Safer in 10 minutes: Our Land Rover Defender gets a security boost

Gary and his laptop go places that an over-the-air update simply can’t...

A nice man arrives one morning after a few phone calls and an "I'm half an hour away" text to carry out what has variously been described as an 'update' and a 'recall' to the Land Rover Defender 130.

Most of its updates happen over the air, but not this one, which requires plugging in a diagnostic laptop to a 16-pin socket in the driver's footwell, because it's a security update. It disables the 'can bus' when the car is locked, to make it harder to steal.

Gary says theft isn't a Land Rover-specific problem but is an issue for all premium car makers, so updates/recalls/whatever like this are just part of the game of cat and mouse with increasingly sophisticated criminals.

I wondered if a lot of pinched cars end up in Russia, given sanctions mean they can't officially be sold there (though some unscrupulous neighbouring countries are experiencing a curiously unexpected sales volume boost), but I'm told the UAE is a more typical end point.

The job of reinforcing this Defender starts at 0825hr and is all done by 0835hr, after a couple of checks that the windows still work; the update occasionally upsets a few supplementary systems, necessitating a second reboot, but all is well here.

While the work's being done, I'm also advised not to use a Land Rover Remote app - which I had to download as part of the insurance requirements - to lock the car if I've inadvertently left the keys inside it (if, say, I remember while standing in line at a filling station).

The app won't then unlock it, and my keys will be inside, which is suboptimal. Duly noted. Anyway, 10 minutes after Gary arrives, he's on his way again and the Defender feels no different to me but is more secure. Happy days.

I thought I might have to wait longer so I've been clearing and tidying the car up while the update has been happening.

A colleague might need to use it without much notice, and handing over a filthy car to somebody important is seldom advisable. And yet the Outbound spec is a rufty-tufty lifestyley variant so I've been trying to use it like one as much as possible and have a boot sullied by hay and horse feed.

So I pull the brushable, hoseable, rubber mat onto the floor and set about it. It has a small flap too, which can have a dual purpose of protecting the bumper if you're loading a potentially scratchy object into the boot or, more likely, protecting you from grime on the bumper if you're sitting on the boot lip to change your wellies. The front and rear footwells have similarly utilitarian mats.

Incidentally, inside the boot lip is a button that can lower or raise the cars ride height while stationary to boot floor, which is good if the boot is full, and there's also a storage cubby in the door that would be handy for hi-vis vests, or cleaning kit, gloves, dog leads, whatever.

JLR may well think of itself as a luxury design house these days, but credit to the designers and engineers who still think of utility things like this in a car like this. It's an expensive wagon, certainly, but still an exceptionally useful one.

I've yet to tow anything with this Defender - there's an electrically deploying towbar and you have no idea at all that it's there when it's stowed - but having pulled stuff with them before, I know they are terrific at it. I'll have to think of a reason to try it.

Meantime, I get back into the tidied, and now apparently more secure, driver's seat of one of the most practical and easygoing cars on the market, and have it melt into my life as easily as it ever does.