New Land Rover Defender 90 Hardtop 12 month review. Is it a true farmer's car?

well welcome to a new Harry's farm video and this one is a bit of a special one for the farm because I'm going to do a car review I'm not going to do it on Harry's Garage because it's all about the farm Defender hardtop so this is the commercial version of the new Land Rover Defender this is a D200 form and I have had this car now for 12 months on the farm and done over 10 000 miles and it goes back next week and I'm a bit miffed really but I've learned an awful lot about running a Defender and how it works on Farm there are some good bits and there's some bad bits and I'm going to run through all of that from a Pharma perspective okay the first thing you've got to understand about this Defender is I have never washed this car in 12 months and look at it I can't get over how well this color seems to work God this is an optional extra this particular this metallic green Pangea green paint 895 pound option I made it so it was also on the roof as well you can have a white roof if you want you can have a white panel here but when I suspect the car I didn't really want it to look like a van and I went for this as I say I have never washed this car at all and it still looks very smart to me a key thing I think I did I put mud flaps on I'm a bit of a sucker for mud flaps I think they do a really good job and they're almost essential in this car if you want a car look like this there are 160 pounds I think front classic mud flaps they're called the other thing about this D200 is I wanted the spec with the steel wheel so this is the base spec and when this car was new it was 44 210 on the road before options the car has optioned up as we go around it was 53 202 so it's very easy to spend quite a lot on options but I'll take you around those as we go around the car so yeah number one I'm really impressed of how clean it's kept there are the other thing I've noticed on it it's big you know that's quite a height and it's high and when you get in and out of it if I quickly open the door it's quite a step into this car I love the way it's got rubber mats we'll go around the interior in a moment but what you have to remember if you get the base Defender it does not have air suspension on it an air suspension would have a normal ride height and then an off-road ride height because this is steel coil sprung standard as you get in it's basically an off-road height all the time hence it just looks chunkier now another thing around the front a negative Point these lights these lights were premium LED headlights with signature DRL 350 pounds they are rubbish like this is the worst modern car for headlights and driving at night that I know you can barely tell the difference between dip and Main beam inexplicable to me because modern headlights some of the LED lights out today are just amazing new Range Rover has amazing LED lights this one terrible lights what else is there at the front um I hate this Checker plate because it's just plastic I'm not it's all do you stand on it what you meant to do on it I'm really not sure what that's all about underneath I did put some protection on it you go I might just grab the camera um if you go right underneath you can see I have this metal plate here bass plate and protection down there that actually got bashed when we did an off-road event it's quite expensive option front Expedition protection system with undershield 1278 pounds for that the options on it I don't understand those black rails they were extra 330 pounds to have roof rails if you want to put a roof rack on it that's how much that costs little thing on the outside I've noticed this snapped off within days of having it it should go in there it won't stay in there I have no idea why they add blue over ten thousand miles and I've never put any extra add blue in it good thing is the tank gives you 500 mile range if you're not doing any tone or anything and you're doing sort of longest Journeys uncover spare wheel and you'll notice these tires are not off-road tires they are the standard fit all season Tire they are amazing I uh I regretted not ticking off-road tires when I originally spec the car it was too late to change the spec and it came on these road tires having lived with the car for 12 months these are the tires of choice I would not bother with off-road tires there is technology on this car for off-roading that is off the scale it does not matter what tires you have on it unless you're really extreme off-roading the standard all season tires do the job obviously on the defender you get this single door one peculiarity with it it's soft clothes oh they have soft clothes on a Defender commercial but it has but if this is a bit of a problem area on this Defender if you're actually using it for work basis one this is quite narrow and you've it's surprising how little you can get in here and two has that flipping bulkhead now this is a legal requirement and if I owned it it would be out in an instant it's it's quite easy to remove there is companies that remove it and they can actually put rear seats in here if you want as well but it just really limits you what you can get in the back of here and I have often found myself the other annoyance on this is actually the this tailgate you can't lock it in position so if you put someone in the back I've had instances where this is then start swinging around and you can see how I've managed to bash up this this is I just tried to carry a rate went down a field completely smashed up all this but I just didn't realize how much this would swing about and I often end up having to strap it the handle onto there or something to try and lock it if I got something poking out here it's just badly thoughts out if you're using this thing as a van then there's this cubby hole here now it's okay it's nice having this cubby hole here but if you've got anything in here like this then it's quite hard to access and then like here everything gets trapped and then this yeah that's got a stone there you forever trying to get this to lock because there's yeah there's you know where that's still yeah now that won't that won't lock in position because there's muck around here oh it's just it's just badly thought out so that really annoys this blessed thing on a more positive note is the electric tow bar which I'm going to press a button here and then when I've got a trailer on I can actually press this light and then test all the trailer lights as well so I really like that it's very useful to have but again other mistakes I can't get over the soft Furnishings in here that is the standard sort of armrest that is on a normal sort of Civilian Defender the dogs are going to love that chew on and things it's just not protective I would expect it to have a sort of slab side or something that's to protect all this space in here but it hasn't got it another option I went for was a bright a rear scuff plate I just felt that I would have some protection here that is that bit of metal there just to protect this sort of bumper plastic bumper here that's quite expensive I hadn't quite realized the price of it 516 pounds for that bit of tin there seems quite a lot of money and then if I just close this up you the rear view mirror is quite interesting on this card you can sort of see that Grid in the back of that bulkhead in there through the window and then with this spare wheel here it's quite a not a lot of space to see behind you so they give you this uh camera here so you can either choose to have a rear view mirror and look through this sort of periscope or a camera there looking behind you what I found with this camera is it actually hides a car it can't see a car so a car can come behind you or something here that camera doesn't see it from there on I'm invisible and that seems a bit weird because that's what a rear mirror I would expect to tell me there's someone standing here or there's a car parked here and you won't see it on there but you do see it with the mirror and I tend to use the mirror at most of the time what else is there I want to just quickly show the engine now this is this new ingenium engine there's a big cover as they always are on these things hasn't used any oil um and it what gets me is it's quite a big engine it's a three liter straight six diesel straight six the initially when the defender was first launched it had a four-cylinder engine they soon moved to this engine and I think it's an absolute Peach of an engine it's turbocharged they call it mild hybrid basically think of it it doesn't have a hybrid doesn't have a big battery on it or anything but it has a generator come starter motor sort of alternator thing that means you don't let that cranking sound when you start the carb so this thing is producing Peak Torque from 1200 revs onwards and it just is a really grunty engine even though it is the lower spec this is a D200 200 horsepower I have found it a really nice unit even when towing Etc you can't buy a D200 now you it starts the range starts as a d250 so it has 50 horsepower more than this car but at no point in the last year if I felt shortchanged by this engine okay another lovely thing I think on this car briefly show you for just the rubber mats these are fantastic I again you can take these out so these pop out and they sort of hold all the mud and rubbish and it's dead easy to clean this cup another really nice thing I love uh having just proper door bins you get all sorts of rubbish in there as well and then the dash itself you've got these sort of cubby holes for keys and things so I really like the interior on this car works very well it's quite a long way to the windscreen anything it's sort of it's sort of narrower there than you expect it to be say I haven't even cleaned the Interiors you can probably tell so there's a lot of sort of harvest duster over this this sort of neoprene finish is really good rather than leather um talking a lever though the one box you have to tick is uh 50 pounds to have a leather steering wheel otherwise it's quite a nice nasty plastic finish and it has a little sort of mold bits on it that catch your hands now this car has this flipped down seat as well so I can push that up so we've got three seats we have dog hair in here the Stanley's been in here as you can see that is we've that's been a huge bonus having this uh flip seat because it sort of doubles up as a nice armrest and Etc but every now and then it's just very useful to have a third person if you're going down a field you're taking someone down whatever I don't think it's available it's an 800 pound optional thereabouts when we got it it's looking at the price list it's no longer available which might be a sort of supply side or something like that now I was talking about the start but if I press start now yeah does that pause it's you can hear the sort of diesel from on it but I just love the way there's no sort of starter motor cranking as you start up very easy layout of Dash you see on here the initial parts of the does are actually on the LCD screen which is a bit peculiar electric power steering on here I've got the cruise control there I've control radio volume Etc phone calls the connectivity on this car absolutely amazing this pixel Pro this new system that right across the Jackal and Driver range instantly connects carplay never drops out is instantly as soon as you walk into the car no cables needing no nothing from going from the bottom of the pile for connectivity they're at the top of the pile I cannot fault this and I haven't missed having the big screen I quite like this narrow screen and I love how it's sort of old Defender you sort of end up with stuff like that I think it's a diesel or a seat just typical defender on all that sort of thing now I'm in a very this field has the most testing slope in it of all and the only car that's ever got up this slope I'm about to do was actually the Specter Defender I have been up it in this as well as a demonstration I thought I'll go and do it now what I hadn't thought about was it's just rained so whether I'll actually do it or not I don't know but this is the black slope on the farm as everybody said oh I could get up there you will not get up this the last bit of this slope is near vertical here we go are we gonna hit it and there you go the off-road ability of the new Defender defies belief I look underneath you're not that special I can see it my cat here and there doesn't seem to be an issue for this car I don't know what clever trickery is going on here I've I select mud ruts program selected that seems to lock the diffs up unbelievable Unstoppable even though it's on sort of all season tires not even on off-road tires I am deeply impressed well what this thing can do off-road astonishing but it's even better actually on road so I'm Gonna Leave the farm now and then we'll just I'll give you a little explanation on road how it performs there [Music] now quite unlike previous generation of Defender one of the best bits on the new Defender is basically it's refinement it's it's sort of it feels modern it feels very close to Range Rover and Discovery and the way it goes down the road there is it's a very clever chassis but it rides well this is relatively hard sprung in a way because it has to it's only got fixed Springs and it's got to carry its payload and trailering and off-roading Etc but I find this a very comfortable car to travel around it but it has something I've noticed as time's gone on and I don't know if the microphone is going to pick this up the doors the doors chatter over the rubber there you go it's sort of structurally moves on the giant great big door in the big hole and all the rubber seals around it chatter away and you can if you haven't got the radio on all you listen to is this little bit of gruffness from that engine as you pull away but it's that instantaneous Grunt and off you go and you're never I've never felt this car was really lacking in power I cannot get over it's the base engine I can't get over it is a three liter straight six Diesel and it's Peak tools at 1200 RPM terrific since this Defender arrived I also got a car transporter trailer big car Transport Trailer wide and it's been very useful to use it with the defender and there's been some pluses and minus on the toe inside as well one I adore the camera system now if I would have this car in Reverse it would show me a camera and a guide to where the tow ball is and how to Hitch onto the trailer with millimeter Precision what I love about it I don't even have to have the tow bar out to know where it is so you can get you can just reverse up to a trailer get out deploy the electric tow bar pound option and it pops up right where the trailer is I I'm gonna miss that big time for hooking trailers on and off little thing about it is the engine again even though if the D200 has no issues putting three ton plus because of that ultra low rev torque it just moves away and you're soon cruising at 60 miles an hour on the motorway or 50 on by roads and relatively good feel for such a big trailer it did 21 MPG empty and 20 MPG with a car on it which is pretty flipping good absolutely sounds awful if you don't do a lot of Towing but a big three-ton plus trailer let's get going I want to just mention other MPG mid-30s cruising on the motorway occasionally hits the high of 40 MPG but you have to be going around the M25 in 50 mile an hour zones and stuff to hit 40 but always in the 30s which again I think is pretty good so the downside of the towing was there's a lot of Bounce especially an empty trailer I've made a coffee one day and realized I couldn't actually drink my coffee it was so shaking just a trailering I put the trailer behind my Range Rover didn't do it so there is a I think it's because of the Coral Springs on this car and the short overhang it's not great if you've got a trailer that is a Triax or something it just sees to make them a bit uncomfortable in here it doesn't get that much better when you put a load on I think if you are doing tone number 90 I would definitely tick the box for air Springs I think that would make it better than being on coils but that's another 1650 pounds option you'll see also the tow ball height is much higher on this than most other cars now I'm on a dual carriageway and this is where this car just scores and you can just eat miles in this car it is supremely comfortable seats don't look much but over distance no eggs are pains just a nice place to be you know the connectivity all working you can use your ways you can listen to podcasts all that all on the screen here just stable good visibility biggest mirrors this has been it's star two for me was its mild munching ability and that's why I've ended up doing 10 and a half thousand miles in the farm Runabout because quite often it was the choice to do longest Journeys on really wasn't expecting that and that is a complete opposite to the old defender in my view a car I was never fondled don't understand the appeal of them antique lots of people love them I'm not one of them but this chalk and cheese for doing distance of on-room stuff with it also handles pretty well I've taken down my testing bidder Road I can't say there's a lot of steering feel but it hasn't accomplished sassy it just feels as though he's done this sort of thing before and it's so much better obviously than previous generation Defender so all in all a pretty nice car on road excellent car and fat and I think in Hearts because I've got the road tires rather than the off-road tires on this exam so with all this sort of positivity am I going to keep this car I was given the option to buy this car from the end of the 12 months I'm not actually going to keep it I thought I was initially but it all comes down to the price of this car and I haven't really got into detail on that is this explained at the beginning it was 44 base um this this example about 51 52 000 with all the options on it I wanted to buy this car now 62 880 pounds the price of the defender hardtop like this 90. you can't buy D200 now d250 is the base one is 51 000 it's gone up 7 000 pounds with options it's 60 000 pounds to match this there is such demand for this car that even after 12 months of use 10 000 miles this is worth as nearest damn it ten thousand pounds more than when it came out the showroom and I can't get my head around spending 60 000 Plus on a farm Runner belt however good the car is I I'm just not in that league and it and it I feel bad saying it because it has proved to me what a good car the defender is I can absolutely see why they're so popular and I should also add being a commercial use you could get your vat back but it's still a 52 and a half thousand pound car and it's still about 8 000 pounds more than it was a year ago I think I'd rather order one and wait the 12 months the 12 month wait for it it's half the reason they're um so you know it's got such a premium on them and then have one but for me I'm going to revert back to my Range Rover it just toes better and my old series one for bundling around the farm on um but every time I will see a Defender Roll by I think he's a lucky chat because it it is an exceptionally good car and I can absolutely see why they've proved so proper the market and there is that waiting list so there you go that is my review of The Defender 90 hard top next Harry's farm video where are you back so looking around the fields the obviously rape is just coming through the ground and there's been a few other changes with fertilizer Etc so there'll be more videos coming along very soon thanks for watching

Channel: Harry's Farm

Views: 504,954

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Id: oDzi4hVkrrU

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022