[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.