Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S 2023 Review

At $96,170 plus on-road costs, the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S is at the lower end of the short-wheelbase range.

Defender 90s start at $88,870 plus ORCs for the petrol-powered P300 S and rise all the way to $220,020 plus on-roads for the wild supercharged V8 P525.

Rivals are few and far between. Really, the only short-wheelbase off-roader in this price bracket – sit down, Suzuki Jimny – is the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon two-door at $83,950 plus ORCs.

In general, the list of optional equipment available across the entire 2023 Land Rover Defender range – 90, 110 and 130 – is way longer than your arm.

However, in non-optioned form, the Defender 90 D250 S borders on sparse. There’s cloth trim, power-adjusted but basic front seats, sat-nav, dual-zone climate-control and, most appropriately, rubber flooring in the cabin and boot that can be swept clean with a brush and shovel.

There are centre arm rests front and rear, plus the usual smattering of spaces for incidental storage in the doors, centre console and across the left-hand side of the dash, as well as pockets behind the front seats.

Options fitted to our Defender 90 included – among other things – a $1663 off-road pack which brought brake-activated torque vectoring and a domestic plug socket, plus a $1309 adaptive air suspension pack that replaces the standard coil springs and adds auto-levelling headlights.

The almost-incomprehensible list of available options includes the choice between glass and folding-fabric sunroofs ($4490 and $4810 respectively), heated front seats ($806), cabin air purification ($815) and an exhaustive list of trim options.

That’s before taking into account the $1481 cold climate pack with a heated steering wheel and windscreen, plus individual items such as a $1200 premium Meridian sound system, a camera-based ‘clearsight’ rear-view mirror ($1445) and, in place of the standard two-zone system, three-zone climate control ($910).

The Defender’s warranty is a standard five-year/unlimited-kilometre arrangement with roadside assist provided for the full warranty term.

Owners can sign up to Land Rover’s capped-price servicing plan which covers the full five-year warranty period and is limited to 102,000km. Prices vary according to model, with the D250 S 90 series capped at $2850.

Those with experience of the previous Land Rover Defender will be aware that primary and secondary safety barely figured. The new-generation Defender has been created deliberately to look like the original, but under the skin it’s anything but.

Autonomous emergency braking (AEB), adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, road sign recognition, 360-degree camera, tyre pressure sensors, driver attention detection and monitoring for blind spots, clear-exit, rear collision and rear traffic are all standard.

In keeping with its off-road capabilities there’s also a wade sensor if you are planning to exploit the Defender’s ability to immerse itself in as much as 900mm of water.

The six-airbag Land Rover Defender 90 has not yet been given an ANCAP safety rating, but the long-wheelbase 110 version was awarded a full five stars in 2020.

In S form, the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 focuses more on what’s needed than what’s desired.

There’s inbuilt sat-nav on a 10.0-inch touch-screen (a larger 11.4-inch screen is listed as a no-cost option), Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, Bluetooth and wireless phone charging.

USB-A and USB-C ports are provided, as is a 12-volt power socket in the boot.

The surround camera system does more than simply provide a bird’s eye view to help when parking. It also projects close-ups of the front and rear ends to avoid unwanted contact with unseen obstacles at ground level and acts as a visual guide when hooking up to the tow ball.

The ‘Ingenium’ 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder turbo-diesel is comfortably at home in the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S, which tips the scales at 2293kg.

Its party trick is a mild-hybrid system that feeds energy into the 48-volt battery under braking or deceleration, then uses it to supplement the engine’s power when accelerating to the benefit of both power delivery and economy. Exactly how much energy is saved isn’t mentioned, but one imagines it’s very little.

In typical diesel fashion, the D250 doesn’t ask for a lot of revs to do its stuff. The 183kW power peak arrives at 4000rpm while the maximum 570Nm of torque is on a plateau between 1250-2250rpm.

The Defender 90 D250’s big towing capacity of 3.5 tonnes exceeds a lot of the 4x4 utes and SUVs on the Australian market, and while that’s a lot of weight to put behind a short-wheelbase 2.2-tonne vehicle, the Defender is one of the better towing rigs out there.

An automatic engine idle-stop system is employed to help lower the consumption of the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S, and the outcome, for a quick but heavy, angular and bulky SUV, is pretty reasonable.

Although we didn’t see the claimed 7.9L/100km combined-cycle economy figure during our week with the Defender 90 D250, the recorded 10L/100km was pretty respectable and could no doubt be improved on with a bit of judicious attention to the accelerator pedal.

If the previous Defender felt like a block of flats on wheels, the new-generation model at times has something of the savoir faire of a Land Rover Discovery. It never pretends to be a Disco, but it clearly shares much of its luxury-oriented sibling’s DNA.

The 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S proceeds with a previously unimaginable level of smoothness and on the road the inline six-cylinder diesel is torquey, responsive and silent to a fault.

So good is the engine’s torque delivery that the eight-speed auto seems almost redundant and the performance is good enough that it feels quicker than the quoted 8.0sec 0-100km/h time.

The Defender’s angularity doesn’t create much wind noise when travelling at speed – a fact undoubtedly explained by the relatively low 0.38Cd drag coefficient, which is mainly achieved via extensive smoothing-out of the underbody.

At 2.7 turns from lock-to-lock for a pretty tight 11.3-metre turning circle (the short wheelbase is largely responsible for that), the Defender 90’s steering isn’t quite what you would expect of such a big lump of steel and aluminium.

It’s nicely weighted and accurate and asks for few of the compensations required by many large SUVs when negotiating roundabouts or tight parking spaces.

The review Defender’s ride quality was very well controlled via the optional air suspension and seemed to work well controlling the fore-aft pitching that could feasibly be expected because of the short wheelbase.

That said, previous experience suggests it would be interesting to compare coil- and air-sprung Defender 90s back-to-back. In some situations, it’s thought that steel springs are better than air bladders at absorbing initial sharp impacts.

The 19-inch alloy wheel set is wrapped in 255/65R19 all-season tyres and includes a full-size spare attached to the side-hinged rear door.

The 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S is accomplished off-road and, particularly in short-wheelbase 90 form, it’s probably more effective at negotiating difficult terrain than the bulk of ‘proper’ 4x4s.

But as this review concentrated on the Land Rover Defender 90’s demeanour in normal urban and outer-urban activities, the test vehicle was measured on its performance in regular day-to-day duties. It is a multipurpose 4x4, after all.

In D250 S form, the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 is, well, pretty basic. Fair enough, given the Defender 90’s nature – the surprisingly spacious and comfortable cabin is more utilitarian than urban.

The front seats at first seem flat and uninviting and there’s not a lot of the technology and glamour you might expect of a vehicle priced close to $100,000.

As already mentioned, the basic essentials are there – sat-nav, climate-control with venting to the rear seats, (partly) powered front seats – and the rubber flooring reflects an adventurous spirit.

But unless you’re prepared to spend hours poring through the options list, a lot of the things we take for granted, even at the lower end of the market, are simply not there.

Particularly in the back seats, functionality literally does indeed take a back seat. Negotiating access via the not-so-big door apertures is a struggle for the non-athletic and involves manipulating levers on the front seats that end up providing a tight, elevated space to wriggle through.

And it’s all so high off the road that side steps are more of a necessity than a bit of optional eye candy, while well-placed grab handles are conspicuously absent.

The payoff is that, once aboard, you’ll find there’s heaps of space: legroom, headroom and, particularly, shoulder-room. The only penalty is the shallow and tight boot space dictated by the Defender 90’s stubby dimensions.

Boot space behind the back seat is quoted at 397 litres although at first it looks less. Drop the seat down and the Defender 90 becomes more the rugged off-roader it presents as, opening up a total 1563 litres of load space.

The optional central front jump seat partly saves the day by still allowing three passengers even if the rear luggage space is fully deployed.

Although there’s a lot of competition in the premium large SUV market segment, there’s nothing quite like the 2023 Land Rover Defender 90.

Vehicles of similar capabilities such as the Jeep Wrangler and the Mercedes-Benz G-Class are either downmarket or exist in a parallel universe.

Defined by its iconic looks and limited in its practicality by the three-door, short-wheelbase configuration, the Defender 90 is aimed at a specific buyer who is more likely to go seriously bush than undertake genteel family expeditions.

The Defender 90’s truncated wheelbase suggests it would be more capable in challenging terrain than its stretched-out siblings.

Those looking for the very best in off-road capabilities would need to look a long way before finding anything that approaches the Land Rover Defender 90 D250.

The fact that it is also a handy town runabout is icing on the cake, albeit with some reservations about its passenger friendliness.

2023 Land Rover Defender 90 D250 S at a glance:
Price: $96,170 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo-diesel
Output: 183kW/570Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 7.9L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 207g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Not tested