Ineos Grenadier - long-term review

Everyone hates on the Grenadier. Too old-fashioned, too slow, too inefficient, too idiosyncratic, not fit for modern life. None of that is wrong. It’s a dreadful SUV. It is to the school run what a battle axe is to slicing vegetables: unwieldy, inappropriate and equipped with enough sharp edges to make you put an arm round your children and retreat to safety.

The issue is one of perspective. An SUV is an off-roader that sprouted manners and deliberately forgot its origin story. The Grenadier is an off-roader. Full stop. The end. Maybe you don’t think a car like that has a role to play in the 21st century, and as far as UK road driving goes you’ve probably got a point. I’ve driven this car over 10,000 miles in the last six months and I can’t think of many new cars that are worse at doing distance and negotiating roundabouts.

But equally I can’t think of any that are better suited to scruffing down green lanes, scrubbing around the back of beyond, having stuff hung off them and generally being as useful as a tool belt. None. Not even the new Toyota Land Cruiser and certainly not the Defender. The criticism here is that Ineos has built the ultimate farm truck and then priced it way beyond farm budgets. That’s their call.

My use case existed somewhere in those broad swathes of territory between school runs and farms. Yeah, lifestyle off-roading, that’s me. Carrying bikes, towing trailers, going camping. Weekend wannabe warrioring. The rest of the time it was regular daily use. For 90 per cent of the stuff I did with the Grenadier I don’t doubt that a Land Cruiser or Defender would have done it better, and if it was me putting my money down, that’s still where I’d be heading. 2,000 miles around France five-up (see report 3) was a challenge. It wasn’t comfy for those in the back, the hifi was weedy, the rubbish aircon either on or off and it averaged 19.4mpg.

But we still talk about it because the travel became an adventure, and the faults gave the car character and the occupants something to bond over. It was a metaphor for the whole trip when, on the final run back up to Calais, the windscreen wiper gave up and started flopping off the side of the screen.

That was the only thing that went wrong, and was easily solved with a spanner. Other issues? The door buttons are renowned for sticking in, but that only afflicted mine right at the end, and was easily cured with a quick wiggle or a thump next to the handle.

But I had no electrical gremlins and no reason to visit a dealership. This is a very solidly built, rugged, tough truck. I’ve said before that Ineos needs now what it can’t earn for years, which is a reputation for durability and robustness. Nothing I’ve experienced gives me a reason to doubt that will come.

But there are irritations that don’t go away. I got used to the vague recirculating ball steering that needs constant correction to keep the Grenny tracking straight, but I never got used to the hopeless turning circle, the way the steering weighted up so much when swinging between locks. Same goes for the delayed step-off when pulling away. Keep it away from urban use, because its clumsiness is deeply frustrating. The brakes are mushy, stopping distances long, rear visibility is effectively blocked by the split tailgate and ‘performance’ is as you would expect from a car weighing nigh-on 2.8 tonnes.

I’m glad I had the diesel (it suits the car much better than the petrol) but given the choice I’d have gone Magic Mushroom instead of Donny Grey paint over a Trialmaster spec – as I said in report 6, that’s the one to have. Well apart from the LeTech portal axle machine. A special place in my heart is reserved for that.

Own a car and drive it in isolation and you forget about alternatives and cope with what you’ve got. And I got on with the Grenadier, I loved having it outside and finding things for it to do – it was a blank canvas of capability. And far more interesting to run than an identikit German SUV. It’s absolutely not for everyone – don’t be deceived and think it won’t be that different from a Q7 or even a G-Class.

Quite a few low mileage cars trickle on to the used market, maybe bought with greater expectation of daily refinement, but the point is that residual values are horrible. Not quite Mercedes EQE levels of depreciation, but drops of £30k after a year and 10,000 miles aren’t pretty. Second hand they look like a good bet. And I tell you what, I’d far sooner spend £45k on a year-old Grenadier than an alarmingly overpriced decade-old Defender.

For the last few months it’s been as much family pet as car, the muddy sheepdog that lives on the drive, is up for anything and won’t let you down. I’d look at it out there and want to be doing something with it, take it somewhere. It encouraged and enabled adventure in the same way as the Ariel Nomad I ran years back. Less of a laugh admittedly, but just as out of step with modern life, just as willing to get stuck in.

When people tell me it’s daft or pointless, what they’re actually saying is that it doesn’t conform to their expectations. But what actually defines whether a car is good or not is its fitness to your purpose, not theirs. It has a very particular – and admittedly rather out of step – skill set. But like a pet dog, it got me out of the house, encouraged me to do things in the countryside. And as I look out of my window now, my driveway feels a lot less ready for adventure.