Land Rover Defender — reported problems

What owners report: issue areas

Owner complaints are classified by the system they concern: 780 classifications in all. One complaint can concern several systems, so these add up to more than the number of complaints.

• Electrical system194 (24.9%)Official recall records for this system: 3, covering model years 1995–2021.
• Visibility (glass, wipers, mirrors)112 (14.4%)Official recall records for this system: 1, covering model years 2023–2024.
• Lights106 (13.6%)Official recall records for this system: 2, covering model years 2020–2022.
• Engine72 (9.2%)Official recall records for this system: 6, covering model years 2020–2025.
• Driver-assistance systems60 (7.7%)Official recall records for this system: 2, covering model years 2023–2024.
• Steering52 (6.7%)

Other / uncategorized: 54 classifications (6.9%) were not assigned to a specific system by the source. They are counted but not treated as an issue area.

These are counts of records held by CarFaultIQ, not a failure rate. More records can simply mean more vehicles were sold or more owners reported. No vehicles-in-service figure exists in this data, so no reliability or risk score can be derived from it.

What the records are about, by source

Each source is kept separate: owner complaints, recalls, manufacturer communications and investigations are different kinds of record and are never added together. All model years.

• Owner complaints (584 records, model years 1995–2026) are most frequently classified under: electrical system, visibility (glass, wipers, mirrors) and lights.
• Manufacturer communications (3,327 records, model years 1995–2026) are most frequently classified under: equipment & accessories, electrical system and powertrain (transmission & drivetrain).

"Most frequently classified under" reports how the records are filed by the source. It is not a finding about causes, and a record can be filed under more than one system. Read the individual records

Mileage reported when the issue occurred

• 56reports included a mileage
• 30,266average of those mileages

This is the mileage owners recorded at the time they reported, not an expected failure mileage and not a prediction for any individual vehicle. The lowest and highest figures on record are not shown: they are unverified odometer entries that include zeros and implausibly high readings, so they would not describe a real range. A median is not shown either, because the stored figures are group totals and a median cannot be recovered from them.

Evidence by model year

Records held per model year. Select a year to narrow this page to it.

1. 1995 18 records for 1995 18
2. 1997 19 records for 1997 19
3. 2020 618 records for 2020 618
4. 2021 566 records for 2021 566
5. 2022 545 records for 2022 545
6. 2023 497 records for 2023 497
7. 2024 266 records for 2024 266
8. 2025 200 records for 2025 200
9. 2026 62 records for 2026 62

Counts are not adjusted for how many vehicles were sold in each year, so a taller year is not necessarily a worse year.

Reports mentioning outcomes

• 6mention a crash
• 8mention a fire
• 4mention an injury

These are counts of records whose report mentioned the outcome. They are not a severity rating and not a safety assessment of this vehicle.

Official records held

• Safety recalls NHTSA 63
• Manufacturer communications NHTSA 3,327
• Investigations NHTSA 2
• Transport Canada recalls Transport Canada 59
• Owner complaints NHTSA 584

Explore the underlying evidence records

Diagnostic codes found in evidence for this vehicle

These codes appear by explicit identifier in official records matched to this exact model and year.

• C055E in 1 record · 2020–2020

A code appearing in a record means the code was named in that document. It is not a diagnosis of this vehicle, not a fault this vehicle has, and not an indication of urgency. Diagnosis requires reading live data from the vehicle.