Ineos Grenadier Review 2024

The Grenadier will be right up your street if you want a hugely capable off-roader and you want to be involved in the off-roading experience. Various Land Rover models will also excel in challenging terrain, but since the demise of the old Defender the driver has less to do when conquering mud, snow, rocks or what-have-you – much of the cars’ capabilities are computerised and automated. The Grenadier very much isn’t that, it’s about as analogue as you can get in a modern car, and more fun for it.

However – and it’s a very large however – the Ineos Grenadier is not a good car to drive on the road. In fact, we’d go as far to say it’s pretty bad. Our test car, shod in off-road tyres, lacked grip and feel in the corners, and the very slow steering, while useful in navigating muddy paths, is very disconcerting on normal roads. It’s not particularly comfy or luxurious, it drinks fuel and it’s not cheap to buy or run.

If you’ve got a use for its talents, or you just love the image, then you may be tempted to put up with the buts, because it’s genuinely good at the things it’s trying to be good at. If you just want a luxury family SUV, however, then there are far better options.

We’ve only tried the petrol engine in the Grenadier, but it’s very well suited to it. BMW’s 3.0-litre, six-cylinder engine has loads of low-down torque that makes it great for off-road driving. We know from other cars that use the 3.0-litre diesel option, also from BMW, is another great bit of engineering, and the extra torque it offers should suit the character of the Grenadier very nicely.

Good question. Cars with similar mission statements include the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the Suzuki Jimny and the Jeep Wrangler. The Mercedes is far more expensive, the Jimny is far cheaper. The Wrangler is closest in price (although still about £15,000 cheaper) and only comes with a four-cylinder, 2.0-litre engine. All these cars offer a similar flavour of do-it-yourself off-roading, but they’re not really direct rivals to the Grenadier.

Going by price point, the forthcoming new Toyota Land Cruiser will land bang within the Grenadier’s budget range, although it looks like it’ll be a touch more Modern Car in its style and feel than Traditional Mudplugger.

And then, of course, there’s the latest Land Rover Defender, which comes in a broad range of flavours and budgets that span the Grenadier. It’s a very decent car with excellent off-road capabilities, but it’s moved away from the raw, agricultural feel that the Ineos is trying to recapture.

Being of an agricultural character, you can forgive the Grenadier some hard plastics, with the focus more on durability more than luxury. The interior has been designed to be dirt proof and splashproof, and there are drainage valves in the floor in case you need to hose the interior out.

Cloth and vinyl seats are standard, while leather is an option, as are carpets for the floor. It all suits the character of the car, but on the other hand it doesn’t feel like the interior of a vehicle that costs north of £75k.

The Ineos Grenadier uses a revised version BMW’s excellent iDrive infotainment system with a 12.3-inch screen on the top of the dashboard and a rotary dial and button setup between the front seats. If you’ve spent any time in recent BMWs it can seem odd to see the familiar screen and interface nestled into a very different interior, but it’s a great setup to use with lots of impressive features, and probably a better choice from Ineos than trying to fully develop an in-house system.

What’s less successful is the decision to eschew traditional dials or a digital driver display behind the steering wheel. Instead, all the driving information is displayed on the infotainment screen in the centre, in the style of Tesla. While it’s something you may get used to (and our time in the car has been relatively short at this point), we found it distracting to look down and left to check how fast we were going.

The Ineos Grenadier is a big car and has lots of space inside for both people and stuff. It’s also a high vehicle, so jumping in and out could be something of an expedition for those less spry. You’ll have to hoik kids up to get them in, or investigate some kind of stepladder possibilities.

The rear seat space is adequate, although it’s not huge considering how big the car is. You should be able to fit three adults in without too much issue, however.

The boot is accessed via rear doors hinged at the side like a van. It’s very large, with up to 1152 litres of space behind the back seats, and access is fantastic thanks to the large aperture, as long as you leave enough space behind the car when parking. The seats fold down but only in a 60/40 split, which raises another eyebrow when cars half this price or less have 40/20/40 splits for extra versatility. Doing so expands the load space to 2035 litres.

If you need extra room, you can order a Grenadier Utility Wagon, a certified commercial vehicle that still seats five but has less rear-seat space in favour of extra boot space – 1255 litres with the seats up and 2088 with them down. There’s also the Quartermaster, which is a Grenadier-based pick-up truck, if you just want a large space on which to chuck stuff.

General storage space is adequate rather than exceptional, with two cupholders up front, reasonable size door pockets and a small glovebox. There’s a small phone-sized cubby hole ahead of the gear levers and a storage box under the centre armrest.

Two engine options are available, both 3.0-litre straight-six BMW units with eight-speed automatic gearboxes. The petrol unit has 286PS and 450Nm, while the diesel unit has 249PS and 550Nm. While we’ve only tried the petrol unit, we suspect that either will suit the car very well. Some may want the extra torque of the diesel, but the petrol isn’t far behind on paper, and the well-established BMW gearbox is smooth and unobtrusive.

There are no refinement worries from the petrol engine. It’s beautifully smooth in its power delivery, and while the diesel engine will have a gruffer edge to it, its torque power delivery should be effortless and refined.

Elsewhere though, the Grenadier focuses more on words like “capability”, “rugged” and “tough” than refined. There are no fancy soft-close doors and on the off-road tyres there’s lots of road noise, to the point where it’s hard to judge wind and general cabin noise. It should be better on the on-road tyres – still a long way from other similarly priced SUVs, but it’s not trying to compete with them in that way.

In an age when £75k SUVs are usually packed with safety kit, the Ineos Grenadier is conspicuously light. You get a good complement of airbags, as well as stability control and traction control. There’s also a trailer stability assist system if you plan on towing, but that’s about it – there’s no adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring or anything of that ilk.

For all the analogue feel you get from driving off road there are a few electronic aids, including hill-descent control, an off-road mode and a wading mode, which ensure the various safety systems don’t cut in when they’re not supposed to.

The Grenadier hasn’t been tested by safety organisation EuroNCAP due to its relatively low volume of production.

As a new vehicle from a new manufacturer, we don’t have any data on how reliable the Ineos Grenadier is likely to be. However, it does come with an impressive five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty, which should give at least some reassurance. The BMW engines used are well proven, so there shouldn’t be too many issues with them.

Insurance won’t be cheap on an Ineos Grenadier – all versions sit in insurance group 50 of 50, which suggests your annual premiums could be punchy.

All versions of the Ineos Grenadier cost considerably more than £40,000, which means they attract the luxury car surcharge on top of the regular flat rate of Vehicle Excise Duty (car tax). As such, you’ll pay £600 a year between the second and sixth year of registration, and then the standard flat rate after that – currently £190 a year.

We’re focusing here on the Station Wagon version of the Ineos Grenadier, as that’s the standard “car” model – there are also commercial variants, including a chassis cab, the Utility Wagon and what’s simply called the Grenadier Commercial, which is essentially a van.

Opt for the Station Wagon and you can choose between the Trialmaster Edition, which is heavily off-road focused, and the Fieldmaster Edition, which is less so. Both, incidentally, are named after Belstaff jackets – the clothing company has been owned by Ineos since 2017.

The Ineos Grenadier Trialmaster Edition rides on 17-inch steel wheels and features a raised air intake – much like a snorkel – up the A-pillar to help with deep water. It also has what Ineos calls an Exterior Utility Belt, which lets you attach a range of accessories to the outside, a related set of interior utility rails. An auxiliary battery can power extra equipment, and there’s a compass and altimeter included.

The Trialmaster also features the Rough Pack, comprising the off-road BF Goodrich All-Terrain tyres and the front and rear differential locks. On top of that, you get the Smooth Pack of useful features such as a rear-view camera, front parking sensors and puddle lamps.

The Fieldmaster Edition switches the steelies for 18-inch alloy wheels, with opening “Safari Windows” on the roof, leather upholstery and a premium sound system. You get heated front seats, carpet on the floor and all of the Smooth Pack features mentioned above.