issues that let them down but I’d struggle to find something else I’d rather drive, there’s just something about them. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them!


Last edited by J77 on 4th Sep 2020 7:55pm. Edited 1 time in total
Post #854326 4th Sep 2020 7:52pm
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ChasingOurTrunks



Member Since: 19 Aug 2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 89

Supacat wrote:
You only have to look at the sums spent by JLR on warranty to see it is an issue and has been growing at a rate greater than the volume increases. It's nothing to do with running cars with no maintenance, the age of the vehicles (albeit warranty is limited by age), new factories, new staff or any other single issue.

That s not a personal opinion, the figures are stated in the annual reports and the issue was highlighted by the ex CEO as one of the biggest issues they needed to address. Over 4% of the new vehicle price gets turned around in warranty costs. If you have not seen that money put back into your car then feel sorry for the next person as they've had double that!

We had other threads on here covering the figures ~ the truth is nobody at JLR has been able to get a handle on it.


This is not something I was aware of, but it does pose a counterargument to my post to some degree. Do you happen to know how much of that 4% was in actual failures versus labour costs?

To use the example posted by markb110, if an owner brought their Range Rover in because it was "slow", and a technician just kicked it out of low range, would that technician's time (i.e. the minimum billing for shop time, which is usually 30 minutes/$75.00 here at least, not including parts) be billed back to JLR as part of a warranty claim? Or is that 4% figure based on parts that break and need to be replaced, irrespective of labour?

It's a bit in the weeds to break it down like that, but I like learning about this stuff.
Post #854327 4th Sep 2020 7:53pm
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RDR



Member Since: 27 Apr 2018
Location: Derbyshire
Posts: 592

United Kingdom 
Having bought 7 Land Rover cars from new in the last 14 years for me and my better half I have been left stranded once (cam position sensor at 20k miles) they all have had their quality snags but I can honestly say after a year of ownership of my current d5 which is Slovakian built it is screwed together way better than any of my British built land rovers. Would also add in the same timeframe I have bought multiple new bmw, Audi, vw and Mercedes and they all have had their little niggles. 110 MY23.5 X Dynamic HSE
RR MY23 HSE PHEV
D5 MY19 HSE - Now Sold
D4 MY16 HSE Luxury - Now Sold
D4 MY12 HSE - Gone
D3 MY06 S - Gone but not forgotten
Post #854335 4th Sep 2020 8:13pm
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