Land Rover Defender 110 Review & Prices

Over an almost 80-year history, the name Land Rover Defender became a living legend of a vehicle, as prized for its iconic looks and character as for its off-road abilities (although not for its on-road comfort and refinement as there was essentially none). Re-invented for the 21st century — rather like a modernistic barn conversion with a jacuzzi and a home cinema — the current Defender is proving wildly successful for Land Rover, with more than 110,000 sold around the world last year. 

The 110 version we’re looking at here could be considered as the ‘core’ model, with its five doors, big boot, and optional seats for seven. You can also get the Defender as a shorter, more style-oriented (and better off-road) 90 version, or there’s a stretched 130 with seats for eight. 

The sales success is not very surprising when you look at the Defender’s breadth of abilities. Family car buyers love it because it’s spectacularly roomy, and can be had as a seven-seater. Company car buyers love it because it’s so comfortable and refined on a long journey, and because there’s a tax-friendly plug-in hybrid available. Farmers and outdoorsy types love it for its astonishing off-road agility.

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While Land Rover did a commendable job coming up with a new look for this Defender, rather than just slavishly copying the old one, there are hints and touches of the original. The round headlights, the ‘floating’ roof, the ‘Alpine Light’ windows above the rear seats — all give it a character not found in many other rivals. Inside, it’s all changed though with an emphasis on sophistication and digital screens that’s a million miles away from the old Defender.

That said, there are old-school touches in here too, such as a rugged powder-coating finish for the dashboard, and exposed bolt heads, some of which are actually fake, but they do add to the ambience all the same. It’s a carefully judged mixture of utilitarian and chic inside. That chic-ness doesn’t mean it’s anything other than hugely practical inside though. 

The Defender 110 is available with three seating arrangements. By default it’s a five-seater with a massive boot, but you can add either a jump seat in the front row to make it a six seater or an entire third row of seats to make it a seven-seater. Seats six and seven are better-suited for children, but are a useful addition for bigger families, and with them folded down there’s still a huge boot. Defenders are also very popular and exceptionally good towing vehicles for caravans or trailers, which is another useful string to their bow.

If you’re in the market for a posh but ruggedly capable SUV, chances are you’re also considering Land Rover Defender alternatives such as the Audi Q7, Volvo XC90 or BMW X5. But none of these can off-road like the Defender can, so if you’re interested in heading off the beaten track you’ll likely be comparing the Defender to a Toyota Land Cruiser or Jeep Wrangler.

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The Defender 110 range is incredibly varied. You can spend less than £60,000 on the Commercial Hard Top model, with a load area instead of rear seats - but the regular SUV kicks off at around £64,000. Try hard enough and you can easily spend double that if you opt for the range-topping V8 model with a few optional extras.

That means it undercuts the BMW X5 or Mercedes GLE, both of which have starting prices over £70,000. Resist the urge to tick every one of the Defender’s many options boxes, then, and it can be quite good value and it’s definitely roomier in the back seats and boot than either of those German rivals. The Audi Q7 — aged though it might be — is a better foil for the Defender in practicality terms. 

The picture’s stickier if you’re looking at the Defender as a hardworking off-roader rather than a luxury SUV. The Toyota Land Cruiser and Jeep Wrangler, though significantly less plush, are equally capable off-road and rather cheaper than the Defender 110. So consider your needs carefully before buying, and remember that Toyota has just updated the Land Cruiser and given it more cheery retro-look styling and a higher-quality interior, so it’s much closer to the Defender now. There’s also competition from the — also pretty expensive — INEOS Grenadier, which looks and feels more like the old, original Defender to drive, and isn’t as sophisticated on-road as the current Defender, but which is pretty close to unstoppable off-road. 

Relaxing and comfortable to drive, but a bit unwieldy

In town

The Land Rover Defender’s sky-high driving position and excellent visibility give you confidence to lord it over other traffic while in town. The responsive automatic gearbox helps here, too, making nipping into small gaps in traffic easier.

The plug-in hybrid is without a doubt the best model to go for if you do predominantly town mileage - assuming you have somewhere to plug it in, of course. The electric motors give the Defender a lot of get-up-and-go and are, of course, almost totally silent making, for pretty serene travel.

The air suspension common to all but the most basic models deals brilliantly with speed bumps, potholes and pockmarked roads. The Defender’s sheer size does make tight roads and parking a little more difficult than in a conventional car, though - you’ll be making good use of the standard-fit parking cameras and sensors. It’s a shame that Land Rover either doesn’t, or can’t, fit the rear-wheel steering system that you get with a Range Rover. It means that the Defender’s turning circle is a whopping 13.2-metres, while the rear-steer Rangie can tuck in under 12-metres. 

On the motorway

Other luxury SUVs are more refined than the Defender on the motorway, as the big door mirrors and blocky bodywork produce a fair amount of wind noise - worsened if you peruse the options list and add things such as a roof rack or ladder, or even those slightly silly ‘pannier’ lockers that dangle off the side windows. Fitting off-road tyres will also lead to increased road noise.

However, compared with the Jeep Wrangler it’s as silent as a chapel. It’s also very comfortable for long journeys thanks to the aforementioned soft suspension and supportive seats.

The steering is particularly well-suited to the motorway. Being off-road oriented means the steering is quite slow, so small inputs don’t have a particularly big effect - very different to more sporting SUVs such as the BMW X5. This reduces twitching on faster roads and gives you and your passengers a smoother ride.

On a twisty road

The Defender doesn’t at all embarrass itself on a fun road - it’s safe, secure and doesn’t feel as if it’s about to tip over, which is more than can be said for the Jeep Wrangler. However, it’s far from entertaining thanks to that slow steering, which encourages a more relaxed style of driving.

That’s unless you get one of the sportier V8-engined versions, which feel significantly sharper to drive, although you’ll pay through the nose at every petrol pump. Probably worth it for the combo of V8 rumble and supercharger shriek, though and even though it’s not as powerful as the new BMW-sourced V8 turbo you’ll find in the Range Rover, it’s a more responsive, more characterful engine. 

If you want an SUV that flatters its driver and makes the most of a really fun, twisting B-road, go for a BMW X5 or a Porsche Cayenne. If you want the ultimate in country-crossing comfort, the Defender’s right up there with the Range Rover line-up.

Hugely practical for people and luggage, but the third row is better suited to children

Practicality in the Defender starts well with the front cabin and just gets better as you move back. The wide dashboard has loads of storage in it, with a large glovebox and even larger open shelf above it making for a great place to quickly toss items when you want to make a quick getaway.

There are big storage bins in the centre console, capacious cupholders with a rubberised finish to help you open bottles one-handed, and large door bins that can hold a huge amount of junk.

The driving position is hugely adjustable, and all models have 12-way electric seats that make getting comfortable very easy. You can even swap out the centre armrest for a fridge to keep your drinks cold, or a third jump seat to keep your children close at hand.

Space in the back seats

The second row of seats will easily accommodate a trio of burly rugby players, who’ll find ample head, leg, and shoulder room even behind a tall driver. There are ISOFIX child seat mounts in the outer two seats, too.

Accessing the third row requires a degree of athleticism due to the small aperture and the sheer height of the Defender. Once you’re back there, it’s not as spacious as a Volvo XC90 or the Defender’s sibling, the Land Rover Discovery, but children or young teenagers will find it more than comfortable enough. Thanks to Land Rover’s ‘stadium’ seating, which puts each row of seats a little higher than the ones in front, everyone gets a good view out, too.

Boot space

The boot is accessed via a side-hinged rear door that, while it looks cool, takes up so much room that the Defender’s parking camera actually warns you if you’re going to be able to open it when you stop. Not the most useful in a tight car park.

However, open it up and you’re greeted with a huge boot. There’s 786 litres of space in five-seater models, or 743 litres in seven-seaters (with the third row folded down). Pop the third row up and you get a rather meagre 160 litres, though, which is barely enough for a few shopping bags - you’ll need to choose between passengers or their luggage in this scenario.

The Mercedes GLE has a smaller boot in five-seat mode (602 litres) but almost double the space in seven-seat mode. The Volvo XC90’s 770 litres is about on par with the Defender, so it’s up there with the most practical SUVs on sale, but the boxy INEOS Grenadier beats them all with 1,152 litres of luggage space in the five-seat passenger version. 

In the Defender, you get sturdy tie-down points and a 12V socket, plus hard wearing rubberised plastic on the seat backs protecting the fabric from dirty or sharp-edged loads. If you’ve bought a Defender with air suspension, there are also some handy switches in the boot that allow you to drop the rear of the car down a couple of inches, which makes it easier to load up heavy items, or to use the edge of the boot as a seat for a picnic.

Cool, stylish interior with plenty of tech, but not as luxurious as some competitor SUVs

The Defender’s interior style is very much ‘warehouse chic’, with industrial features like powder-coated metal beams and exposed screw heads. That doesn’t mean you’re expected to perch on an uncomfortably trendy seat, though - you get big, squashy leather chairs in a choice of outdoorsy colours.

A nod to modernity is the 11.4-inch touchscreen in the middle of the dash. It’s crisp, clear and fairly simple to use, and Land Rover has avoided the temptation to route absolutely every control through it - you still get a big panel of physical switchgear just underneath it, which is great to see and there’s a full platoon of USB and 12-volt sockets scattered around. 

Still, some other SUVs - notably the Audi Q7 and BMW X5 - feel plusher and posher inside, with the Defender’s wipe-clean image losing it some brownie points in the luxury SUV group. Those competitors also have better tech than the Defender, particularly their digital instrument clusters - the Land Rover’s is very hard to use, not least because the steering wheel buttons that control the cluster’s layout feel cheap and slightly laggy to use. 

Defender running costs will be high regardless of which model you go for, but within the model range there’s a hierarchy. At the top of that sits the frankly rather silly (but fantastically fun) V8 model, which costs more than £100,000 and will return mpg figures in the teens even if driven carefully.

Below this sit a choice of two six-cylinder petrol engines which should return fuel economy of around 25mpg, and two six-cylinder diesels that could top 30mpg if you’re careful.

The most efficient - on paper - is the P400e plug-in hybrid model, which claims to return more than 100mpg. That figure is contingent on regular charging, though - drive a long journey with a flat battery and you’ll see economy similar to the regular petrol engines. The claimed 30 miles of electric-only range is more likely to be closer to 20 miles, or even less, unless you drive like a saint. 

With high CO2 emissions across the board, every Defender bar the plug-in hybrid finds itself in the highest or second-highest band for car tax, and attracts the additional premium for models over £40,000. The hybrid is also the only model that makes even a shred of sense for a company car buyer thanks to its reasonable benefit-in-kind grouping.

The Defender holds a full five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP, performing well in tests of both crash protection and active safety equipment. Add in four-wheel drive for extra confidence - not to mention the feeling of safety, however much of a placebo it might be, that comes from sitting higher and being in a bigger vehicle than almost everyone else on the road.

All models have autonomous emergency braking that can detect pedestrians and cyclists plus lane-keeping assistance, blind-spot monitoring and a 360-degree camera system.

Land Rover has had some notorious security issues over the years, particularly where its cars have keyless entry systems, but these have been addressed for the Defender and very few have been stolen since the model launched. It is, however, still a very desirable car, so insurance costs will be high. Land Rover has actually launched its own insurance cover for its models, as some customers were actually being rejected outright by insurers, because of the popularity of these cars with the light-fingered community. 

It’s fair to say Land Rover’s reputation for reliability isn’t exactly stellar, and the Defender doesn’t look as if it’s changing that with a raft of well-reported issues from owners. These do tend to be software or electrical-related issues rather than mechanical complaints, but many find themselves back at the dealers for months at a time. There may be some good news though; the Driver Power owner satisfaction survey doesn’t yet show enough results for the Defender to make a definitive judgement, but it does report that Land Rover owners are starting to be a bit more positive in general about the brand’s quality and reliability. We’ll have to wait and see.

Land Rover doesn’t offer a particularly stellar warranty to make up for this, with three years of cover albeit over an unlimited mileage. That’s about standard among premium rivals, with Audi, Mercedes and BMW all offering three years of warranty cover - but Lexus leads the pack with up to 10 years cover, given regular servicing.