7500 km in the Grenadier and back she goes!

globalgregors said:

That’s all most interesting - thanks for documenting your experience. 2 & 3 sound particularly alarming.

I’ve taken to running at 50psi on highway, and while I quite like the driving dynamics my co-pilot maybe finds it a bit twitchy. Across Oz we were running them at 38/40 F/R.

What pressure have you landed on for on-road use? Any estimate of how heavy your vehicle is in present use?

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Dono 17 said:

Ok, so a big previous LR Defender fan, own a 1959 series II and super excite that the Grenadier was next for me. Returned my 2020 LR defender and bought a IG Trialmaster. Huge disappointment! Terrible on tar road holding. Brake and swerve for wild life crossing the road and the huge nose dip and oversteer is down right dangerous. No way my wife is going to handle this. Massive drive train vibration and rear diff only engages 1/3 of the time. Then there’s the clown who located the rear view camera in the centre of the larger of the two doors…. Not above the hitch! Try to hitch a trailer on your own, in the dark at 20 deg below Celsius when it’s snowing! So… it’s going back to Ineos, I’ll enjoy my Ford F350 with solid axles over this any day!!!

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LC0013 said:

Took you 7,500 KM to figure this out. Odd....but I gotta ask- what kind of buy back trade in deal did they give you?

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Korg said:

38PSI all round for city/highway at 3.2 tonnes, higher when heavier.

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Dono 17 said:

Hi Lc0013, nope, been trying to make this work. Nearest dealer is in Vancouver… a days drive away. Many little issues along the way. Electronic gremlins, and a lot of around the city driving. Only had to break hard and swerve for the deer…. once ;-).
I tow with my Diesel F350 but had to move a trailer… that’s when I figured the hitching thing out. We work with our vehicles, rely on our vehicles and they need to be reliable and professional grade. Still negotiating with the dealer on this but I’ll let you know how much this is going to set me back.

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Shopkeep said:

Reckon if it was a 600kg 2m high moose in your headlights you might consider swerving....

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DaveB said:

I have had wild horses, emus, an eagle, numerous kangaroos and a camel.
Car that overtook me hit the horse, I hit an emu, stopped just short of the eagle in an F100, it was taller than the bonnet, ended up just nudging the camel.
My brother on the other hand swerved to miss a dog and wrapped his Valiant Charger around a power pole.
I was thinking a moose or a bear when I wrote my comment and thought they would hurt.
Still best to avoid swerving.
Also shows why you need good lights and no distractions.

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Shopkeep said:

I forgot about our camels, maybe the moose is not that bad after all.

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DaveB said:

I drive down through the Tuan Forest between Maryborough and Gympie quite a lot.
I came around a bend at 100+ kmh to find a large black horse dead on the other side of the road.
Luckily there was nothing coming the other way.
I couldn't find the vehicle that had hit it and looked off the sides of the road and down into a nearby creek.
A couple of other vehicles pulled up and were talking about dragging or winching it off the road.
I left them to it.
I hit a mouse plague out near Dubbo and they quickly filled the tread on my off road tyres and sent me into a slide.
An hour with a stick and I cleared as much of the tread as I could but then had to drive through the rest of them.
I drove on the dirt sides of the road to reduce the skid.

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DaveB said:

Mine has 26,000 kms (16,100 miles) on the clock and drives really well on all types of roads.
Not as smoothly as an SUV but then again I never expected that.
I think North American vehicles/SUV's do tend to have a softer riding setup than we normally do anyway.

Rule of thumb in Australia is never swerve for an animal or you will end up in a ditch or a tree trying to convince a cop and your insurance company that there really was an animal there.
Brake in a straight line and take off as much speed as possible.
Also the reason we have bull bars on our vehicles.

View attachment 7871437View attachment 7871438

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Bruce B said:

I am a little amazed at the complaints about Grenadier steering performance. It is a theme that keeps repeating. Of course you are correct, something may have been wrong with the vehicle but I suspect not. I found the steering much like several 3/4 ton vehicles I have driven, different but easily adapted to and just fine once you do.
It is a really curious thing.

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DaveB said:

I drive down through the Tuan Forest between Maryborough and Gympie quite a lot.
I came around a bend at 100+ kmh to find a large black horse dead on the other side of the road.
Luckily there was nothing coming the other way.
I couldn't find the vehicle that had hit it and looked off the sides of the road and down into a nearby creek.
A couple of other vehicles pulled up and were talking about dragging or winching it off the road.
I left them to it.
I hit a mouse plague out near Dubbo and they quickly filled the tread on my off road tyres and sent me into a slide.
An hour with a stick and I cleared as much of the tread as I could but then had to drive through the rest of them.
I drove on the dirt sides of the road to reduce the skid.

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DoubleDoom said:

I am not experiencing anything like that. However, if your tyres are over filled, it can feel that way. Initially mine were pumped for heavy load by the dealer and when warm (over long distances) it became uncomfortable (not too much but more than I would like). I dropped back to a sensible PSI and not had that issue since.

Also, if you are a gripper of the steering wheel rather than relaxed hold, you will keep correcting within the lines. My daughter did it initially. She was steering within the white lines. I told her to let go of the wheel and watch it go in a straight line. And it did. I then told her to relax her hands and just rest on the wheel and guide it when necessary and that worked for her. She didn't suffer it again.

The bottom line is that if you are long distance road running, then any of the LR/RR are going to better than the IG. They are built for that. If you are expecting SUV on road performance with the IG then you are going to be disappointed. It is in line with UV on road performance.

I used the camera during a hail storm to attach a 3.5T muck trailer and had no issues at all. However, my Defender Puma rear camera was offset (the other side) and never had a problem with that either.

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Dono 17 said:

It’s like shooting a rifle with a scope offset from the barrel by an inch off centre! Try to be accurate at varying distances.

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ECrider said:

We all want a whore in the bedroom, a cook in the kitchen and a perfect mum for the children. they don't exist unless you have all three and hope they never meet each other. Guess the Gren is just like us, good in some ways and poor in others - comes down to what you prefer. Love mine.

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Zimm said:

Apparently I’ve done much better than you… on multiple occasions.

I’ll help you out.

The whore part is the toughest to teach. Start there and work your way down if you want to save time.

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ECrider said:

We all want a whore in the bedroom, a cook in the kitchen and a perfect mum for the children.

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