Can The New 2020 Land Rover Defender Keep Up With The Old Defender on a Difficult Off-Road Trail? 

The new defender fights againt the trail. The old one is in his natural environment.

I can not help a feeling, that this crossover on steroids was little bit suffering here ....

ahhh great. more disasters from 2020

For someone who doesn't know a lot about offroading, it seems counterintuitive at first that solid axels are an advantage over independent suspension. I understand it now but a video that demonstrates it would be a great idea I think.

There’s one thing that needs to be the same in tests..... and that’s tyres!

gmultimedio it absolutely correct, ("The new defender fights against the trail. The old one is in his natural environment.") and I'd like to add that the old Defender fights against the highway at 70 MPH. Now that said if you are going to run trails like this all day long and have it in your backyard or on a trailer to the trails, the older solid axle Rovers are the best choice. But if you're going to drive from Denver to the Baja for 2 weeks of overlanding I'd choose the new one. 2 amazing vehicles and it was great to see them both on a difficult trail together thanks TFL for putting this together.

Man I couldn’t imagine off-roading where the vehicle doesn’t respond directly to throttle input.

From a Land Rover owner Is a long depate about solid Axle vs independent suspension. In my experience solid Axle is by far the best for rock crawling and independent win on Mud and Sand .. Independent suspension is better on urban and driving City and solid Axle win the trophy on Flex but at the end no matter what type of AWD system you get .. with out lockers no make any difference.

It would be nice to do a stock old vs stock new comparison !

Two major issues with the new Defender on this terrain. One is independent suspension and the other is air suspension. On the old Defender, when you hit a bump the coil springs absorb quickly and smoothly and you roll up and over the bump without sacrificing too much momentum. You can see when the new Defender hits the same bumps, it shudders to a halt and can't move. Defenders have long been legendary for their ability to keep moving over bumps where other vehicles come to a halt, simply because the design of the suspension works spectacularly well (until you're on a road). Similarly, thanks to independent suspension, you have a lot of square edged points under the suspension to get you hooked up as we saw in the video. With an axle, everything is fairly curved and if you don't bang into it, you'll generally scrape over it fairly easily. On a downside though, damage to an axle is more serious. In relation to having axles, the old Defender has a lot of stiffness between the two wheels on each side. While much has been played about the new Defender chassis being much stiffer than the old Defender chassis, it is nowhere near as stiff as a solid axle. As such, when one wheel loses grip, you get a lot of bounce through the entire chassis and other wheels start to lose grip. This is similar to what happens on heavy goods vehicles when they lose grip and the chassis starts to flex because of the vehicle length. You get what is known as "axle tramp" as the grip shifts back and forth from one side to the other. You get a lot of bouncing about but no real progress. In a similar way you can see that the new Defender does this crazy bouncing because the chassis is having to deal with the slipping wheel rather than a solid axle providing a solid link across to the other tire which is firmly on the ground, and the harder air suspension does nothing to absorb and everything to transmit the bounce. The new Defender is on an even level with a Discovery, Range Rover or Range Rover Sport. It may have some slight advantages but it is very much the same breed. For the vast majority of what people will use the new Defender for, it is absolutely ideal. It is however a significant drop in off-road capability in comparison to the last of the older models which had traction control systems to help them overcome cross-axle loss of drive without requiring all round lockers. We can pretend our way around it all we want, but the Defender as a great "out of the box" off-roader is no longer.

You should ask that guy if he would buy the new Defender. As someone who actually goes offroad I bet his answer would be a resounding NO

I love the old gal, she don’t seem to think a lot about what she’s doing, she just does it, 180 k on her what?👍👍👍

Even a stock ‘old’ defender would walk over that trail like a walk in the park.

Go and get a stock classic defender 110 and do it again

That old 1 is a beast, the new 1 you can keep.

In the new defender the lift kit decreases off-road performance, in my opinion. It has no more travel and has to use traction control every second.

Old Defender for life

It's a clear cut fact that the old hardened defender dudes won't like the new one simply because of the paradigm shift in the shape and tech, but for most of us we're glad that we have a new defender in land Rover lineups. Plus the former category makes a very small proportion of our population.... So no worries.. Go get the new 2020 defender without any hesitation

I want to see an Ineos Grenadier against a heavily modded Classic Defender then we will see if there’s a suitable replacement.

wish that new Defender came with lockers.

I've driven pass a few new defender owners and not a SINGLE one even waved back. That says enough about the type of owners that buy the new defender.

Man I CAN’T WAIT for the Bronco vs Defender vs Wrangler videos next year. I just hope a generous Bronco owner loans you their car so TFL can make one too 😂

Hard to compare. The old one is heavily modded with huge offroad tires. To compare, fit the new ones with the same tires. Also the new one does not have the optional locking rear diff. Even if it’s electronic gimmickry, you could see it could have made a difference at 0:58. I think ‘out of the box’, the new one still is better. Looking forward to seeing them modded! This said, tho old one is incredibly cool and probably better as is.

Just so painful to watch that new Defender in skateboard mode.

Ha haaa, this man did some homework and got some series doors for his 90 😁👍👍

How can you compare these 2 ? The old one has been heavily modified

Thanks for the video, would be nice to include an LR4 to see how it does :)

just curious how much of the new defender's off-road tech wizardry was employed. Did the driver have an understanding of how to drive it off-road?

once again the new defender looks nice but it is not really a defender anymore it is a disguised discovery 4 :( i love my old defender 110 and discovery 2 would not buy one of these new ones for sure, Grenadier here i come.

And at the end of the trial the new Defender had 46 fault codes to clear !

Ain't he the nice guy? "A formidable rig".. Against what, Nathan's Samurai?! Hahaha.

Does anyone know if you can now export the old defenders to the US or are they still off limits?

you guys have to do a defender vs touareg video!

While I much prefer the old one, I'm honestly impressed with how well the new one did

Would it be possible to install a front locker on the new Defender?

a pleasure to watch the old Defenders suspension working over the Rocks! The new Defender? no comment ha ha ha! You know how often air suspension sensores in the Range and Disco failed? Often!

Please try your tough T and this new defender. Thanks a lot.

I thought the new one had a rock crawl mode where the centre diff and rear diff are permanently locked? The disco 5 has.

lol one of these is having a much easier time than the other

Very interesting vid👍new Defender is struggling with electric 4WD aid but wondering if Land Rover try make Defender not just off road but good on road? Would adding weight at each end would improve off road or modify crawl ratios? Be interesting to see Bronco vs Defender on same trail.

What is the rectangular box that is attached to RR upper Quarter of new Defender?

Good to see some "Driving Finesse". Not just "Bash and Barge".

I wonder if in the new defender they are using the 'configurable terrain response' setting where they can change the amount of slip. Seems to be a lot of wheel spinning and grabbing from the brakes.

A three inch tall rock literally held the new one up twice. It gets hung up on everything and always has a tire in the air lmao

If you compare the two one has to understand that there is significant mods done to the old Defender .It more than likely has lower diff ratios and gear ratios which in this situation would be a huge advantage over the new Defender stock. The old one is set up for crawling ,so you have a stock new Defender competing against a purpose built crawl machine albiet with highway ratios in high range .to compensate the low ratio diffs.Its like a boat .it all comes down to the degrees of pitch and gearbox ratios.If you compare the two without bias the new one hands down .

I’m impressed overall. The fact that he’d take a brand new Defender off road is great. I did this exact trail a few days before this in an H1 Hummer. There are plenty of rocks to bang up the bottom of that new vehicle.

Why didn't you lock the diff on the original defender?

Maybe a new 2 door when available would be one to compare in the future..

You must change the title of this video. It s the new stock vs a fully tuned old defender. Which performed better... what a surprise.

The new Land rover pretender... The least graceful way to go off road. I'd rather have a fiat panda 4x4.

WARNING BEFORE WATCHING: the old one is modified. this is not a proper comparison. however, it is a decent video to see the new defender’s capabilities off road.

Wow, that 2020 Defender really struggled. Where's the progress in this? Such a shame... Cheers

How’d the 4Runner do?

I really think the new defender would have done better if the dropped the height setting a bit. It was bouncing around all over and had almost no wheel travel. But if you drop it just a bit, the suspension is soft enough to work better.

I'd like to know how the new Defender compares to that 4Runner I saw in that group.

I want to love the new one but the more I see it in action the less I like it, which is sad and disappointing.

Thank god you brought a 4Runner when things get tough.

Very, very unfair of Tommy not to give some context. Apparently this particular Defender does NOT have a rear diff lock. What is it’s off road specs ? Does it have any factory off road options, which r available ? What version of Terrain Response does it have ?

The defender is a decent vehicle but it should be called discovery not defender.

was the lift on the new defender just rods to jack up the suspension, or a real subframe lift? former doesn't count as a lift in my book...

How can u compare modified n stock model?

Great episode the yellow NAS cool 😎 👍 it would be great to see a standard 1960’s jeep and landrover against the new defender to see if the technology in the new vehicle can be better off road. Of course the new vehicle is better on tarmac but I think the older vehicles would keep up with it and it’s gadgets in the dirt.

The new Defender I believe was the stock standard and did not have the optional rear diff lock.

Landrover: 21st century adventures dont need solid axles.

the new one did great for having no lockers. tons of moments when the wheel is off the ground and it barely stuttered

I always wonder why LR didn't cut the Def in two and stuck 4-5" in the middle. They could have made it 10x more comfortable and safe without losing the essence of the vehicle. Didn't they do that with the Morris Minor?

From England I wont be getting rid of my Defender 90 any time soon Land Rover have just built another SUV.

I have owned both, and the biggest problem with the old Def is the open diffs and loss of traction - either in an axle-twister or when the vehicle is on an extreme side slope. This is not a fair comparison as the old Def has ARB lockers, as well as oversized tyres. At 9:05, the old Def would have been stuck without those mods.

How can you compare it to something that never rolled off the production line with any of that special on it!? Pimp up a new Defended and run the test again...

My 97 Isuzu Rodeo would definitely go on that Trail and keep up fairly easy. 5 speed and has 4 low also.. manual transfer case, but with shift on the fly auto locking front hubs. No diff locks anywhere. Its a tough little set up. I"ve had it off road quite a bit and it's never broke on me.. At 280k miles the engine finally spun a crank bearing. I put another engine in it from a used $500 rodeo that I bought that had a bad auto transmission-- which only had 150k miles. Drove it daily for a couple years and then the timing belt crapped out on me on the swapped engine-- So as soon as I get a new belt put on, its gonna be ready to kick the trails yet again..

Please stop referring to a Johnson Rod TRICK as a lifted. It still has the same ride height as every other defender when off road. Aero becomes normal, normal becomes OR1, OR1 becomes OR2 and OR2 does nothing. You guys have been describing this incorrectly since you bought the LR3. It allows larger tires because it stops lowering so low.

The new Defender was developed as a new Discovery and then they changed the name. It has showed in this and previous videos (with non off-road tires as well) that it seems pretty weak off-road for the money.

The "new" one's airsuspension is pumped up high on its baloons so it doesn't hit to much. Drawback is that the suspension is much to hard and doesnt folllow the terrain well, result: wheelspin. It seems to have terrible small wheel too.. 🤔

What about the 4Runner? Im sure there's way more people interested in seeing that 4R get through that trail than the over priced yellow farm vehicle.

Guys - thanks for the real world look. Gotta say very disappointed in what I saw from the new defender but I have to ask - what mode was the traction control in? I have an LR4 and have never had anything close to that much wheel spin. In fact, in rock crawl mode, wheel spin is almost imperceptible so that video just looked baffling. Maybe they’ve totally jacked their new traction control or the whole rear locker thing but that was painful to watch. It really looked like their old original traction control on the first D2s with no center diff lock.

The new Defender didn't look very controllable in the rock crawling sections. The traction control system appears to need a lot of revs for it to activate.

On rocky terrain of course solid axles win, but as they said, that was modified vs almost stock (those tyres came from factory). Trust me, the new defender is a very capable vehicle and I do believe that with the right mods it'd be unstoppable while also being comfortable and luxurious.

Even a stock old defender would've moonwalked through that trail. The new defender is showing us the same old story with airbag rovers. On their tippy toes nervously bouncing around and losing traction.

New one struggles

Why leaving the flat easy terrain and chose the rocky one if not needed?

To me, it looks like the new Defender traction control spins the wheels and chews up the path much more than the old, mechanical, diff locks do (or the diff locks on a Mercedes G-wagon). It might not matter once, but a track driven dozens of times over a season adds up to some significant erosion. For off-roaders, being green is more than just having eco- engine modes and emission controls, it needs to minimise the physical impact on the natural environment too. This Defender doesn't look like it does that well. Put another way, if you can afford one of these, it might be your own track that's being broken up and then washes away the next time big rains come.

That is not a new defender but a new discovery. The real defender is just like John Rambo. Defender don't worry its the LAST BLOOD

The video shows something different than what the audio part says.

the wheels really played dividends

The new one seems to be struggling so much, the new one is not even trying.

The fact this thing doesn't have lockers is absurd. What was their slogan? "Best 4x4xfar??". Yeah, not even close. The thing is lifting and spinning tires all over the place. I'll take a bronco at half the cost

Why so much tire slippage on the 2020?

Solid axle, coil springs and lockers is such a hard combination to beat. The new defender looks nice but THAT design should have been the new Discovery. the Defender certainly doesn't look like an outback tourer any more and those airbags look so exposed. poke a stick through that in the middle of nowhere and youre boned.

There is only one real Defender in the Video...........the new one will never be one !

New defender needs Explorer Package

I won't be surprised if the old one does better

Bit confused. Your using a standard new defender VS a heavily modified old defender? Take a standard old defender up there and see what happens? Not really a fair comparison.

Aha! The cars are not equal!! The old Defender has been prepared for off-road trails. So, this VIDEO IS INVALID!! 👹👹👹👹👹👹

The old Defender, or just Defender, has more much motricity and wheel teavel. Instead of that the new one with air suspension in higher position doesn't let the suspension travel as it should do. Looks a modern Humpy Dumpty...

New one with no direct locker makes it a hand full imo! If the wheels would actually lock instead of a visco or whatever their using now would make it a better off roader! Like in everything now is yuppyised!

The new Deffender is a better Discovery . . In fact they should just change the badge from Deffender to Discovery and say "Done!" . .

1:13 that's what I worry about the new defender.

Of course the old Defender is the winner!💪💪

The new defender looks like a FREESTYLE 2 just bigger. This vehicle will do ok. It will never touch dirt like the old used to do. Before it was a “camel trophy” king now is Pasadena beach rider

Great video. What tyres was the new defender on ?