new truck or van

[Tree monkey 1682]

3 hours ago, Treewolf said:

 

That point is key - the old Defender apparently cost about the same to manufacture as a full-fat Range Rover, however the max price the market would support was £30k for the Defender but £100k for the RR. The margin therefore was huge on one compared to the other, and was the reason for the other factor below.

 

 

This overlooks the fact that JLR no longer no longer wanted to be in the utility vehicle market at all, it is complex, expensive, and the margins are small. From a shareholder perspective it is much better to bang out luxury boxes for posh folk to take their kids to school and that sell for £100k netting you a £70k profit per vehicle.

 

The realignment of the product line up with the old Freelander being replaced by the Discovery, and the old Discovery being replaced by the new Defender completed the transformation of JLR into "just another SUV manufacturer". To me the rot was complete and I lost all interest in the brand. Until they cocked everything up with shocking customer care, inadequate parts supply, and poor managing of a cyber attack the company became far more profitable.

 

Jim Radcliffe and Ineos has more-or-less proved that it is not possible to build a classic Defender in the way that we want (i.e., modern, better, but still very simple and only costing £30k) with the Grenadier. It is a great vehicle and is the spiritual successor to the old Defender, but it is not possible to mass-produce a simple car nor a cheap car that complies with world legislation now. We are trapped in an era of ECUs and software and complexity and consequent high cost.

That's a bit wrong on the last statement, the td5 had ecu 's , sensors, abs ,hdc ,traction control. The basic defender was only 15k in 99, 2000.

 Landrover have lost alot of contracts , with big players  and I do believe that people would have paid for the product, and I did think once we left the eu , we would be following there shit anymore. 

But if Mercedes benz can make a dual range vehicle,  ie the g wagon , I dont see why lr didnt carry on, to be honest  and did the luxury version of the defender. 

And basic for utilities, army,military , aid charities, etc 

I dont know where I stand on new vehicles as no one buys and owns them anymore  all pcp shit 

 

[markieg31]

Munro Vehicles Home https://share.google/pkLAvEdTix5xGkCya

 

 

Although when I first heard about it I was sure they had a combustion engine option.

Edited 19 hours ago by markieg31

[Treewolf]

12 hours ago, Tree monkey 1682 said:

That's a bit wrong on the last statement, the td5 had ecu 's , sensors, abs ,hdc ,traction control. The basic defender was only 15k in 99, 2000.

 Landrover have lost alot of contracts , with big players  and I do believe that people would have paid for the product, and I did think once we left the eu , we would be following there shit anymore. 

But if Mercedes benz can make a dual range vehicle,  ie the g wagon , I dont see why lr didnt carry on, to be honest  and did the luxury version of the defender. 

And basic for utilities, army,military , aid charities, etc 

I dont know where I stand on new vehicles as no one buys and owns them anymore  all pcp shit 

 

 

I know the TD5 was the start of the ECU era - I had one until recently, and the 2.4 TDCi Defender was arguably the best 'real' Defender of the lot.

 

You could argue that LR did carry on and do a "luxury version of the Defender", it's the L663 "new Defender". Any new version of the original Defender concept would have had to be completely re-engineered anyway for compliance reasons. If LR had tried to make the true spiritual successor to the original Defender it would have ended up being a lot like the Grenadier, except with a lot more wrong with it including multiple water leaks, reliability issues, and appalling after sales service. Worst of all it would have had the god-awful Ingenium engine. It would also have cost at least as much as a Grenadier and probably more.

 

I stand by my assertion that the reason that LR didn't replace the classic Defender with a newer better classic Defender is because they didn't want to, the margins and money simply don't exist in that market. They could have built one, they have the know-how and experience, they simply changed direction. It is equally pointless to say that they should have done so because the company became more successful and delivered a better return to its owners by not doing so.

[Muddy42]

38 minutes ago, Treewolf said:

 

I know the TD5 was the start of the ECU era - I had one until recently, and the 2.4 TDCi Defender was arguably the best 'real' Defender of the lot.

 

You could argue that LR did carry on and do a "luxury version of the Defender", it's the L663 "new Defender". Any new version of the original Defender concept would have had to be completely re-engineered anyway for compliance reasons. If LR had tried to make the true spiritual successor to the original Defender it would have ended up being a lot like the Grenadier, except with a lot more wrong with it including multiple water leaks, reliability issues, and appalling after sales service. Worst of all it would have had the god-awful Ingenium engine. It would also have cost at least as much as a Grenadier and probably more.

 

I stand by my assertion that the reason that LR didn't replace the classic Defender with a newer better classic Defender is because they didn't want to, the margins and money simply don't exist in that market. They could have built one, they have the know-how and experience, they simply changed direction. It is equally pointless to say that they should have done so because the company became more successful and delivered a better return to its owners by not doing so.

 

Wasn't it also that they couldn't get the classic boxy shape to pass modern standards around crumple zones and hitting pedestrians?  I can believe this because I have been in two minor accidents in a landrover (passenger not driver, icy roads etc) where the other car was a right off and the landrover didn't have a scratch.

 

[Treewolf]

Yes, there would have been issues with pedestrian impact safety, airbags, crumple zones, side impact protection and roll-over protection and that is just for starters. By the time they'd made the structural changes required to comply the vehicle would look like a Grenadier.

 

A classic Defender will generally survive an moderate impact with a normal modern car since the car acts as the crumple-zone. A classic Defender is an extremely bad place to be if someone runs into the side of you or if you are in a hard rollover. Surviving either withough injury is rare.