Hi all. Newbie here - just got my Defender Limited a couple days ago (yee haw!). I'm sure this is common knowledge to you guys, but I just realized how to tell that my doors are fully closed. They kept seeming to shut okay, but something told me they weren't tight.
The beauty of suicide doors is you can see your latch. On the Defender Ltd, you can see the little, what I'll call claws, wrapping around a rod when the door is closed. However, my doors kept leaving a half inch gap between the tips of the opposing claws, when in fact there should be nearly zero clearance between them. So now I just glance at the latch to make sure the little claws are almost touching each other. Knowing the right amount of force to close my door is already second nature to me now, but every one of my passengers leaves that gap, which I can see from my side, so I know to tell them to try again. And, BTW, this is with at least one window open, so the reluctance of the doors to tightly shut isn't because of cabin pressure.
Gilly D, I hope your wife is okay by now!