By Sean Hanagan on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 02:44 pm: Edit

My dilema is this, I have and love my 94 D1. The truck takes me to some of the most difficult trails here in Colorado with only a 2" lift and some 245's. But I have always had a NEED for a D90. The prices are falling and I now can afford one. My concern is how safe is a D90 on the road? does anyone have first hand knowledge of how D90's are in an accident? I do have a 4 month old son who would have to ride in it sometimes. Any feedback would be very helpful.

By Ron on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Every wreck I have seen has been really nasty but everyone walks away.

They roll pretty easy but the safety cage is definately stout. Seems to be a lot of wrecks though.

Avoid the 94 POEs and the very early 94 ST as their cage is not as strong.

Ron

By sean Hanagan on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Ron,
What is a POE?

By Ron on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Port Of Entry hardtop

40 made toward the end of 94

My personal favorite but they only have a small bit of the cage. 95 and up SW have a full cage as do 94 and up soft tops after the first few (not sure how many)

Ron

By Sean on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Are they the ones with the "fastback" tops?

By Ron on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 04:04 pm: Edit

No, not necessarily.

Look at the build number. It is how the cage attaches. You can make a fast back a full top cage. To be honest it is still probably fine with the early STs but another thing to consider. POE's definatly have an issue though IMO.

Ron

By C. Ross on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Actually,
the first D90 I owned was a very early model. In the first few D90's the cage not only attached through to the frame but it also has an inner bar that runs just under the edge of the tub and attaches to the rear safari cage. In essence it had a side impact bar on the rear of the tub as well as all of the other bars as the later D90's. Apparently this was before they added the rear hoop safari cage as an option. It was very strong. My current D90 is one of the last 100 94 D90's and doesn't have that extra bar

Ross

By sean Hanagan on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 07:34 pm: Edit

So is it a safe vehicle?

By Ron on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 07:34 pm: Edit

Huh,

How early?

I am talking like #5 I knew the cage changed somewhat thoughout development but I was under the impression (and saw i think) that they very early 94s cages did not go all the way.

Ron

By Phillip Perkinson (R0ver4x4) on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 07:43 pm: Edit

the defender 90s are safe as shit I have seen pictures of wrecked ones got to whiterover.com he rolled his I dont think he has pictures up of it yet you could e mail him about..the d90 have full roll cages..I drove a 95 and it seems to be a very well made truck..in the 70's rover cars were known for the safty and I saw a series IIa 109 that got hit by a tractor trailer and the guy was still alive. I would completely feel 1000% safe in a rover althought none of the roll cage etc is worth a fuck unless you are wearing your seatbelts <--------my 2cents

By anonymous on Thursday, November 08, 2001 - 08:45 pm: Edit

they are safe

By Peter Thoren on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 12:28 am: Edit

The strong and rigid frame would save you when hitting obstacles which are smaller than your D90 like other cars etc. The bad thing is that if you hit something which is more rigid than your 90, like a big truck or a tree or similar, the full force of the impact will be transfered to you since the D90 does not have any effective crumple zoones.

Peter

By MA on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 08:09 am: Edit

Plus, you don't have airbags or ABS to stop better. But I think that they're pretty stout.

By Redsrover (Redsrover) on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 09:51 am: Edit

I drove a D90 and a NAS D110 for a couple years and they are safe. All this talk about safety and wrecks has got me thinking about my driving style. I wonder is there a correlation between highway commuting and around town driving that makes one more prone to accidents. I have never been in an accident and I have been driving for 20 years. I haul kids in the Disco and Classic and I used to drive my oldest daughter all over the place in my 1965 IIa with no roll cage and simple lap belts. I suppose driving skills and attention to what is going on around you is just as important if not more important than the ability of a truck to withstand a hit.

Be careful out there, watch for the other guy, don't play the radio too loud and for Christ's sake don't drink and drive. That's 99% of safety right there. The other 1% is the strength of the rig and just good luck.

Red

By Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 10:21 am: Edit

Red,

Another factor is location....

If I had stayed in Knoxville much longer, I would have been in an accident... keeping an eye open to other drivers kept me out of many while I lived there.

In Cookeville, Radford, Kingsport, Big Stone Gap (all are much smaller towns), never had a problem or even a close call.

Yes, if you're paying attention you can avoid an accident that's coming your way waiting to happen. But, in a larger city, the odds are that there's going to be one that you miss when its incoming, just because there are SO many more bad drivers out there.

Small towns have bad drivers too, it's just that proportionately, there are less of them, and with not-as-heavy traffic, you can get out of the way easier.

IMO....

-L

By p m on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 02:07 pm: Edit

FWIW, Leslie, i've lived all my life in cities with over a million people, and traffic wasn't a safety factor.

IMO, on the average, city dwellers are better drivers (in terms of multitasking and paying attention, not in temper)

peter

By Jeff Bieler (Mrbieler) on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Peter, that's not true in Los Angeles! It's a jungle here.

By Ron on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Try driving through Philly some time.

Ron

By Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) on Friday, November 09, 2001 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Different cities have different vibes....

Most cities aren't too big of a deal.

LA wasn't bad when I was there, but I was pickin-n-choosin' my routes carefully....

Knoxville is one of the worst I know... it's a lot of country drivers all getting tightened into a small city, then back out... I think you're catching the worst of it there...

Nashville wasn't too bad, only a few sticky places.

Atlanta, well.... Not as bad as Knoxville, but it was worse than New York.

Chicago didn't seem too bad, but I didn't stay long, was just breezing through.

Charlotte... I wish the bad ones were at least up to Charlotte's standards. Not perfect, no, but many are worse.

Pittsburg... okay, if you keep out of downtown.

Charleston... not the worst by far.

Denver... not bad, either.

DC... hey, most of you know it better than me. I didn't 'like' it, but I came closer to getting hit in Knoxville many times over....

Haven't hit the Texas or southwestern towns, nor anything out of the country, 'cept western Canada ("How many hours ago did we last see a car?"), or Toronto (I like that city, BTW....).


IMHO, YMMV....

-L

By Redsrover (Redsrover) on Saturday, November 10, 2001 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Peter,

"Multitasking"?

You mean like jabbering away on a cell phone or looking at useless calendar info on a Palm Vx or maybe just fumbling for that latest mp3? What do you mean by multitasking. I bet purely urban drivers are better, but that's precisely what causes most accidents. John K. has a great bumper sticker on his XD "Hang Up and Drive" I think it says.

Red

By Sean Hanagan (Seanh) on Monday, November 12, 2001 - 02:32 pm: Edit

Hey All!
Thanks for the input. I live in a rural area in the mountains of Colorado and there is very little traffic here. I do not use the cell phone in the car and have been lucky enough to avoid accidents for 32 years. I was nervous about givng up the saftey of a D1 for a D90. it sound like a fairly safe option.