2021 Land Rover Defender 110 Yearlong Test Verdict: Tough to Top This SUV of the Year Winner

We don't always miss long-term test vehicles when their year in the MotorTrend garage expires, but we certainly will pine for our 2021 Land Rover Defender 110 P400 SE. Although our 2021 SUV of the Year's stay with us hasn't been as eventful as our 2021 Truck of the Year's, it's been no less enjoyable. Most continent-crossing off-roaders are singularly focused on their missions, but in the past 14 months we failed to find one thing this Land Rover Defender wasn't good at.

As we suspected when our midgrade 2021 Land Rover Defender 110 P400 SE joined our fleet, this SUV was in high demand among our staff. As expected, a lot of the use it experienced was off-road. Early in its evaluation, we put it to work exploring the deserts of the American southwest and as a rooftop camping rig.

Our early off-road trips inspired us to raid the Defender's extensive accessories catalog. We made the smart choice to add an onboard air compressor and the expedition roof ladder—two features that later came in handy when off-roading in California's Redwoods, canyons, and on its beaches. We also quite liked the Defender's optional rooftop tent, which we borrowed for a spell.

Although off-road capability is among the big reasons to purchase a Land Rover Defender, we were pleasantly surprised to find how livable it is on-pavement. Unlike many off-roaders, Land Rover doesn't make you pay for the Defender's rugged capability (well, it does, but not physically). Our Defender was powerful, smooth, and comfortable around town—traits that made it a high-demand road warrior late in its stay with us when we used it to eat up highway miles on trips to Tucson, Arizona, and Trinidad, California.

Deserved or not, reliability is often a concern for Land Rover buyers. Throughout its nearly 20,000 miles with us, software glitches were the major cause of consternation. We covered our issues in detail in our sixth update, but the biggest problems were suspected software bugs that yielded intermittent air-suspension faults and a more worrying engine overheating warning. In both cases, the dealer confirmed our Defender was mechanically sound, and both over-the-air and dealer software updates eliminated the problems. We loved the regular over-the-air software updates (especially the added features, like wireless Apple CarPlay), but we hope our experiences were just early teething issues with the system.

That certainly seems to be the case. The only issue to crop up since then was physical: The supports of the side-mounted gear carrier began to fade from black to an unattractive gray. We didn't have time to address it before the 2021 Land Rover Defender left our garage, but we're confident a dealer would have repaired the problem under warranty.

Speaking of dealers and warranties, our Land Rover Defender 110 was surprisingly cheap to run, with an important caveat. With lengthy overland-friendly two-year/21,000-mile service intervals, we didn't need to execute our SUV's first scheduled service. If we had, we'd have been on the hook for $1,143 for an oil and filter change, interior air filter change, brake fluid flush and change, and inspection. Our long-term Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon, the only other hardcore off-road SUV we've had in our fleet recently, cost us $83.55 for a single service. So you'll in theory visit a dealer less often with a Defender, but you'll pay for that convenience.

EPA-rated at 17/22/19 mpg city/highway/combined, we achieved a significantly lower 15.2 mpg during our 17,488 miles. We suspect much of that fuel economy disparity is due to the aero-ruining (but supremely useful) expedition roof rack, the side-mounted gear carrier, and the roof ladder we added.

Our Land Rover's residual value might blunt its running costs some. IntelliChoice data say our $74,960 lightly optioned midgrade 2021 Defender 110 P400 SE actually appreciated in value during its time with us; after three years and 42,000 miles, our Defender would be worth $80,200. Although it's a frankly ridiculous deal for current Defender owners, we suspect purchasing new might still be the better option in this scenario. A comparably equipped 2023 Defender 100 P400 SE stickers for $80,875 and adds some key features our 2021 long-termer didn't have, like heated and cooled front seats and a sunroof. That said, you lose the neat front-row bench-seat option, which is probably just as well—we used the jump seat about a half-dozen times at most. It wound up being a better extra seat for a small dog than a person.

When Land Rover came around to collect our 2021 Defender 110 after a year, we managed to hang onto the keys for an additional two months. Simply put, we knew it'd be incredibly difficult to replace our 2021 SUV of the Year winner with something comparable. It wasn't the most efficient nor the most software-stable machine in our fleet, but none of our other long-term vehicles were as well-rounded and versatile as our Defender. Whether we called upon it for commuting, crisscrossing highways, or tackling tough overland trails, this Land Rover excelled. In an era where the term "SUV" is increasingly watered down, our 2021 Land Rover Defender 110 was a strikingly good reminder why Americans in general have such an infatuation with SUVs in the first place.