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5 Year Trip in a Grenadier Across the World towing a Patriot X3 Which We Live In.

I never bothered with a website, it only encourages people to ring me.
Me either. I've never advertised. I was sitting in the stands Saturday watching one of the baseball teams I sponsor in a league I sponsor, and a mom is telling me how she spent an hour google searching the company name and logo, and for the life of her, she cant find any info on what the hell the company does that sponsored her sons team.

On topic though, I see Matt is still in Mongolia. (these IP address flags are awesome). Has your cart started to get rebuilt yet? Hows the frame? I was thinking how lucky you were the tires didn't catch with the fuel. Like a Haitian necktie that's typically all she wrote. Is there a lead time when it will be ready?
 
Me either. I've never advertised. I was sitting in the stands Saturday watching one of the baseball teams I sponsor in a league I sponsor, and a mom is telling me how she spent an hour google searching the company name and logo, and for the life of her, she cant find any info on what the hell the company does that sponsored her sons team.

On topic though, I see Matt is still in Mongolia. (these IP address flags are awesome). Has your cart started to get rebuilt yet? Hows the frame? I was thinking how lucky you were the tires didn't catch with the fuel. Like a Haitian necktie that's typically all she wrote. Is there a lead time when it will be ready?
I was genuinely laughing reading that, I have often read your comments and wondered if we would get on in real life, your outlook on life is just the right amount of skewed.

And you are right, we do need to get back to the main family and all their strife. I thought Matt looked like an ex-military type person, then I read his Adventure website and it just explained everything. What a lucky family even with the odd setbacks.

Showed the wife the bridge crossing as funnily enough earlier that day she said i wouldn't be going across a wooden bridge in the Grenadier that we have used previously. She said there was no way on this earth you would have ever got her on those crossings. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that you didn't have the trailer with you. Do you have any idea on the weight limits or do much larger vehicles cross?
 
Do you have any idea on the weight limits or do much larger vehicles cross?
I'm counting 10 main cables, they look to be 25mm'ish. That's 1,000,000 pounds of break to start with. If each suspender is the same, you're talking 100k pounds. I don't know about the design and workmanship, but the material is there. A Main Battle Tank could be a bit sketch, but overall I'd be more worried about the upkeep. I like everything about the floating design, except maybe the proximity of ones toes. That would irk an OSHA inspector.
 
I'm counting 10 main cables, they look to be 25mm'ish. That's 1,000,000 pounds of break to start with. If each suspender is the same, you're talking 100k pounds. I don't know about the design and workmanship, but the material is there. A Main Battle Tank could be a bit sketch, but overall I'd be more worried about the upkeep. I like everything about the floating design, except maybe the proximity of ones toes. That would irk an OSHA inspector.
I couldn't believe the floating part, I'm guessing it's easier for maintenance and movement but just looked terrifying. As you said, maintenance is always a worry in these remote parts of the world when their record is bad enough for everything else.
 
I couldn't believe the floating part, I'm guessing it's easier for maintenance and movement but just looked terrifying. As you said, maintenance is always a worry in these remote parts of the world when their record is bad enough for everything else.
bridges are deigned to move. it takes tension off of the support cables. The vid doesn't show how the deck is held up, so there's guessing going on here. These types of structures are fascinating when encountered. Strong and they don't need heavy equipment to erect. I'll re watch that part.
 
bridges are deigned to move. it takes tension off of the support cables. The vid doesn't show how the deck is held up, so there's guessing going on here. These types of structures are fascinating when encountered. Strong and they don't need heavy equipment to erect. I'll re watch that part.
It can be an odd feeling when you drive across the joints but that looks extreme to anything I've come across (not worldly travelled, so just the local swing bridge etc.)
 
Great watch. Amazing drone work that keeps you hooked and always great to see you guys putting the Grenadier up to the task. keep up the great content, I'm hooked.
 
Thanks for this. I think sometimes people forget the actual reality on the ground and expectations are BBC / Netflix / HBO / Amazon level documentaries.

The size of the teams, resources, budgets and time to execute these projects people expect these days is a whole different league to us. Even a lot of YouTubers you see outsource the editing etc.

We have a camera, a drone and a computer and we’re doing it all while on the road… it’s a lot of very late nights, not easy at all. Sometimes we question whether it’s worth it due to the additional strain it puts on the journey but we see it as memories for years to come and a lot of people have asked us to keep going and so we’re going to try our best.

We aim to keep improving all the time. The next project we hope will be very interesting, it’s pretty sensitive but we decided to go for it as the story is a special one and needs telling. A few interviews in that one. 👍
I know the difficulties are enormous, hopefully your series will gain traction soon!
 
It can be an odd feeling when you drive across the joints but that looks extreme to anything I've come across (not worldly travelled, so just the local swing bridge etc.)
We’ve not come across anything quite like this for car size vehicles either..
 
Great watch. Amazing drone work that keeps you hooked and always great to see you guys putting the Grenadier up to the task. keep up the great content, I'm hooked.
Glad you’re enjoying coming along for the ride! The Grenadier is capable of doing so much more, I can’t take it to the absolute limits with Leah and the kids but I’ll get around to it one day I’m sure.. Maybe in the US with John from Agile Offroad. He’s pushing things on the Grenadier front. 😎
 
I was genuinely laughing reading that, I have often read your comments and wondered if we would get on in real life, your outlook on life is just the right amount of skewed.

And you are right, we do need to get back to the main family and all their strife. I thought Matt looked like an ex-military type person, then I read his Adventure website and it just explained everything. What a lucky family even with the odd setbacks.

Showed the wife the bridge crossing as funnily enough earlier that day she said i wouldn't be going across a wooden bridge in the Grenadier that we have used previously. She said there was no way on this earth you would have ever got her on those crossings. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that you didn't have the trailer with you. Do you have any idea on the weight limits or do much larger vehicles cross?
There was no weight limits as such but there’s a little office at the start of the track and so I’m assuming they’d stop you if they weren’t happy but that’s a massive assumption. 😂

We based it on talking to lots of locals and seeing similar vehicles come the other way.
 
The power of positivity. As always, totally inspiring (even if I wouldn't contemplate the Karakoram highway!
Eric Newby's book ''A Short Walk in The Hindu Kush'' was , and over 60 years later still is , a fascinating insight into this part of the world. As we will never get there, your film brings the vibe of the book to vivid life. Cheers!
love a good book recommendation 👍
 

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60,000km INEOS Grenadier Write Up After Driving it Mainly Off Road Around Europe and Asia For The Past Two Years

I wanted to share our experience to contribute to the community, but also because everyone on here and in the Facebook groups writing about their experiences has been incredibly helpful from our side. This is a new vehicle and so to see what’s going on around the world has been great! I hope people will find this useful. :)

We have an INEOS Grenadier Trialmaster Petrol with a few factory options. Everything else is pretty much standard. We’ve done close to 60,000km. About 75-80% off-road, towing a Patriot X3 Trailer

Conditions
  • Temps: -10C to +55C
  • Elevation: Sea level to 17300ft
  • Conditions (Snow / Ice / Gravel / Rock / Sand / Mud / Clay / Swamp / Water to wading limit / Asphalt - Everything!)
Countries
  • UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, India, Nepal
Service
  • 20000km in Sofia Bulgaria at INEOS Dealer
  • 40000km in Almaty, Kazakhstan (BMW Garage) as no INEOS dealers for a very long way after Sofia (if you’re in Asia)
  • Changed all brake pads at 47,000 km
  • Next service in Mongolia
  • 4 litres of extra oil required on top of normal servicing at 20k, 40k
Fuel - Based on 90L Tank
  • Max range on motorway / highway whilst towing a Patriot X3 Gen 1- 450km (with original AT tyres)
  • Min range on tough offroad whilst towing 230-240km
  • Fuel gauge is very conservative, becomes a little annoying after a while. Ours also stays around half full for a long time then drops off quickly.
  • Have to carry additional fuel regularly ~100L to do what we do. Initially we used Jerry cans, then Jerry cans plus fuel bladders (not recommended) and now we have a LRA 90L aux tank which we’re very happy with. The LRA tank plus our two Jerry cans brings us to 220L.
  • One major downside of the Grenadier is the range for the petrol version. Saying that, we can deal with it if it means it’s made of high-quality components, which it is. It's been extremely strong so far in everything we’ve put it through. We didn’t go for diesel because of DPF and AdBlue issues with where we’re going on our trip.
Issues
  • Air con - Issue we all have. Better on the warm side of things, keeping things cool, it struggles a lot. We have been in some pretty hot conditions but I don’t think that should be an excuse - Better after filter change but then reverts back to how it was. No leak confirmed. (Because of this we have the windows down a lot and end up having more dust on the inside than the outside sometimes!)
  • Trailer module - We had a PCB Failure (Trailer module replaced under warranty)
  • Didn’t start once in Uzbekistan - Tried multiple times. Very strange. Waited 20 mins and started fine. No issues since. Apparently a known gremlin with no fix
  • Sticky door locks after rain - Still waiting for full replacement. Will do in Mongolia
  • Dashboard warnings - Many 😂 After we disconnected the battery we had the Airbag warning on and were told it should still work fine. The parking sensors also stopped working. (No drama) Still have a service light and also brake warning and TSA but we know why the last two are, we’ll get them reset and resolved in Mongolia
  • Foot plates on half of the doors have come off
  • Various bolts came loose over time. The back door handle actually came off in my hand 😂 but it went back on fine. (Happened twice) All of the others went back fine too. This was mainly after a lot of corrugated trails.
  • Trailer stops charging at 84km/hr - we know why but it’s frustrating. The rear NATO is supposedly rear winch only. We’ve decided to rewire through an Anderson. It should be configured so that you can charge a trailer though. I’d say that it is a lot more common to tow a trailer than have a rear winch.
  • Back door mechanism broke - the metal bit at the bottom of the door snapped in half. We have a standard tyre on the back and that’s it. (We carry kids shoes in the compartment in the spare)
  • Back door lock of the smaller door got stuck several times and had to open from inside. It just needed cleaning but something to watch out for
  • Back door rubber stops - both fall off regularly
  • Paint on bottom sill of passenger door coming off
  • Some protective film coming off on roof rack
  • Rust on rock sliders - Now have Agile Offroad ones which are way better than the factory option. Lighter, more ground clearance and a footstep
  • Automatic light function and car play sometimes on the blink but seems to self correct over time and then revert back.
  • Very squeaky driver's window
  • Temperature display remains on the previous night temperature for hours into the next day (esp when it’s cold). Eg It'll say 0 when it's clearly much warmer (20+)
Events
  • Stone chip on windscreen from lorry in China. It’s holding for now.
  • Hit the rear bash plate, rear control arms and fuel tank guard several times, despite being as careful as we could
  • Factory rock sliders took a big hit (slipped off a big wet rock) and did what they’re supposed to, no other damage. (This was after the rust began on the sliders)
  • Steering wheel already starting to wear a bit in some places
Common Issues
  • Driver's footwell (RHD). Not an issue unless you do many days over 5hrs in row or if you haven’t driven the Grenadier for a while and go straight back into long journeys. I'm 6ft 1.
  • Steering - You get used to it. It’s not ideal in tight spaces (parking for example or having to turn around, especially with a trailer! 🙈)
  • Annoying warnings that constantly come up. Tyre pressure mainly, despite resetting
  • Didn’t start once - Tried multiple times. Very strange. Waited 20 mins and started fine. No issues since. Apparently a known gremlin with no fix..
  • Pin falls out of transfer case lever (Still no fix) Unacceptable in my eyes, if you don’t take preventative action, like we what we’ve done with the zip ties, you could be in a whole world of hurt, depending on the situation you’re in. This didn’t happen to us as I zip tied the minute I heard about it happening to the first Grenadier. Since then, I know it’s happened to quite a few.
  • Bit tricky to get diffs in and out and wading mode etc. Key to that from my perspective. When you go off road, put Off Road mode in straight away. Sounds obvious but saves hassle further down the line.
  • Lock diffs- Straightforward just do in order. Rear then front.
  • Unlock diffs - Easiest we’ve found is to take the centre diff out and then do a few full lock turns left and right and it all comes out every time. Then lock the centre diff again if you need it.
Key Preventative Things I’d Suggest Doing
  • Zip tie transfer case lever (Still no fix for the pin falling out)
  • Bowden cables (get them replaced by INEOS or get the Agile Off-road Shifter bracket solution or put pipe insulation and zip ties around so no rubbing. Thanks Dave (Logsplitter for the heads up on these in the early days)
  • Check all hoses/pipes/wiring in and around the engine bay and front light area - Lots of rubbing in various places. (Again, thanks, Dave for the heads up here too)
  • Get the additional radiator and transfer case oil cooler brackets fitted if you haven’t got it on your Grenadier. A few people have had issues. You have to retrofit if you have plastic bumpers, as they’re metal bumper parts.
  • Keep locks clean. You don’t want to not be able to open the rear door if you really need to and the only option is to unpack everything from the inside (Speaking from experience)
  • Batteries run down quite fast over a few days with minimal drain. Just using 12v and charging a few things so be aware, you may need to run the car every now and again to keep them at a good state. (We have dual battery system from factory)
  • Don’t drive fast with a petrol Trialmaster while towing, especially uphill, you’ll run out of fuel fast… 😂
What We Love
  • Most things to be honest. The way it has handled what we’ve put it through has been very impressive, despite all the very small things mentioned above. We’ve found that with 285/70/17 MT tyres and all the lockers, it’s unstoppable in some pretty challenging conditions. Testing is still underway.. 🙃
  • Build quality always impresses me
  • The ZF Gearbox and engine are great.
  • HDC is amazing
  • Off-road capability using just L and centre diff is very impressive! We use rear diff when required and front diff rarely but we have used it enough to justify it.
  • Toot horn is very useful in a number of situations - way less aggressive than the main horn
  • All the switches - Very well laid out and easy to understand and operate
  • Recaro Seats - Very good
  • All in all, as we all know, very well built and over-engineered, built for trips like we're doing.
Suggested Improvements for The Grenadier from our end
  • Rubber on ladder steps
  • Proper snorkel
  • Higher ground clearance
  • New air con system
  • Shorter bumper
  • Steering locks adjusted from factory to allow for a tighter radius
  • Smaller footplate for RHD cars even though I understand why they can’t with current versions
  • More USB C Ports
  • 240V Inverter as was originally planned
  • Warnings need to have an option to clear permanently, but have a recall option to check warning history and bring it back up if you’d like to (Can get annoying after a while)
  • Fuel gauge levels need correcting
  • Better way of connecting and powering trailer rather than turning off at 84km/hr (We now do ours through an Anderson plug)
  • Auto dimming on the infotainment screen at night
  • Illumination on ignition
  • Better AT tyres from the factory, they’re not great in the wet or mud
Modifications We’ve Carried Out

We like to keep it as standard as possible but these are all due to our experiences to date
  • REDARC Brake controller
  • 285/70/17 tyres (Currently using MT tyres and they’re a game changer in terms of capabilities of the vehicle. We're still deciding on what we’ll use for the rest of the trip. Aggressive AT tyre, RT tyre or stick with MT)
  • LRA 90L aux fuel tank with Edelbrock pump and uprated black OEM springs
  • Diff breathers (From Agile Offroad)
  • New Rocksliders (From Agile Offroad)
  • Full Underbody protection - Engine and centre skid plate / Fuel Tank / Rear Control arms skids / Diff covers / Diff skid plates (All from Agile Offroad)
  • Shifter Cable Support Bracket (Agile Offroad)
  • Reservoir cap seals (Agile Offroad)
  • Starlink Mini
Future
  • A slight lift, possibly. Needs to be proven in tough terrain over a long period of time due to the CV joint risk that’s been well documented. If anyone has any suggestions here, we’re open to them.
All in all, no major dramas! All the important things have held up which is why I bought the car in the first place - the way in which it has been designed and built. INEOS have done a very good job. We LOVE ours! Very happy with taking the plunge. A bold move perhaps, to drive around the world with your family pretty much straight off the forecourt, but I’ve done a lot of trips all over the world in vehicles way worse than this, so I figured it’d be fine. So far, so good. 👍😎 I hope this helps, especially the preventive stuff. We’ll do our best to answer any questions, keep everyone posted periodically and help wherever we can.

We’d also like to give a special shout-out to everyone at Denton’s in Skipton who have been there every time we have a question or concern. They’ve been great throughout. We’ve also received great support from Dragan at INEOS in Sofia, Charles at INEOS Kavango, Ariunbat and Matt at INEOS in Mongolia, Stu who runs the INEOS Forum and Dave (Logsplitter on the INEOS forum). We’d also like to thank everyone who has supported us through the challenging time we had with the fire in our trailer. We can’t thank you enough. It’s allowed us to continue this journey which means a lot, thank you. 🙏
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60,000km INEOS Grenadier Write Up After Driving it Mainly Off Road Around Europe and Asia For The Past Two Years

I wanted to share our experience to contribute to the community, but also because everyone on here and in the Facebook groups writing about their experiences has been incredibly helpful from our side. This is a new vehicle and so to see what’s going on around the world has been great! I hope people will find this useful. :)

We have an INEOS Grenadier Trialmaster Petrol with a few factory options. Everything else is pretty much standard. We’ve done close to 60,000km. About 75-80% off-road, towing a Patriot X3 Trailer

Conditions
  • Temps: -10C to +55C
  • Elevation: Sea level to 17300ft
  • Conditions (Snow / Ice / Gravel / Rock / Sand / Mud / Clay / Swamp / Water to wading limit / Asphalt - Everything!)
Countries
  • UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, India, Nepal
Service
  • 20000km in Sofia Bulgaria at INEOS Dealer
  • 40000km in Almaty, Kazakhstan (BMW Garage) as no INEOS dealers for a very long way after Sofia (if you’re in Asia)
  • Changed all brake pads at 47,000 km
  • Next service in Mongolia
  • 4 litres of extra oil required on top of normal servicing at 20k, 40k
Fuel - Based on 90L Tank
  • Max range on motorway / highway whilst towing a Patriot X3 Gen 1- 450km (with original AT tyres)
  • Min range on tough offroad whilst towing 230-240km
  • Fuel gauge is very conservative, becomes a little annoying after a while. Ours also stays around half full for a long time then drops off quickly.
  • Have to carry additional fuel regularly ~100L to do what we do. Initially we used Jerry cans, then Jerry cans plus fuel bladders (not recommended) and now we have a LRA 90L aux tank which we’re very happy with. The LRA tank plus our two Jerry cans brings us to 220L.
  • One major downside of the Grenadier is the range for the petrol version. Saying that, we can deal with it if it means it’s made of high-quality components, which it is. It's been extremely strong so far in everything we’ve put it through. We didn’t go for diesel because of DPF and AdBlue issues with where we’re going on our trip.
Issues
  • Air con - Issue we all have. Better on the warm side of things, keeping things cool, it struggles a lot. We have been in some pretty hot conditions but I don’t think that should be an excuse - Better after filter change but then reverts back to how it was. No leak confirmed. (Because of this we have the windows down a lot and end up having more dust on the inside than the outside sometimes!)
  • Trailer module - We had a PCB Failure (Trailer module replaced under warranty)
  • Didn’t start once in Uzbekistan - Tried multiple times. Very strange. Waited 20 mins and started fine. No issues since. Apparently a known gremlin with no fix
  • Sticky door locks after rain - Still waiting for full replacement. Will do in Mongolia
  • Dashboard warnings - Many 😂 After we disconnected the battery we had the Airbag warning on and were told it should still work fine. The parking sensors also stopped working. (No drama) Still have a service light and also brake warning and TSA but we know why the last two are, we’ll get them reset and resolved in Mongolia
  • Foot plates on half of the doors have come off
  • Various bolts came loose over time. The back door handle actually came off in my hand 😂 but it went back on fine. (Happened twice) All of the others went back fine too. This was mainly after a lot of corrugated trails.
  • Trailer stops charging at 84km/hr - we know why but it’s frustrating. The rear NATO is supposedly rear winch only. We’ve decided to rewire through an Anderson. It should be configured so that you can charge a trailer though. I’d say that it is a lot more common to tow a trailer than have a rear winch.
  • Back door mechanism broke - the metal bit at the bottom of the door snapped in half. We have a standard tyre on the back and that’s it. (We carry kids shoes in the compartment in the spare)
  • Back door lock of the smaller door got stuck several times and had to open from inside. It just needed cleaning but something to watch out for
  • Back door rubber stops - both fall off regularly
  • Paint on bottom sill of passenger door coming off
  • Some protective film coming off on roof rack
  • Rust on rock sliders - Now have Agile Offroad ones which are way better than the factory option. Lighter, more ground clearance and a footstep
  • Automatic light function and car play sometimes on the blink but seems to self correct over time and then revert back.
  • Very squeaky driver's window
  • Temperature display remains on the previous night temperature for hours into the next day (esp when it’s cold). Eg It'll say 0 when it's clearly much warmer (20+)
Events
  • Stone chip on windscreen from lorry in China. It’s holding for now.
  • Hit the rear bash plate, rear control arms and fuel tank guard several times, despite being as careful as we could
  • Factory rock sliders took a big hit (slipped off a big wet rock) and did what they’re supposed to, no other damage. (This was after the rust began on the sliders)
  • Steering wheel already starting to wear a bit in some places
Common Issues
  • Driver's footwell (RHD). Not an issue unless you do many days over 5hrs in row or if you haven’t driven the Grenadier for a while and go straight back into long journeys. I'm 6ft 1.
  • Steering - You get used to it. It’s not ideal in tight spaces (parking for example or having to turn around, especially with a trailer! 🙈)
  • Annoying warnings that constantly come up. Tyre pressure mainly, despite resetting
  • Didn’t start once - Tried multiple times. Very strange. Waited 20 mins and started fine. No issues since. Apparently a known gremlin with no fix..
  • Pin falls out of transfer case lever (Still no fix) Unacceptable in my eyes, if you don’t take preventative action, like we what we’ve done with the zip ties, you could be in a whole world of hurt, depending on the situation you’re in. This didn’t happen to us as I zip tied the minute I heard about it happening to the first Grenadier. Since then, I know it’s happened to quite a few.
  • Bit tricky to get diffs in and out and wading mode etc. Key to that from my perspective. When you go off road, put Off Road mode in straight away. Sounds obvious but saves hassle further down the line.
  • Lock diffs- Straightforward just do in order. Rear then front.
  • Unlock diffs - Easiest we’ve found is to take the centre diff out and then do a few full lock turns left and right and it all comes out every time. Then lock the centre diff again if you need it.
Key Preventative Things I’d Suggest Doing
  • Zip tie transfer case lever (Still no fix for the pin falling out)
  • Bowden cables (get them replaced by INEOS or get the Agile Off-road Shifter bracket solution or put pipe insulation and zip ties around so no rubbing. Thanks Dave (Logsplitter for the heads up on these in the early days)
  • Check all hoses/pipes/wiring in and around the engine bay and front light area - Lots of rubbing in various places. (Again, thanks, Dave for the heads up here too)
  • Get the additional radiator and transfer case oil cooler brackets fitted if you haven’t got it on your Grenadier. A few people have had issues. You have to retrofit if you have plastic bumpers, as they’re metal bumper parts.
  • Keep locks clean. You don’t want to not be able to open the rear door if you really need to and the only option is to unpack everything from the inside (Speaking from experience)
  • Batteries run down quite fast over a few days with minimal drain. Just using 12v and charging a few things so be aware, you may need to run the car every now and again to keep them at a good state. (We have dual battery system from factory)
  • Don’t drive fast with a petrol Trialmaster while towing, especially uphill, you’ll run out of fuel fast… 😂
What We Love
  • Most things to be honest. The way it has handled what we’ve put it through has been very impressive, despite all the very small things mentioned above. We’ve found that with 285/70/17 MT tyres and all the lockers, it’s unstoppable in some pretty challenging conditions. Testing is still underway.. 🙃
  • Build quality always impresses me
  • The ZF Gearbox and engine are great.
  • HDC is amazing
  • Off-road capability using just L and centre diff is very impressive! We use rear diff when required and front diff rarely but we have used it enough to justify it.
  • Toot horn is very useful in a number of situations - way less aggressive than the main horn
  • All the switches - Very well laid out and easy to understand and operate
  • Recaro Seats - Very good
  • All in all, as we all know, very well built and over-engineered, built for trips like we're doing.
Suggested Improvements for The Grenadier from our end
  • Rubber on ladder steps
  • Proper snorkel
  • Higher ground clearance
  • New air con system
  • Shorter bumper
  • Steering locks adjusted from factory to allow for a tighter radius
  • Smaller footplate for RHD cars even though I understand why they can’t with current versions
  • More USB C Ports
  • 240V Inverter as was originally planned
  • Warnings need to have an option to clear permanently, but have a recall option to check warning history and bring it back up if you’d like to (Can get annoying after a while)
  • Fuel gauge levels need correcting
  • Better way of connecting and powering trailer rather than turning off at 84km/hr (We now do ours through an Anderson plug)
  • Auto dimming on the infotainment screen at night
  • Illumination on ignition
  • Better AT tyres from the factory, they’re not great in the wet or mud
Modifications We’ve Carried Out

We like to keep it as standard as possible but these are all due to our experiences to date
  • REDARC Brake controller
  • 285/70/17 tyres (Currently using MT tyres and they’re a game changer in terms of capabilities of the vehicle. We're still deciding on what we’ll use for the rest of the trip. Aggressive AT tyre, RT tyre or stick with MT)
  • LRA 90L aux fuel tank with Edelbrock pump and uprated black OEM springs
  • Diff breathers (From Agile Offroad)
  • New Rocksliders (From Agile Offroad)
  • Full Underbody protection - Engine and centre skid plate / Fuel Tank / Rear Control arms skids / Diff covers / Diff skid plates (All from Agile Offroad)
  • Shifter Cable Support Bracket (Agile Offroad)
  • Reservoir cap seals (Agile Offroad)
  • Starlink Mini
Future
  • A slight lift, possibly. Needs to be proven in tough terrain over a long period of time due to the CV joint risk that’s been well documented. If anyone has any suggestions here, we’re open to them.
All in all, no major dramas! All the important things have held up which is why I bought the car in the first place - the way in which it has been designed and built. INEOS have done a very good job. We LOVE ours! Very happy with taking the plunge. A bold move perhaps, to drive around the world with your family pretty much straight off the forecourt, but I’ve done a lot of trips all over the world in vehicles way worse than this, so I figured it’d be fine. So far, so good. 👍😎 I hope this helps, especially the preventive stuff. We’ll do our best to answer any questions, keep everyone posted periodically and help wherever we can.

We’d also like to give a special shout-out to everyone at Denton’s in Skipton who have been there every time we have a question or concern. They’ve been great throughout. We’ve also received great support from Dragan at INEOS in Sofia, Charles at INEOS Kavango, Ariunbat and Matt at INEOS in Mongolia, Stu who runs the INEOS Forum and Dave (Logsplitter on the INEOS forum). We’d also like to thank everyone who has supported us through the challenging time we had with the fire in our trailer. We can’t thank you enough. It’s allowed us to continue this journey which means a lot, thank you. 🙏
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Amazing and inspirational 👌🏼
 
Brilliant write up, Matt - thank you for taking the time and sharing on socials. Needless to say, loving the videos.

Plus one here for the sticking rear door look and mystery once-off refusal to start.

We’ve had the ‘RoW’ Eibach lift installed with no issues, the bit of extra clearance combined with 185/75s has more than paid for itself, particularly in jungle use. Highly recommended.

Where did you have the LRA tank installed? Any headaches getting it in (to the country, and to the vehicle)?

Love the photos of the expedition with your Dad, happy days. Safe travels!
 
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Nice writeup! You've put the truck through real world testing and I really enjoy your summary. It resembles my experiences.

I found that the latest software update made my petroleum gauge more dependable. It could be coincidental but I don't think so. It used to hang around half empty and then rapidly get into red and empty. Not so much anymore.
 
Nice writeup! You've put the truck through real world testing and I really enjoy your summary. It resembles my experiences.

I found that the latest software update made my petroleum gauge more dependable. It could be coincidental but I don't think so. It used to hang around half empty and then rapidly get into red and empty. Not so much anymore.
 
Hi Matt the Grenadier should remember the brightness level set for night time .Il have to look up procedure .
 
Brilliant write up, Matt - thank you for taking the time and sharing on socials. Needless to say, loving the videos.

Plus one here for the sticking rear door look and mystery once-off refusal to start.

We’ve had the ‘RoW’ Eibach lift installed with no issues, the bit of extra clearance combined with 185/75s has more than paid for itself, particularly in jungle use. Highly recommended.

Where did you have the LRA tank installed? Any headaches getting it in (to the country, and to the vehicle)?

Love the photos of the expedition with your Dad, happy days. Safe travels!
Still in Colombia? I would have thought you would already be in Ecuador (country where I lived and two of my three kids were born) or Peru. Enjoy South America and good travels. 🍻
 
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