Everything That Went Wrong With Our 2021 Land Rover Defender 110

Deserved or not, Land Rover has a reputation for building unreliable vehicles. I find that a bit odd, considering both my personal and professional experience with the brand. It's anecdotal, sure, but over the past 17 years of MT long-term Land Rovers, only one, a diesel-powered 2016 Range Rover Sport, had had a mechanical issue, major or otherwise. Now that it's nearing the end of its stay with us, I feel comfortable counting our long-term 2021 Land Rover Defender 110 among the more reliable Land Rovers in our fleet, though it most certainly wasn't without problems. Here's everything that's broken on our Defender during its stay with us.

The most annoying issue we've had with our Defender was an intermittent "Suspension Fault" message that would pop up in the central driver display. More than just an annoying warning, the air suspension controls also wouldn't respond after the warning popped up, locking the Defender in whatever ride height it was at prior to the failure. (I really didn't appreciate how great the Rover's ride was until driving around for 10 minutes in Access height).

As I covered in an earlier update, the height-adjustable and load-leveling air suspension has been a boon to the Defender's utility—it's made it easier to haul everything from cinder blocks to mattresses. But there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the faults. The errors would pop up randomly both when the Defender was empty or loaded, and each time it would fix itself after I shut the SUV off, locked it, waited a few minutes, and turned it back on again. An over-the-air (OTA) update eventually cured this problem after about a month. The dealer later confirmed that nothing was physically wrong with the air suspension, and that it appeared to be a software glitch.

Just as with our phantom air suspension issues, our Defender also had a brief "overheating" issue. On one not abnormally warm June morning, while driving down the highway, I accelerated to pass a slower car and suddenly the Defender's I-6 stumbled. I glanced down to see if I'd accidentally put the eight-speed auto into manual, only to find the temperature needle pegged and an overheating warning on the dash. Surprised, I turned the heat on full blast and limped the Defender home. The next morning, in even cooler temperatures, I had the same issue. At no point did the truck demonstrate any of the telltale signs of an overheating vehicle; all I got was a dash warning and a swinging temperature needle.

Despite what the Defender thought, I was fairly confident that it wasn't actually overheating. That hunch was confirmed a few days later at a Land Rover dealer, when the refreshingly honest service advisor told me that it had become a common problem recently. An inspection confirmed the vehicle was mechanically sound, and after a software reflash our Defender hasn't had the issue again.

This one is partially my fault, but I ripped a hole in the back of the rear-center headrest after folding the seats flat. Apparently—and unlike the outboard seats—you must remove the center headrest before tumbling the seat forward. I tried the first time I folded the rear seat flat and couldn't get the center headrest out, so I figured you just couldn't. After a few months of rubbing the seat bottom while folded, though, the back of the headrest tore. Despite one service advisor saying it was a common issue with the Defender, the dealer initially opted not to cover the replacement under warranty. However, after a six-month wait for the $422.99 replacement, a different service advisor was able to get the headrest warrantied.

At some point before our overheating issue, the Defender's rear wiper sprayer stopped spraying. A clogged washer jet was the culprit, though unfortunately the dealership didn't reassemble the system properly. I found that out a day later when a fresh bottle of wiper fluid wound up in a puddle underneath the Defender instead of in the reservoir under the hood. The dealer resecured a hose and the problem disappeared.

The final issue we experienced with our Defender was a weird one—the front-left speaker randomly stopped working one afternoon, mid-song. The next day, I woke up to an OTA update and the issue was fixed.

Honestly, it depends on your definition of "reliable." Given the software-heavy nature of modern cars, OTA updates can break things as easily as they can fix them. Both the dealer and I think that bad software likely caused the overheating warning (especially considering the vehicle's cooling hardware was mechanically sound), but it also likely cured the air suspension and stereo faults we had—which, I guess, software possibly caused, too. On the plus side, our Defender has gotten added features, like wireless CarPlay, through those updates, which has been super convenient.

As for my personal opinion? Yeah, I'd still consider it reliable. Despite the worrying (but cured) overheating glitch, everything that "broke" has been minor and relatively easy to rectify. I still wouldn't hesitate to hop into the MT Defender for a cross-country overlanding expedition. In fact, now I'm itching to. Too bad its time with us is up soon.