INEOS Grenadier

[nickw]

With respect, I think you guys are missing the intention. Lord Higgenbottoms or whatever his name is, basically wanted to recreate the Defender but make it as reliable as possible. Period. If you look at this thing that way, it makes sense.

In this vane, weight is not a priority as Defenders are heavy. Neither is modern design--they're shoe boxes that afford fantastic driver visibility, predictable angles and have almost nothing extruding laterally.

While I agree with the no-brainer aspect of modern IFS, in terms of reliability, it's no contest. Solid axles almost never fail, have far less parts and can be Jerry rigged in a jam most of the time. If you're in BFE, Africa and your IFS somehow fails, you'd better have the parts, tools and experience. A solid axle truck obviously benefits from lubricant and service but can go tens of thousands of miles without care. I once owned a Ford F250 with 300k on it that hadn't seen a front diff service since at least 110k.

Now, personally I'm holding on to my LC200 but I do appreciate both the design and execution that I've seen so far here.



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Forget the axles - IFS/IRS has proven perfectly durable. This rig is not a reincarnated LC70 series, not even close, it uses a complex engine / trans that cannot be field repaired (or repaired effectively at all until we understand the service center strategy).....that will always and forever be the weak link.

Would you take a Supra or BMW 3 series into the middle of BFE? That's the question you need to ask yourself.

We've had multiple BMW's and they've been (mostly) great and trouble free....but they are not simple/durable machines that I'd go travel through the Sahara / Africa in, especially not one that has not been tested for 10+ years.

A modern Defender is different IMO, LR has what 80 years of development, design iterations and fine tuning of their rigs over and over, complex yes, but they have a track record of succeeding.

I think it was Robbie Gordon who wanted to win Dakar, he built his trucks ground up using best parts.....they broke. Best HD axles, huge V8 engines, HD trans, super robust frame, wheels, etc....still broke and got destroyed by the factory teams using unibody/small displacement engines. A rig is more than a sum of it's parts, it's execution, IG has not proven anything yet to me.

 

[Beardy]

It depends a bit on what terrain and where you intend to go. IFS is better mannered on road but solid axles are more robust and give you better articulation offroad and generally more robust.
Speaking as a LC79 owner driving the Australian outback.

Apart from costs, do you think the solid axles are also being used to set this vehicle apart from others in a similar class and tug on the nostalgia heart strings?

 

[nickw]

It depends a bit on what terrain and where you intend to go. IFS is better mannered on road but solid axles are more robust and give you better articulation offroad and generally more robust.
Speaking as a LC79 owner driving the Australian outback.

Apart from costs, do you think the solid axles are also being used to set this vehicle apart from others in a similar class and tug on the nostalgia heart strings?

So an Aussie outback trip is pretty niche use case - wouldn't you be more concerned with engine / trans in an unproven vehicle? Guessing a LC200/300 have proven perfectly capable in the outback and may handle washboard better at the expense of extreme articulation?

To answer your second question - absolutely part of it IMO.

 

[Beardy]

So an Aussie outback trip is pretty niche use case - wouldn't you be more concerned with engine / trans in an unproven vehicle? Guessing a LC200/300 have proven perfectly capable in the outback and may handle washboard better at the expense of extreme articulation?

To answer your second question - absolutely part of it IMO.

Yes the Ineos would need to prove itself before I would get onboard with them but I know other experienced overlanders, one with a LC200 that is interested in one as his next vehicle. The biggest design concern raised is their small fuel capacity and no option for a long range tank and the lack of foot well space with the large transmission tunnel. I haven’t seen one in person yet myself
The LC200 has proven itself and LC300 the same although still early days. The LC70 series are purpose built as a robust no frills vehicle though and hence the solid axles. On the blacktop they do have their shortcomings but they feel at home on unsealed tracks. I went from an IFS Toyota Hilux to LC79’s about 300,000klm’s ago and it makes a much better tourer for us but to your point yes I would consider a 200/300 if it met my needs.

The solid axles of the Ineos may be as much a statement that they are serious about building a true off road vehicle

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

A couple of comments from the last few pages:

1) Vehicle is definitely anachronistic in it's design. It is not meant to be modern. The goal of this car is to be as simple, robust, and easy to fix in the bush as possible and still be for sale in modern 2023 markets worldwide; it's as modern as necessary to do that but as anachronistic as possible for other reasons, such as ease of repair and ruggedness. Solid axles check those boxes far better than IFS; IFS can be robust and easy to fix; the HMMV is proof of that. But most Grenadier owners will be a few trillion dollars short of having the logistical might of the US military behind them; we'll be relying on Mr. Atef who runs a shade-tree gas station/auto repair/ice cream shop/BBQ restaurant in the middle of Namibia. That dude can fix solid axles, probably with bits and pieces lying around town, because solid axles have been going through his town for decades. There are also improvements to off road performance but I think @nickw hit the nail on the head - solid axles are easier to design, manufacture, and install. The same things that make them easier in that regard make them easier to keep working, and that's why they were chosen for the Grenadier.

2) I have regularly seen a lot of people dismissing the Grenadier because of the choice in powerplant, but I've yet to see anyone articulate why it's not suitable, I have just a lot of certainty that it isn't. A gas engine combines fuel, air, and spark into an explosion. Diesel do the same, replacing "spark" with "compression". That explosion turns a cylinder. One end of that cylinder is connected to a pulley that drives other stuff - like a tiny electric motor to charge batteries and a water pump to circulate coolant. The other end of the cylinder is connected to the wheels via a transmission. Over the last hundred years or so, we've gotten really good at knowing how to make these things to the point where there's not a modern engine I know of, produced by a major manufacturer, that won't be good for at least a few hundred thousand kilometers assuming proper maintenance.

So with all that, what about the BMW motor makes it unsuitable for the task that the Grenadier is set up for? And, I'd like to go a bit deeper than "it's complex" -- what about it is complex? And how is that different than any other motor available today? The only single bit of technical information I can find that makes an eyebrow raise for me is the location of the cam chain and the work required to replace it, but that's never a trail-side repair as if that fails your engine has eaten itself; the few extra shop hours are certainly a nuisance every 5 years or so where that job needs doing, but that's not exactly evidence that the B58 is not suitable. So what is it? Why do so many folks in this thread think the Ineos is likely to be no good because it's going to be relying on a BMW motor?

 

[nickw]

Yes the Ineos would need to prove itself before I would get onboard with them but I know other experienced overlanders, one with a LC200 that is interested in one as his next vehicle. The biggest design concern raised is their small fuel capacity and no option for a long range tank and the lack of foot well space with the large transmission tunnel. I haven’t seen one in person yet myself
The LC200 has proven itself and LC300 the same although still early days. The LC70 series are purpose built as a robust no frills vehicle though and hence the solid axles. On the blacktop they do have their shortcomings but they feel at home on unsealed tracks. I went from an IFS Toyota Hilux to LC79’s about 300,000klm’s ago and it makes a much better tourer for us but to your point yes I would consider a 200/300 if it met my needs.

The solid axles of the Ineos may be as much a statement that they are serious about building a true off road vehicle

If the LC300 is in early days then the IG is massivly, with an unproven engine/trans in a platform that is all new. Toyota has years and millions upon millions of hours testing vehicles and a design / testing process that is the best in the world.....they still get it wrong at times with recalls, design changes and updates.

I like to go look at reviews of random one off or first generation rigs on YouTube, Doug Demuro has a bunch, the weird workarounds those folks did to get cars operational is silly, wondering where the IG will land on that front?

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

If the LC300 is in early days then the IG is massivly, with an unproven engine/trans in a platform that is all new. Toyota has years and millions upon millions of hours testing vehicles and a design / testing process that is the best in the world.....they still get it wrong at times with recalls, design changes and updates.

I like to go look at reviews of random one off or first generation rigs on YouTube, Doug Demuro has a bunch, the weird workarounds those folks did to get cars operational is silly, wondering where the IG will land on that front?

I think there's sort of two elements at play here:

1) How good is the design?

2) How many teething problems do they have on the new model?


For 1) I think the Gren looks pretty good. There's nothing about it that makes me think it won't be useful in 5, 10, 15, or 20 years. Parts will wear out and need replacing, of course, but fundamentally I don't think there's anything about it that suggests it won't keep working -- for instance, it doesn't rely on a 5G connection back to Corporate HQ in order to get OTA updates, which is great until they discontinue the 5G standard in 15 years like they did with 3G a few months back -- what happens to those cars that rely on that connectivity? A solveable problem to be sure, but the point is there's nothing about the design of the Gren that looks like it will be victim to this kind of thing.

For 2), I expect there'll be a lot of teething problems -- a brand new rig from a brand new manufacturer -- and indeed we're already seeing those manifest in a few ways, but once the baby is done teething it's generally over that for good.

So, I'm less worried about how Ineos lands in the first few years, provided the Gren's problems are "teething" and not "design".

Nick - What about the B58/ZF combination worries you and makes you feel it's unproven? The B58 traces it's lineage in it's current form to 2015, and has a pedigree going back to 2006. It's got a lot of hours and miles on it in a lot of platforms. The ZF is the same, having a robust pedigree and success in a number of different vehicles including the Ram 1500 TRX which is way heavier and puts out double the HP and torque of the Gren.

So what about this combination specifically worries folks so much?

 

[nickw]

A couple of comments from the last few pages:

1) Vehicle is definitely anachronistic in it's design. It is not meant to be modern. The goal of this car is to be as simple, robust, and easy to fix in the bush as possible and still be for sale in modern 2023 markets worldwide; it's as modern as necessary to do that but as anachronistic as possible for other reasons, such as ease of repair and ruggedness. Solid axles check those boxes far better than IFS; IFS can be robust and easy to fix; the HMMV is proof of that. But most Grenadier owners will be a few trillion dollars short of having the logistical might of the US military behind them; we'll be relying on Mr. Atef who runs a shade-tree gas station/auto repair/ice cream shop/BBQ restaurant in the middle of Namibia. That dude can fix solid axles, probably with bits and pieces lying around town, because solid axles have been going through his town for decades. There are also improvements to off road performance but I think @nickw hit the nail on the head - solid axles are easier to design, manufacture, and install. The same things that make them easier in that regard make them easier to keep working, and that's why they were chosen for the Grenadier.

2) I have regularly seen a lot of people dismissing the Grenadier because of the choice in powerplant, but I've yet to see anyone articulate why it's not suitable, I have just a lot of certainty that it isn't. A gas engine combines fuel, air, and spark into an explosion. Diesel do the same, replacing "spark" with "compression". That explosion turns a cylinder. One end of that cylinder is connected to a pulley that drives other stuff - like a tiny electric motor to charge batteries and a water pump to circulate coolant. The other end of the cylinder is connected to the wheels via a transmission. Over the last hundred years or so, we've gotten really good at knowing how to make these things to the point where there's not a modern engine I know of, produced by a major manufacturer, that won't be good for at least a few hundred thousand kilometers assuming proper maintenance.

So with all that, what about the BMW motor makes it unsuitable for the task that the Grenadier is set up for? And, I'd like to go a bit deeper than "it's complex" -- what about it is complex? And how is that different than any other motor available today? The only single bit of technical information I can find that makes an eyebrow raise for me is the location of the cam chain and the work required to replace it, but that's never a trail-side repair as if that fails your engine has eaten itself; the few extra shop hours are certainly a nuisance every 5 years or so where that job needs doing, but that's not exactly evidence that the B58 is not suitable. So what is it? Why do so many folks in this thread think the Ineos is likely to be no good because it's going to be relying on a BMW motor?

If people rant and rave about it having solid axles (that we don't know the specs of) we can pick on it for having an engine designed for a midsize sedan (that I'll admit we are lacking info on)

In all seriousness, I'll ask the question in reverse, why is this better than a LC300 or a LR Defender? Bother are cheaper, easier to source parts for, easier to service, sim capacities, are designed/engineered by companies that have a solid track record and are available. Neither of which seem to get the attention the IG gets, both got slammed for softening up and being shells of their former selves and nobody has called either one 'simple'.

If you can get behind the IG then you have to be willing to vouch for an X3, Supra or other rigs like Cayenne's, Tuaregs and their ilk from a reliability and longevity perspective, assuming you are sticking to GVWR.

IG is getting the attention but there are other rigs that have engines that go bang (to your point) that get zero love.

I'm the first one to defend modern rigs, I think 99% of them are just fine, I'd rock a IG in a second if they had support in my area...just like I'd rock a modern Defender, Ford Explorer, Bronco, Tahoe, etc. some of which have engines that have a very extended track record in reasonably heavy duty rigs.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

If people rant and rave about it having solid axles (that we don't know the specs of) we can pick on it for having an engine designed for a midsize sedan (that I'll admit we are lacking info on)

In all seriousness, I'll ask the question in reverse, why is this better than a LC300 or a LR Defender? Bother are cheaper, easier to source parts for, easier to service, sim capacities, are designed/engineered by companies that have a solid track record and are available. Neither of which seem to get the attention the IG gets, both got slammed for softening up and being shells of their former selves and nobody has called either one 'simple'.

If you can get behind the IG then you have to be willing to vouch for an X3, Supra or other rigs like Cayenne's, Tuaregs and their ilk from a reliability and longevity perspective, assuming you are sticking to GVWR.

IG is getting the attention but there are other rigs that have engines that go bang (to your point) that get zero love.

I'm the first one to defend modern rigs, I think 99% of them are just fine, I'd rock a IG in a second if they had support in my area...just like I'd rock a modern Defender, Ford Explorer, Bronco, Tahoe, etc. some of which have engines that have a very extended track record in reasonably heavy duty rigs.

I'm not sure this question is actually the logical counter to my question; I've never claimed the Gren is "better" full stop. For me, it's always a question of better for whom?

If you want a car to take to work and occasionally do off road, you're spoiled for choice; there's dozens of options on the market today to choose from. The Grenadier is likely not better for this buyer, and I have no doubt they would get a few hundred thousand trouble free kilometers at least from most X3s, Supras, or Cayennes. So sure, I'll vouch for those vehicles - they look super fun! The vast majority of people don't do the kind of thing the Grenadier is designed for, and would be really well served by any of those models you mentioned.

If you want a car that is available globally, can handle a lot of load for it's size, and has a design that has been proven (ladder frame, solid axles, engine that engines using dead dinosaurs) and therefore familiar to mechanics all over the world for about 80 years now -- which is what I want -- the Grenadier is the front runner based on what we can see of the design. Execution of that design will take a couple of years to really see - proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all! And you are right to point to the LC300 and the New Defender alongside it in terms of capacity/capability, but the Gren edges out the New Defender for sure for my use case. It's certainly is a viable alternative to the LC300 for a lot of people -- I don't know enough about that platform's design to say much about it -- but the Gren is for sure better than an LC300 for me, because I cannot get an LC300 here, whereas it looks like I will be able to get a Gren.

The New Defender is an exceptional vehicle and I'd have one as a DD in a heartbeat -- I actually do agree with you about modern rigs in general, and would rock the Bronco or Tahoe or any other modern vehicle as a daily driver/occasional recreation 4x4 without concerns. I travel with lots of people so I need high payload, but I also like a small footprint which means my choices are limited. But I have questions about it that make me hesitate on buying one for my adventure use when the Grenadier is around the corner and represents a very different answer to those questions.

For instance, what happens if you crack a control arm on the New Defender? They are pretty stout, but metal fatigues over time and I'd be curious how these control arms hold up after 150,000 kms of washboard (though we won't know how robust and work-hardening resistant these parts are for a few years still). Aluminum welding is pretty specialized and can be hard to find someone qualified to do it, even in North America -- the further away from NA you get, the fewer TIG welders you shall see! On the other hand, what happens on the Grenadier if something on an axle cracks? You can two batteries, two sets of jumper cables, and a stick from an arc welder -- the kind of stick that every farmer in the world has a box or two of -- and you patch it. You can even grab scrap metal and bridge it alongside the crack to reinforce it, and there's probably a few buckets of suitable scrap on every farm in the world right next to the welding rods.

What happens if you are tackling a tricky bit of track, so you kill the motor of your New Defender for a water break while you assess your situation, and then you get back in and start it up again only to find it's decided to do an Over The Air update and thus won't start? You might be stuck with a non-running vehicle for at least a few hours and I've read of others that have gone longer. What happens if the Grenadier attempts to do an Over the Air update? Well, it cannot, because there's nothing in it that needs that.

What happens if you are on a global tour and your New Defender gets confused about the engine temperature and causes you to think you are in manual mode, prompting you to slow right down and limp the vehicle home? If you are on your first day of your tour, no problem, just limp it home or to your local dealer. The fix is easy for an apparently common problem, but it requires special software to do it that only dealerships have. But what happens if you are on day 300 of that same journey, en route up the Skeleton Coast and about to cross the border into Angola from Namibia when this happens? You are "limping" your rig with an phantom overheating issue at least a thousand kilometers to get to a place that can update the software. What happens if the Grenadier starts overheating? You check the radiator cap, fluid levels, swap out the thermostat, or seek out leaks in the system, or maybe crack an egg into the radiator -- but you don't need a laptop with proprietary software to get things sorted, and the repair and diagnosis process is substantively similar to the process that has been used in automobiles for nearly a century, so if you do get a bit stuck, odds are good someone will know a thing or two to help you.

Everything else - payload, approach and departure, wading depth -- those are all similar enough for it to be a wash. But the above questions speak to how the tool is actually designed to function, and there's plenty of info that suggests for some people (the minority of 4x4 owners, to be sure), the design of the Grenadier suggests it will likely result in less headaches in the middle of nowhere than the design of the New Defender for users like me.

Anyway as I said -- I'm not sure it's exactly an accurate counterpoint to my question -- there is loads of evidence that can be looked at, discussed, and weighed by the purchaser to decide what vehicle is best for his or her use case. But I have not seen any examples or evidence is out there that suggest the B58/ZF combo is not suitable for a 4x4 like the Grenadier, other than comments online about "it's complex" or "I'm not a fan of the BMW motor" or "They shoulda put an LS in it..." -- but why do folks think these things? Are B58s known to eat camshafts? Do they have hotspots in the block that are known to warp? Do they blow out head gaskets like they are on a 4 for 1 sale at NAPA? Are BMWs with the B58 constantly being rated poorly for reliability by owners? What reasons are there to doubt the powerplant at this point? And what of the ZF? Are they known for failures? What about the ZF makes it unsuitable for the Gren...given the New Defender is a similarly weighted vehicle with a ZF transmission and nobody seems concerned about that? Or the one in the Ram TRX, or the one in the Supra, or the one in the Rolls Royce Phantoms, or the...you get the idea.

I can write a War-and-Peace length novel (this post was just the prologue ) on the pros and cons of the design of both the Gren and the ND, and depending on the person, they may find one or the other to be a "better" choice for them. I've not found a single paragraph that explains why the BMW engine or ZF transmission is a dealbreaker for folks.

 

[Beardy]

One very positive attribute of the Gren is how they have made there parts and service support information available to everyone so you are not at the mercy of getting to a dealership to sort an issue like you are with say a ND.
That may not be a big deal for some but it is gold for other users.

 

[SkiWill]

As I've said before, BMW engines are known to: eat main bearings, have faulty valve guides, VANOS issues out the wazoo while locating the timing chain on the back of the engine where it cannot be accessed, exploding plastic cooling system parts which ruin engines and will leave you stranded, turbo failures after idling, running oil through alternator brackets so an oil leak costs $1500 to repair and can take out your entire charging system. Just flat out stupid stuff to the point where some mechanics refuse to work on BMW engines and you can be rest assured that your Namibian bush mechanic will have never seen one before. But he may be able to fix the solid axle assuming he can find the niche Italian manufactured part in his ice cream shop.

Spend any time researching BMW engines of the modern era. The list of issues is tremendous. Is any of that an issue on the B58 specifically? I don't know. So far, it looks like the B58 is actually a pretty good unit and, perhaps, Ineos has dealt with some of the other BMWness that gives many of us pause. I don't have one from a Grenadier that I can tear down and analyze so I don't know. But, if you're 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, who do you want coming up to bat? The one that's 0 for 4 (BMW) or the one that's hit for the cycle (lots of other power plants mentioned)? Sure, either could be your hero or loser at any given at bat. For me, I'm waiting for the B58 to prove that it is a long term viable and serviceable motor, which is not something BMW has been known for of late. All new engines are complicated. That's a given. The issue I have with BMW is that they have put out many of the worst motors in the last two decades the 4.4 V8, the 5.0 V10 had to be one of the all time worst, etc. Granted, they have better luck with inline 6s, but the plastic cooling parts and stupid oil passage routing are what BMW is known for. Not easy service and extended lifespan. Sure, the rotating assembly may be strong and hold 800 hp. That's irrelevant in this application. I need less than 300 hp, but don't want to spend 2x-4x on maintenance over a Toyota. That adds up, and that's BMW life. They are not cheap cars to own or maintain. That's a bankable fact. That is why I don't want a BMW engine. If you want to spend 2-4x maintaining a vehicle rather than the alternative competitor and that's worth it to you, fill your boots.

If you think the Ineos fits your needs better than anything else, then by all means buy one. I'll need someone to tell me whether the B58 is long lived and affordable to service. In the meantime, I'm 10 years out of a global expedition and will be sticking to western NA until kids are older. When the time comes, maybe the Grenadier will have proven itself. Or maybe I'll call Paul Marsh and have him source me a 70s series Land Cruiser in Africa and I'll stop by for an ice cream in Namibia.

 

[Idaho Savage]

^Forgot the mic drop.

Sent from my SM-S918U1 using Tapatalk

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

I might be there still when you stop by, putting my 10th dozen egg in the radiator, muttering to myself about the benefits of analog to the deserts rats and tumbleweeds - come say hi, I’ll buy the ice cream!

Great post @SkiWill - and I fully agree with you as you’ve confirmed lots of the same stuff I have seen. Lots of know challenges with BMW but the B57/58 seems pretty good.

The plastic cooling and oil passage routing I’ve heard of — as you said, one of their motors put oil through the alternator bracket — but I’ve yet to find out how the B57/58 fares in that regard. I’d like to know what fails and how— I.e. is it a case of random sit down? Or is it a case of “if you do XYZ every 20,000 kms you’ll be ok”? Depending on what XYZ is, that might be an OK deal for me. But other things do give me pause - I’m imagine an errant stick hitting an oil filled engine bracket just right vs that same stick hitting a bolted on bit of 1/4 flat bar a la Chevy small blocks. You can only do so much in the bush with JB weld — and that’s a lot — but stuff like that would make me nervous if that’s how the B58 is made. I wish I had a bit more info on them and I am eagerly awaiting the promised online shop manual for the Gren to see how it’s all out together.

if your right that Mr. Atef needs niche Italian axle parts on this thing, I’ll have to send two letters - a strongly worded one to Sir Jim and the Ineos people, and a very polite one to Mr. Atef asking him to order ahead! Jokes aside what I mean is I’ll consider that a miss. Seems silly to tout things like “flat glass that’s replaceable at any glass shop, even a bulldozer repair shop can do it” paired with niche Italian parts, so I hope they are as non-proprietary as can be with easy to find replacements and carry the “fix it anywhere” ethos throughout.

Edit: Forgot to mention your point about repair costs. That is a very good point. I’m optimistic that things like not having to pay $$$ for the repair manual and the CAD walk through on how to fix things extends to the engine. That will make repair/maintenance a lot more palatable. The parts themselves being expensive I also wonder about. Will I need to buy the $2400 BMW oil pan? Or will there be a much cheaper equivalent sold under an Ineos part number? Same question for things like air filters and other consumables. I don’t know the answer but if it’s gotta be BMW part numbers that makes me want to keep a very sharp pencil before fully committing to know what I’d be getting into.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

^Forgot the mic drop.

Sent from my SM-S918U1 using Tapatalk

I wasn’t aware mics were being held — I asked a question and Ski Will answered it super well with some fun banter.

If any of this stuff has come across as anything other than fun, I apologize. Not at all my intent but I know it can be hard to read tone in text.
Me and @nickw have had some great back and forths about this kind of stuff before, the only thing we are missing is beer and pretzels! And I’m genuinely glad for @SkiWill’s response as it got me thinking about things I hadn’t before.

I appreciate the discussion as always folks.

 

[nickw]

I'm not sure this question is actually the logical counter to my question; I've never claimed the Gren is "better" full stop. For me, it's always a question of better for whom?

If you want a car to take to work and occasionally do off road, you're spoiled for choice; there's dozens of options on the market today to choose from. The Grenadier is likely not better for this buyer, and I have no doubt they would get a few hundred thousand trouble free kilometers at least from most X3s, Supras, or Cayennes. So sure, I'll vouch for those vehicles - they look super fun! The vast majority of people don't do the kind of thing the Grenadier is designed for, and would be really well served by any of those models you mentioned.

If you want a car that is available globally, can handle a lot of load for it's size, and has a design that has been proven (ladder frame, solid axles, engine that engines using dead dinosaurs) and therefore familiar to mechanics all over the world for about 80 years now -- which is what I want -- the Grenadier is the front runner based on what we can see of the design. Execution of that design will take a couple of years to really see - proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all! And you are right to point to the LC300 and the New Defender alongside it in terms of capacity/capability, but the Gren edges out the New Defender for sure for my use case. It's certainly is a viable alternative to the LC300 for a lot of people -- I don't know enough about that platform's design to say much about it -- but the Gren is for sure better than an LC300 for me, because I cannot get an LC300 here, whereas it looks like I will be able to get a Gren.

The New Defender is an exceptional vehicle and I'd have one as a DD in a heartbeat -- I actually do agree with you about modern rigs in general, and would rock the Bronco or Tahoe or any other modern vehicle as a daily driver/occasional recreation 4x4 without concerns. I travel with lots of people so I need high payload, but I also like a small footprint which means my choices are limited. But I have questions about it that make me hesitate on buying one for my adventure use when the Grenadier is around the corner and represents a very different answer to those questions.

For instance, what happens if you crack a control arm on the New Defender? They are pretty stout, but metal fatigues over time and I'd be curious how these control arms hold up after 150,000 kms of washboard (though we won't know how robust and work-hardening resistant these parts are for a few years still). Aluminum welding is pretty specialized and can be hard to find someone qualified to do it, even in North America -- the further away from NA you get, the fewer TIG welders you shall see! On the other hand, what happens on the Grenadier if something on an axle cracks? You can two batteries, two sets of jumper cables, and a stick from an arc welder -- the kind of stick that every farmer in the world has a box or two of -- and you patch it. You can even grab scrap metal and bridge it alongside the crack to reinforce it, and there's probably a few buckets of suitable scrap on every farm in the world right next to the welding rods.

What happens if you are tackling a tricky bit of track, so you kill the motor of your New Defender for a water break while you assess your situation, and then you get back in and start it up again only to find it's decided to do an Over The Air update and thus won't start? You might be stuck with a non-running vehicle for at least a few hours and I've read of others that have gone longer. What happens if the Grenadier attempts to do an Over the Air update? Well, it cannot, because there's nothing in it that needs that.

What happens if you are on a global tour and your New Defender gets confused about the engine temperature and causes you to think you are in manual mode, prompting you to slow right down and limp the vehicle home? If you are on your first day of your tour, no problem, just limp it home or to your local dealer. The fix is easy for an apparently common problem, but it requires special software to do it that only dealerships have. But what happens if you are on day 300 of that same journey, en route up the Skeleton Coast and about to cross the border into Angola from Namibia when this happens? You are "limping" your rig with an phantom overheating issue at least a thousand kilometers to get to a place that can update the software. What happens if the Grenadier starts overheating? You check the radiator cap, fluid levels, swap out the thermostat, or seek out leaks in the system, or maybe crack an egg into the radiator -- but you don't need a laptop with proprietary software to get things sorted, and the repair and diagnosis process is substantively similar to the process that has been used in automobiles for nearly a century, so if you do get a bit stuck, odds are good someone will know a thing or two to help you.

Everything else - payload, approach and departure, wading depth -- those are all similar enough for it to be a wash. But the above questions speak to how the tool is actually designed to function, and there's plenty of info that suggests for some people (the minority of 4x4 owners, to be sure), the design of the Grenadier suggests it will likely result in less headaches in the middle of nowhere than the design of the New Defender for users like me.

Anyway as I said -- I'm not sure it's exactly an accurate counterpoint to my question -- there is loads of evidence that can be looked at, discussed, and weighed by the purchaser to decide what vehicle is best for his or her use case. But I have not seen any examples or evidence is out there that suggest the B58/ZF combo is not suitable for a 4x4 like the Grenadier, other than comments online about "it's complex" or "I'm not a fan of the BMW motor" or "They shoulda put an LS in it..." -- but why do folks think these things? Are B58s known to eat camshafts? Do they have hotspots in the block that are known to warp? Do they blow out head gaskets like they are on a 4 for 1 sale at NAPA? Are BMWs with the B58 constantly being rated poorly for reliability by owners? What reasons are there to doubt the powerplant at this point? And what of the ZF? Are they known for failures? What about the ZF makes it unsuitable for the Gren...given the New Defender is a similarly weighted vehicle with a ZF transmission and nobody seems concerned about that? Or the one in the Ram TRX, or the one in the Supra, or the one in the Rolls Royce Phantoms, or the...you get the idea.

Fair enough - that wasn't directly at you per-se, but the IG is getting all the attention, has a sub-forum for itself, people (in general) are going crazy over it and it's being marketed as a global expedition platform - it looks the part for sure, but I question it's technical merits.

I don't think the IG is immune to any of those issue you point out that could/have happened to the Defender. Solid axle rigs have issues too with suspension components.

Tom Sheppard had a problem very sim to what you point out in a Gwagen, heavy duty diesel manuf by arguably the best folks at doing that in arguably the most reliable expedition vehicle ever made, it happened in the middle of the Sahara and he had to drive out in limp home mode.

I'm just in the camp of show me WHY it's a suitable engine, I don't feel responsible to prove why it's not, but without a track record of success, using an engine that is commonly found in cars without a reputation in any sort of high GVWR offroad rig I think the onus is on Ineos to prove it!