Europe Harwoods. Grenadiers at the Vinyard

Just a few photos from todays event

The double decker bus coffee shop was a great idea. A beautiful sunny but cold day. Good to catch up with the staff in particular Aaron who I chatted with, along with other future Grenadier owners.

any other forumnites?

No one I spoke to mentioned they were on the forum, but I told people I was and that it was way more informative and in most threads more serious than Facebook, which I don’t really like, although I do use the overlanding association facebook groups when travelling

I turned up briefly. Things I picked up
- first customer cars for Harwoods were meant to be arriving in 3 weeks
- they expect a demonstrator (which they think will be one of the journalist allocated cars presently in Scotland) in first week of February
- the rear seat to front seat gap on the commercial vehicle is tighter than I recall (the difference is apparently 75mm less than the non-commercial). I asked regarding post purchase reset of the commercial seat position to non-commercial position. Answer possibly but Ineos probably won’t comment since the location of the seat was to comply with UK regs re commercial vehicle parameters. The mesh grille divider could be removed straightforwardly but the floor panel in the commercial apparently does not have the bolt holes in the right position to move the rear seat backwards [seems overly complicated to have different panel but that seems to be the case?]
- the rear load height/threshold is pretty high
- the Ineos specialist David was very positive regarding the BF Goodrich AT (grip, longevity/puncture resistance, noise levels)
- glancing at the other attendees (and myself) underlined the ”strongly” middle-aged, male demographic. Interestingly (to me) looking at the cars parked I would guess that quite a few prospective UK owners are guys interested in cars generally with spare cash (but probably no particularly strong off-road pedigree or need for an overlanding vehicle specifically)
- the steering assistance levels (ratio of turn of steering wheel to front wheel angle) is still [?] being refined. I found when I drove the car that the steering seemed not direct enough (ie steering input to change in direction seemed less than other cars I drive) and there was little feedback from the road surface
- the positioning/the aperture for the transfer box high/low control was being widened. As the set up wore in they were finding that the throw of the lever could be constrained (which I think must be the explanation [?] for the in the transfer box that I heard when driven by an instructor in December in two different IG vehicles). The Ineos expert observed that the transfer box needed to be treated with some mechanical sympathy (sounds like all of the gearing on my 110 Defender Tdi)

See they left the Dogbone sticker in the window.