NHTSA Complaint #11563512 — 2022 LAND ROVER DEFENDER

My 2022 Land Rover Defender was equipped with a factory-spec winch (a WARN Xeon Platinum 10-S, with Land Rover-supplied surrounds, etc.) installed immediately upon delivery by a JLR dealership. The winch is setup for a wireless winch remote, which intermittently loses pairing to the actual winch control unit. Due to the design of the Land Rover mounts, however, the winch’s controls (necessary to reset and reconnect the remote) are entirely inaccessible. The truck has to be taken to a JLR dealer every time the winch remote disconnects, the bumper and winch surrounds must be removed, and the controls thereby accessed to reset the system. So, several days’ worth of work every time the remote happens to disconnect, which is not a workable design. I have had the unit examined and serviced four times by dealerships and none are able to address the issue as the issue is with the factory design itself. There are third-party solutions (from WARN) available to reroute the winch controls to an accessible location, which the dealership has recommended I undertake just to get the factory design to function sustainably. This will likely run me $3,000 out of pocket, just to address design issues with the original $6,000 factory accessory. I have already contacted JLR customer service, who offered me a $300 voucher for future dealership service. After many discussions about the insufficiency of this voucher, they suggested that I file a NHTSA complaint.