Ineos Grenadier Review Thread

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Lots of reviews are going live on the Gren these days. I daresay...I think they've nailed it.

Ineos Grenadier first drive: old-school cool

The Ineos Grenadier has hit production and we head to Scotland to drive it...

www.driven.co.nz

Quote the conclusion:

So is it the rugged, utilitarian off-roader that original Defender fans wanted? Absolutely, yes it is. But will they buy it?

They should, because Grenadier is superbly competent on the road and off it, it is one of those 4X4’s that just makes everything utterly effortless, while remaining impressively comfortable at all times. It also feels exceptionally well-engineered and built, lending credence to Ineos Automotive’s claims of rugged utility and its “Built on purpose” tagline.

But possibly the most remarkable thing about the Grenadier is that it really doesn’t feel like a ‘first go’ at a vehicle from a company that has never made one before – if you didn’t know better, you would swear it had already gone through a couple of generations to iron out all the kinks, and is testament to Ineos Automotive’s engineering and development that the Grenadier feels as convincing as it does.

Not bad for something conceived in a pub, admittedly by a billionaire who was willing to throw cash at it until it was just right. Oh, and he also owns the pub now, too.

Feel free to post up other reviews in this thread with the summary so folks can learn more about the Grenadier.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

In the interests of balance, here's another review with less stellar praise. However, the complaints that this author has identified are something that we've discussed at length over on TheIneosForum.com, and the conversation seems to be that depending on where a reviewer is from (and the use case of a 4x4 they understand) their reviews change. The UK reviewers tend to look at the Gren as a mass market vehicle and are concerned about things that I'd say most folks interested in the Gren aren't too worried about. The folks in Australia and New Zealand tend to "get it" and are quite excited about it with positive reviews to match.

2023 Ineos Grenadier Review: Work to be done on this workhorse - Hagerty Media

Interesting and ambitious, the 2023 Ineos Grenadier is akin to the old Land Rover Defender for the good, but most of all, the bad.

www.hagerty.com

For a company that has never built a car before, this is an impressive debut and if the majority of your work is in off-road, tough conditions, then Grenadier is competent and probably worth a look, but then so is the Isuzu D-Max, Toyota Land Cruiser, Jeep Wrangler and dare we say it, Land Rover’s Defender.

And while not one of the ten test Grenadiers stopped working, there were too many faults and daft design decisions to pass muster; if any of the competition had turned up with this many howlers they’d have been pilloried.

It’s nice to think there’s a market for roughy toughy vehicles like this, but the truth is more nuanced and Grenadier, like its rivals, needs to appeal to the all-hat-and-no-cattle-brigade as well as the beady-eyed farmers, strait-laced military procurement boards, penny-pinching utilities and so on. And those business customers are rightly demanding.

From coaster to vehicle, this is a great story, but there’s a hell of a lot more work to do to make Grenadier credible. At the moment, it’s far too like the old Defender model for the good, but most of all, the bad.

And for reference, here are the things that the author noted as concerns; these don't bother me and I suspect user error on the diff engagement (but am keen to hear more), but to each their own:

My first-ever road test editor on Commercial Motor magazine used to growl that you do the test on the day and mention everything, “because if they can’t get it right for you, then God help their customers.” So in the spirit of Bill Brock, here goes: the passenger-side door mirror failed to defrost itself; the doors on these cars all required very different efforts to shut; there was an annoying whine from the front differential; the center differential/transfer box didn’t always engage; the differential locks also didn’t always disengage and even if they did eventually disengage they failed to tell the vehicle electrics that they had done so which blocked off other functions; the transferable software for the Pathfinder navigation unit failed to transfer; and the windshield wipers which left the top half of the glass dirty and the washers didn’t squirt enough screen wash and the meager amount of fluid they did squirt was aimed at the wrong place; oh and the non-existent aerodynamics meant the side screen quickly became opaque with road dirt so you couldn’t see the door mirrors.

 

[naks]

probably the most balanced review I've seen so far

 

[naks]

 

[naks]

 

[naks]

Ineos Grenadier - Why it's not the perfect 4wd!

 

[T-Willy]

Robert Pepper’s no-nonsense, fact-based reviews are excellent.