natas

Well-Known Member
How well do Defenders hold up in accidents?

From minor fender benders to an all out slam:eek:.

Thanks.
 
well I have yet to get in an accident in mine (touch wood)

but when I was about 9-10 my dad had an A reg 110 station wagon, it was in one accident, a horrible T junction locally at the top of a steep hill, where you can't see very far either direction. He went to pull out, and a Ford Ka came blasting along the road round the corner and into the side of the Landy. The Ka was a write off, worst damage to the Landy was the number plate fell off!

cheers,
Joe
 
Hi iv been hit 3 times!

1st a nudge in a car park i was stationary parked. Old guy couldnt see it :confused: just bent the rear mud fap & a little scratch but nothing noticeable after i bent it back. Hes headlight smashed wing bent & bumper came off after being hooked on something

2nd some one cut me up on a round about did nothing bar a little dent in door broke an alloy rim & pushed my mirror in!

Tranny van was damaged bumper wing light again.

3rd was when i a little van over took me & clipped me

my bumper end was damaged. his rear tub was dented a little he didnt stop! so all of a sudden out of know where his rear tub was smashed up & a little damage to my fairlead :)
 
The best thing about defenders (in my opinion) is that they look almost as good with battle scars as without.

Generally in an accident there will be little damage to the defender as long as it hits something smaller or around the same size and the point of impact is around chassis height.

The only time I have known the landy to come off badly is in an impact with a jcb where it completely missed the chassis and took out the aluminium bodywork. (they are not very strong up top)

In respect to passenger safety you will be not too bad aslong as you can use the other vehicle as a crumple zone.

I dont think they would rate very highly on a crash test either from the side or the traditional head on crash into a block as they where never designed with crumple zones in mind.

However in the real world I prefer my defender to a modern car that is designed to collapse at the first sign of an accident.
 
Nobody parks too close to my Defender on the school run. Cant work out why :) Maybe has something to do with my front bumper, rock sliders, and tow hitch being at bonnet hieght to most other motors?
 
i've ripped the b pillar out of an astra hatch back, along with the 2 doors when a guy i worked with (reet t!*t) tried to cut me up on a roundabout, i was in me series 2 an only scratched the bemper corner!! didn't even bend!! yet his was a write off :D i love it when people try to one up you on the road but come off worse :D
 
Nobody parks too close to my Defender on the school run. Cant work out why :) Maybe has something to do with my front bumper, rock sliders, and tow hitch being at bonnet hieght to most other motors?
Dont school run but Ive noticed you get a bit more room at the shops!

An able tow hitch deters tailgaters too! :D
 
i've ripped the b pillar out of an astra hatch back, along with the 2 doors when a guy i worked with (reet t!*t) tried to cut me up on a roundabout, i was in me series 2 an only scratched the bemper corner!! didn't even bend!! yet his was a write off :D i love it when people try to one up you on the road but come off worse :D
They drive the same in Portugal as in France,then! :D
 
There was a paragraph in one of the LR mags a few months ago saying the 90/110 was the vehicle you were least likely to die in in an accident - done on insurance stats. From memory I think the mini was the one you were most likely to be kiiled in if you had an accident.

This from Land Rover  Cars Model Range Types (about 2/3 down the page) : -

Road accident statistics on a model-by-model basis from the UK Department of Transport show that the Land Rover Defender and Land Rover Discovery are the safest cars on the UK roads (measured in terms of chance of death in an accident) - between three times safer than the safest Volvo models, twice as safe (half the death-rate per accident) compared with the Jeep Cherokee and Toyota Land Cruiser and only matched by the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Jaguar XJ.
 
Had a bump with my neighbour last winter on the icey back lane.I knew i was a passenger on the way to an accident the moment i took the power off. To bad he was driving a 90 as well, we both needed a new wing and bumper,but both drove on after untangeling our landys.
 
Was waiting at a red light waiting for green at 6.20am on dark morning, well lit road, deserted roads at that time until some chap decided to run into the back of me quite hard. Apart from back and neck and slight bent towbar and slight bend in rear cross member other car well, write off, rad pushed in bonnet crumpled, wing curmpled, lights pushed in, glad I was in the landy
 
girl rolled back into me at a junction, she had to have a new boot door, bumper and rear lights i had a new number plate :) my cost £4 hers 800 :p
 
I got hit from behind by a Ford Focus over the summer (doing approximately 30-40mph more than me when it hit).

The Focus was written off - this was the damage done to the 110.

I got shunted into a BMW which needed a new rear-end and this is what it did to me.

Although I have seen what happens when a standard Land Rover is rolled - not pretty to say the least...
 
I reversed my Renault Senic into the back of my Landy in the dark one snowy night and broke the rear light on each. The Landy one cost me £3.59 for a new one. The Senic cost me £120.
Make your own mind up?
 
Haven't had a accident YET!!! But my mate had a sportrack we were on a pay & play day he got stuck and asked me to tow him out and I done the great escape and pulled his front end off it was funny car only cost him £75 so he see the funny side
 
Haven't had a accident YET!!! But my mate had a sportrack we were on a pay & play day he got stuck and asked me to tow him out and I done the great escape and pulled his front end off it was funny car only cost him £75 so he see the funny side

Shame you never got it on video.:D
 
i was with the girlfriend, and she pulled in to the side of the lane to let a big truck past, but managed to pull in a bit too far and hit an old tree stump with the bumper. It bent it right in under the wing. Managed to get it almost completely straight again by whipping it off and driving over it :D (credit has to go to Sypher for that idea ;) )
 
Not had an accident in the landy but a mate of mine got his 90 hit from behind by a rav 4. The rav was written off and my mate simply brushed the glass off his bumper :D

Has anyone seen a crash test of a defender?
 
Has anyone seen a crash test of a defender?

From memory I don't think it's been done, perhaps because it wouldn't get any official NCAP stars, but from nearly all the accidents in Land Rovers I've heard of, the Landy has come off much better.
 

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