Ineos Grenadier - long-term review

Bloke skids to a halt next to me. He’s on a mountain bike, so the skid is joyful rather than angry. “That must be the perfect tool for up here, yeah?”. He’s also wearing a full face helmet so it’s a bit tricky to make out the words, “Looks the business, better than an old Defender, yeah?”.

Yeah, I tell him, given that every ageing Defender I saw on my way down through France was struggling to do 60mph on the autoroute as I sailed past at 80. And the aircon works, which it didn’t when I did a similar drive in a new Defender a couple of summers back. Cabin temps went over 50 degrees. It was more punishment cell than luxury 4x4.

Actually, having said that, the Grenadier’s aircon was either on or off. It worked OK if you stuck the fans on full and temp right down, but if you got a bit chilly and nudged the temperature up a degree, you got hot air. Just one of those quirks. There are plenty of others: having to look at the centre screen to see your speed, the volume adjusting in sizeable chunks, the canted driving position and the two-spoke steering wheel that needs so many turns the only way of telling it’s the right way up is the little tooty horn symbol – the 12 o’clock band is the same colour as the wheel, so your peripheral vision doesn’t notice it.

Tooty horn did come in very handy in the Alps though. Lots of bikes out there and the Grenadier’s polite little chirrup was a great way of warning them from a distance. Their only shock was turning round and realising the noise didn’t come from an ageing Fiat Panda, but a looming great behemoth.

Three bikes, a paddleboard, five people, a guitar and we still had room in the boot for another whole layer of clobber. As it was, I could actually see a bit out the back. Would have seen more if the double door divider didn’t block the view. Still, the view out has improved since the spare wheel migrated to the roof. I think the back of the Grenadier looks better without it, too.

It needed to move to make way for the bike rack, a genius bit of kit called the Thule Epos. A quick digression: it’s the best bike rack I’ve ever used – and by a wide margin. It folds for storage (or sticking in the boot while you’re out riding so it’s less likely to get half-inched), has wheels so you can drag, rather than carry, it around and instead of the nightmare of threading arms through frames, there’s a moveable, lockable arm next to each bike. You can load three bikes in a couple of minutes. There’s a ramp if you need it for e-bikes, a secondary locking system, plus it tilts, so I could still get into the boot. It’s a fortune (£1,099), but you know you have those bits of kit that you relish using because they’re so good at what they do? This is one of those.

The same doesn’t apply to the Grenadier as a whole. This is one of those cars where the myriad flaws lend it character. Apart from the fuel economy, because that’s not character-forming, it’s just downright horrendous. This twin-turbo 3.0-litre diesel was famed for its economy in whatever BMW bonnet it was shoved under, but even before it went to France it had only been averaging 23-24mpg. Then I loaded it up and went on my holidays: 19.4mpg. Which meant 2,327 miles used 545 litres and cost me £962. Oh well, still cheaper than flying five of us around. I think.

It's not just the aero and massive weight slurping diesel, it’s the mechanical friction in the axles. Lift-off, even at low speed, and it loses speed like it’s got regen braking. Which it obviously doesn’t.

Last year I drove the long term Range Rover out to the mountains in summer, and it was bliss. I literally still can’t name another car that would handle the trip better, more imperiously or comfortably. The Grenadier lumbers heavily along, has to work for every kilometre. The seats might be comfortable, but time passes slowly when you’re five up and the three crammed across the back are complaining about how upright the backrests are and how modest the legroom. The wind moans through the roofrack, the tyres hum, but fully loaded the ride is much improved, falls into its travel better, sits more stably.

Get to the mountains and it keels over in the corners, the brakes are mushy, and you’re constantly heaving at the steering. You are very much involved in the act of driving. Up here it’s all VW vans and rugged 4x4s. The vans are great, but aren’t going to get you anywhere off the beaten track. The 4x4s will do that, but most of them are disintegrating into their own chassis and have no aircon. This is a place the Grenadier can be king.

In the mountains I didn’t see anything I’d rather be tonking about in. Except maybe a Panda 4x4. I’m only half-joking. Up here, on holiday, not in a rush, just churning about, what you want is a big, rugged truck, stick an elbow out the window, relish the summer breeze, kids and mates on board, boot loaded with kit and go out and spend a day exploring. Hike or bike, just get the maps out and go further, because so what if rocks ping off the undercarriage and branches scrape the sides? Scars are stories waiting to be told. Which is exactly what I told my wife when I got spat off my mountain bike.

What I’m discovering about the Grenadier is this: there are definitely better cars out there for most of the jobs this needs to do. But it’s an enabler, it encourages adventure in a way the new Defender doesn’t. I got to the Alps and instead of thinking I’d made it to my destination, realised I’d merely got the boring bit out the way.

After a week in the mountains we headed south to the coast. Here, on the crowded Cote d’Azur, the Grenadier stumbled. Small French hatches dashed into gaps as the sluggish gearbox failed to move off promptly, sweat patches appeared from wrenching at the steering in small villages as the power assistance struggled to keep pace, it was cumbersome in the fight for parking spots, lumbering and clumsy. Admired by the smart set, but for the wrong reasons – and lugging paddleboards around was no challenge at all. And then one evening all the kids climbed on the roof at sunset, and everything was forgiven.

The next day we did 904 miles driving back to the UK in one hit. It was tiring, but we all coped, those in the front best of all thanks to the excellent Recaro seats. The pain of the fuel economy has (mostly) worn off now, but more importantly I’m starting to see the point of the Grenadier. It’s deeply flawed, but when you’re not comparing it to other stuff, when you’re just out there using it, it gets under your skin.