It can depend on the company - I supply parts to a chap (in a "shed", alothough quite big!) who does insurance jobs, and one company will even allow him to use second-hand parts where appropriate, i.e. not brakes, suspension etc. It may be worth reccomending your favourite repairer to them, if he's prepared to go through all the paperwork!
Richard
In message Tom Woods wrote:
Defender safety is a classic example of who does the tests, for who, and with what agenda. The Which? tests a few years ago focused on front quarter "head on" collisions, i.e. being hit at about 1 o'clock, and Defender did badly as the chassis tended to intrude into the cab with the threat of lower limb injury - but that was only one test, they didn't cover other senarios and therefore, in my opinion, the results were failrly meaningless! In other tests by other people looking at other senarios Defender does quite well, and in side impact tests- well, lets just say that some propsed side impact legislation by the EC had to be completely restructured, in other words made easier to pass, since the only EU manufacturer that had no problem with it, yes including Volvo, was Land Rover - and they didn't have to change anything to meet the proposed spec! Overall, impirical evidence suggests quite strongly that Defender is pretty safe - as it appears is the rest of the range. Evidence is things such as the Electricity Board bloke who rolled right down a hill it Cumbria and walked away with a few scratches (no roll bar required!), the guy who fell off a bridge (30ft or so if I remember right) and was then landed-on by the tractor unit of the artic also involved in the accident (the vehicle is back on the road!) etc etc - these stoties come up in the press quite often. One thing I have noticed, the Which? tests being a case in point, is that a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder about Defender and safety - after all, its got *no* "modern" safety features, so therefore it must be dangerous, musn't it?
Richard
In article , richard. watson writes
Quite.
I have tried (and so far failed) to get the driver's airbag disabled/removed on our 2002 Alhambra.
My wife is 5'0.25" tall (don't EVER forget the 1/4 inch!), and I have measured her distance to the steering wheel. She'd probably be killed by it if it ever deployed, but she doesn't believe me, and neither do the SEAT agents.
I'm far happier about her safety when she's driving the 110.
Regards,
Simonm.
|| in side impact tests- well, lets just say that some propsed side || impact legislation by the EC had to be completely restructured, in || other words made easier to pass, since the only EU manufacturer that || had no problem with it, yes including Volvo, was Land Rover - and || they didn't have to change anything to meet the proposed spec! ||
Have you got a source for this information? I'd like to follow it up.
Not as bad as it could have been. If it does get written off I'd sue the offending driver for the cost of a brand new one!
Rotten luck, though.
IIRC the survey about the safest cars went something like Range Rover followed by Discovery followed by Defender, 1,2,3.
discoveries -
I recently bought myself a Defender pickup (about 3 months ago). Since then I've been involved in two accidents. The first occurred at a give way sign when a kid in a falcon or commodore attempted to drive right through me - obviously had his eyes fixed on the oncoming traffic on the intersecting road. The front of his vehicle was a mess, shattered headlights, radiator grille and the bonnet had been crumpled back. After scraping some his paint off the defenders chassis I drove away with only two small dents.
The second incident was slightly more serious, a girl driving her dads Nissan Patrol (with bull bar) struck me from behind while I was stopped at a set of traffic lights. I don't know what speed she was doing, but the impact was forceful enough to open a shallow cut on my scalp when my head bounced off the headrest. Again damage to the defender was pretty minimal. The only casualty being the bar at the back of the tray which protects the indicator & brake lights (its a drop side steel tray standard to most Australian defenders). The Nissan came off worse in fact, the bull bar being forced back into the bonnet causing some damage.
So I've been fairly favourably impressed with the sturdiness of the defender.
I wouldn't want to test the side intrusion strength of the doors or as Tim Hobbs says, be struck above the level of the chassis. But so long as you wear your seat belt, and you don't take on something out of your weight division -like a tree or a truck - then the defender strikes me as being a pretty safe vehicle.
Steve H posted ...
Sad day man .. commiserations ...
But at least England won .. ;)
Time to ask the Aussies to make loads of Beckham voodoo dolls I reckon... :-)
Martyn
Only that it was around 1999, and that it was talked about by the SAE, so their proceedings may help to find a reference. I'm affrain I've long since binned my note books from the "bad old days"
Richard
I suspect the quoted "tests" weren't actually tests but referred to the statistics released last year from one of the government safety units ( it's available somewhere on the web... might have been TRRL ?. IIRC it was a compiled list of fatalities/serious injuries as a percentage of the accidents that each vehicle had been involved in. It was these figures that showed that in an "average" real accident the Defender was safest - you were more likely to walk away from an accident in a Defender than any other vehicle.
The survey only covered vehicle on vehicle accidents which, on the whole, account for the majority of accidents. Some of the worst statistics came from the small euro boxes, presumably after they made the mistake of hitting a Land Rover product. Some of the best scorers on the ENCAP (sp?) tests were some of the worst in the "real life" statistics.
The conclusion drawn was that if you were going to hit another vehicle, you're far better off in a Defender, if you are going to hit a concrete slab at 30 MPH that only covers half the bonnet (or a tree I would guess) then you are safer in a euro box. This is pretty much what the european tests prove.
The obvious conclusion for Land Rover drivers is to run into the vehicle ahead in preference to swerving into a motorway bridge...
cheers
Dave W.
Yep, the Aussies couldn't hold the geriatric pack or stop our uninspired back row that they have spent the last month ribbing. They must be hanging their heads in shame...
I'm looking forward to February now!
Tim Hobbs
'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i
Tim Hobbs posted ...
What was really nice was the final drop-kick .. what a way to silence the 'knockers' .. ;)
Not so lucky.....
|| Not so lucky..... || ||
Interesting site - on the Range Rover page they feature a Freebie. Easy to confuse them, I suppose.
I think that they are!!! We saw a Defender flying through the air about 8' up having hit a Mondeo full front - combined speed approx 60 mph. It landed on all four wheels. The drivers front corner did not exist - the front off side suspension units and wheel were alongside the Landy. The woman in it had a bloody nose where she'd hit the steering wheel. The man in the Mondeo would have been dead if it hadn't been for a) his air bag and b) my other half holding his head together and up to stop him drowning. I was so glad that I had a Defender to drive after that - although I did spend a while talking to it and pointing out it is a "Land" Rover => not a "Flying" Rover! Shock is a strange thing. Amanda
Oh and I forgot, the chassis was totally bent.
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