Member Since: 26 Sep 2006
Location: ASTURIAS
Posts: 2382
Quote:
Moo wrote:
.... many D3/4 owners have moved to the Defender but its just not as practical and too much money for what it is..
I finally see written to an Defender´s owner what I really always believed and what stopped me all this time from getting into that small fortune!! I congratulate such sincerity!!
.but, my apologies because I have gone completely off topic!! :oops:lost in translation!
7th Feb 2023 12:48 am
Ian_S
Member Since: 17 Apr 2023
Location: South
Posts: 2
I do get a bit angry when people say the D5 doesn't sell, especially at the moment! (Still waiting for mine, it's been a *long* time...)
The Discovery is not selling well right now simply because they won't make them. Despite the fact that the Slovakia plant in theory has a capacity to make huge numbers of cars, LR have been sacrificing Discovery production since the D5 facelift, which pretty much coincided with the start of customer Defender deliveries. With Covid and the chip shortage, LR have ruthlessly gone after higher margin models and virtually dropped production of everything else.
In the last qtr, where JLR claim improved sales, the Discovery Sport sold only 9k units and half of those were built and sold by it's Chinese venture, so in reality that's around 4.5k Discovery Sports... and ALL of those were limited to PHEV's as you haven't been able to order a MHEV variant for about a year! This is a model that shifted 125k in a year, or about 31k a qtr.
If full size Discovery's were only selling at the current rates, then you'd be able to walk into a dealer and with buy stock or get one delivered in the normal 3 months. You can't. The 9-12 months quoted on the website is highly optimistic.
When the Defender launched, much was made of the entry price of around £43k. (Too expensive for many even then.) Now, the base Defender models start at around £63k rising to well north of £100k, hence they get the priority in production slots.
In terms of practicality, if you have a family, and especially a dog, the Defender is a huge compromise. If you have bikes then rear mounting is problematic. Ignoring the side opening door for a second, the big fat spare tyre means at least the closest space on a bike rack is unusable or, you need a daft looking tow bar extension to fit the right no. of bikes on. You still can't open the door properly though and the hinge is hopeless. Either it always tries shutting itself or swings open depending on angle, which with the bikes is hopeless and it's a heavy old door with the spare on it.
As a 7 seater (110) the narrow upper body design (to ape the original) from the shoulder up means the 6+7th seats have no more room than a Disco Sport, the 90 is cute but hopeless for practicality because of the metal bar across the back, and the 130 has the SAME bar across it's 3rd row too. In the 130 none of the seats fold flat and with the ridiculous ridge in the loadspace and bouncing seats that don't even latch in the down position, which makes it really flawed to carry luggage and frankly dangerous for dogs. Then to add insult to injury on the 130, the one I had for a weekend didn't have a single USB port in rows 2 or 3... for an 8 seater... at £84k...
The Discovery for a family is way more practical. The tailgate works with tow bar mounted options that can just tilt out the way. The rear loadspace is flat in row 3, and because the body doesn't come in above the shoulders, you get more space which means even with a 33kg dog, you can still share boot space with luggage. USB ports everywhere and when needed the third row is much more spacious than a 110. You won't get 3 adults in the back of a 130, but 2 will be quite comfy as long as they are of a certain age where a USB port isn't of similar need to water...
All the above isn't helped by daft journalists claiming on the one hand that the D5 is great and selling like hot cakes (Steve Cropley, Autocar) and then on the other, (business section Autocar and lots of other rags) claiming that sales are so low that there may not be another one...
The facelift D5 with Pivi Pro and the new inline six engines is a peach of a car. It fixes the main issues with the D4 and early D5's of the Ford Lion engine crank snapping lottery, or 4 cylinder diesel losing compression, as you now can only have the new 6 cylinder diesel, and the Pivi Pro system is finally an infotainment solution that stands with the best of them out there.
Ok, I know styling is personal and there are both pro's and cons of unibody vs. ladder frame depending on what you want, but the current D5 is a class act. (We've just spent 10 days with one on a road trip to France) The fact that the FFRR and RRS are now well north of £100k for any reasonable spec means to me the D5 is the real sweet spot. You get most of the toys and 90% of the refinement for a lot less money.
If JLR would actually just make some, I think they'd have a hit on their hands now that the bigger RR models have moved well outside its price range.
But than doesn't seem to fit the (flawed) idea that JLR can build more luxury cars and compete with Bentley ...
Anyway, rant off!
17th Apr 2023 2:19 pm
RRSTDV8
Member Since: 07 Apr 2014
Location: Here
Posts: 13079
The reason they are building Defenders is because that's what people want. Nothing is competing with the Defender. Very few people want the Disco because it's competing with better vehicles in a relatively crowded segment.
The Defender sells over three times as many. The RRS sells over twice as many, the FFRR sells nearly twice as many. 7 seaters are not rare these days and the likes of XC90 outsell the D5 by several times.
All of LR's output has long lead times at the moment - go over to RRSport.co.uk and look at the lead times people are experiencing waiting for their new L461 RRS. It's not just the D5 that is experiencing long lead times.
And if I had to be a middle row passenger in either a D5 or a new 110, I'd be in the 110 every day of the week. The second row seats in the D5 are awful in comparison. In fact, they're just plain awful - no under thigh support for anyone with legs longer than a child's.Visiting from rrsport.co.uk
2012 RRS SDV6
2008 RRS TDV8
"When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill, until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning: SIT DOWN AND TALK!"
17th Apr 2023 2:50 pm
Ian_S
Member Since: 17 Apr 2023
Location: South
Posts: 2
There's no denying that the new RR, RRS and Defender aren't very popular which is part of the reason they have long lead times as well as JLR's supply issues. However, it's also clear that JLR are prioritising them at other models expense as these are the highest margin models too. IF there were no supply issues, you'd still probably be looking at a 12-18 month waiting list on the new RR/RRS.
FFRR sales are now at a level never achieved by the previous L405. The last qtr's sales for it were almost 19k units. New RRS numbers are creeping up slowly at just over 11k, but that's still some way off the previous models peak of around 26k in a quarter and a solid 20k avg. per qtr in general. However it's still very new.
Defender has just posted the biggest numbers by far from Nitra as well as a few more Disco's creeping through, 23.6k Defenders in a qtr is a good number above anything they've ever produced, and that was with an almost doubling of Disco 5's...
Velars were allowed to peak briefly as L405 production wound down, but are now way down on their previous norms.
Click image to enlarge
DS's were shifting colossal numbers pre-facelift and covid, likewise the Evoque. Also you'd be hard pushed to see an obvious tail off in Discovery sales in the changeover from 4 to 5 ... The change comes as they wound down Disco production in MY20 as new Defender came on stream and prior to the Disco 5 facelift.
Sure, some of those sales will have gone to Defender, as they may have also from Velar, but there is no escaping the fact that JLR are heavily prioritising certain models. Project re-imagine kicked in in Q2 21, and the general recovery in sales across all models changed to just key models.
This last quarter Discovery sales jumped 54%, that's not a car that has no interest. No-one has been promoting/advertising Disco hard. That's a backlog of orders that doesn't include all the people that have jumped to other brands on the back of not wanting to wait for a Land Rover. Volvo will have done very nicely from LR owners whose PCP has ended and have no chance of getting a new Evoque (XC40), Disco Sport (XC60) or Disco (XC90).
My point is, with the very ruthless prioritisation of high margin models over everything else, it's impossible from todays sales figures to say what numbers Discovery, Discovery Sport, Evoque or Velar could be achieving. Defender might even eclipse the DS for sales in a qtr if chip supply was not still constrained. People who might have jumped from DS/Evoque into a Defender when you could get one sub £50k won't be interested at £63k without any options.
17th Apr 2023 5:02 pm
RRSTDV8
Member Since: 07 Apr 2014
Location: Here
Posts: 13079
If you have to prioritise supply then you prioritise those products that make you most profit. That's Business 101, isn't it?
It's also 101 that you price things at a level that you think you can sell them at - more popular things can be priced higher than less popular things. D5 is cheaper, marginally, than Defender and yet still sells fewer units.
And even if they had no supply issues, the middle row seats of the D5 would still be an awful place to spend any time.Visiting from rrsport.co.uk
2012 RRS SDV6
2008 RRS TDV8
"When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill, until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning: SIT DOWN AND TALK!"
17th Apr 2023 6:27 pm
LT
Member Since: 31 Dec 2005
Location: South West
Posts: 23337
As already mentioned, the D5 doesn't have the "Tonka toy" appeal of the D3/4 and "new" Defender and people like that, regardless of whether they'll use the off-road ability or not. Just as "divers" watches are popular.
The D5 with it's "softer" styling has to compete with large 7 seater SUV's from other marques. That it is undoubtedly superior off- road than it's competitors will count for little to the majority of buyers.
Styling wise, there's no real practical competition* for the "new" Defender and I am convinced that is a significant reason in why it is so popular.
*Oddballs like the G-Wagen and Ineos don't really count.2006 D3 HSE (Original & still the best)-GONE
2010 D4 HSE (A bit bling)-GONE
2014 D4 HSE (Almost too bling)-GONE
2015 D4 HSE (A heated what?)-GONE
2016 D4 Landmark (Written Off)-GONE
2016 D4 Landmark (Surely the last!) PD1881 rims-GONE
2017 FFRR SDV8 Autobiography
17th Apr 2023 6:45 pm
RRSTDV8
Member Since: 07 Apr 2014
Location: Here
Posts: 13079
Exactly so, LT. There is nothing on the road like a new Defender, just as there wasn't really when the D3 came out.
If I wanted a 7 seater today, I'd be looking at one of the VW van type things - the current one is the "T7 Multivan". 7 proper seats with decent access to all of them (no clambering through a gap between C-pillar and row 2), loads of room when the rear seats are removed or even take them all out and it's a decent sized van. Real practicality.
Or if a 7-seat SUV is required, a Volvo XC90, a Q7 or (for those on a slightly smaller budget) the Skoda Kodiaq would all be good choices. Sure, none of them will go off road like a D5 but that's not really important in that sector these days.Visiting from rrsport.co.uk
2012 RRS SDV6
2008 RRS TDV8
"When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill, until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning: SIT DOWN AND TALK!"
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