Steering and suspension geometry setting details

[Clark Kent]

Nice one @joejet . Step 22: Adjust Front Caster.

 

[Tazzieman]

where in the name of '....holy workshop hacking' are you getting this black magic from?

He fits into the "our man at the front" category

 

[joejet]

No I don't work for ineos I got the spec's after 3 attempts form customer service, the other screenshots I got off the dealer, he could not find the specs on the portal though.

Here are the results,

so the sai specs must be wrong and could not adjust the camber but its out of spec!

I dont think the factory has done a great job, these are all done on laser alignment system on a 4 post ramp.

 

[Jean Mercier]

No I don't work for ineos...

Of course not, otherwise they would have silenced you. Thanks for the feedback

 

[Jean Mercier]

To continue on this point, I think Ineos isn't fair. We post a lot of information, problems, solutions, etc. They have lurkers here, this is known, even my dealer told me.

But they never help us on this forum!

Unfair, unprofessional, not customer friendly, ...

 

[AWo]

If, at all, Ineos must answer officially with people assigned to that job. However, that would turn the forum to an official support channel...think about....someone says A and you go to the dealer and ask for A.

I can understand every Ineos employee not answering here as this might lead to trouble. Especially if they admit by answering directly or indirectly that something is wrong.

If someone gives a hint which leads to even more problems or which people use to nail Ineos or which is not an officially supported statement...no, not possible. Does anybody know of any other car forum where employees answer?

In addition they (at least claim to) have an official support organization through the dealer, hotline, etc. (I don't know exactly all the offers).

So, it is quite normal that they do not help here.

AWo

 

[Jean Mercier]

If, at all, Ineos must answer officially with people assigned to that job. However, that would turn the forum to an official support channel...think about....someone says A and you go to the dealer and ask for A.

I can understand every Ineos employee not answering here as this might lead to trouble. Especially if they admit by answering directly or indirectly that something is wrong.

If someone gives a hint which leads to even more problems or which people use to nail Ineos or which is not an officially supported statement...no, not possible. Does anybody know of any other car forum where employees answer?

In addition they (at least claim to) have an official support organization through the dealer, hotline, etc. (I don't know exactly all the offers).

So, it is quite normal that they do not help.

AWo

I understand what you say, but did you see what kind of answers we get from customer support? Really poor, and I don't want to attack the individual people at customer support.

But at least an answer on this forum like: "we know about the problem, we are investigating, and will answer as soon as we can" would be nice.

And, what's the problem with the forum as an official support channel, "sometimes"?

With all respect, I disagree with you.

They should help!!!!

 

[AWo]

No problem, you can always disagree with me. I do not take that personel, @Jean Mercier, I highly respect and appreciate your posts.

However, you won't find any employee who will bypass the official organization. You can blame Ineos for their official support, but that is how it works. You have to live with that as an owner.

For me personal there is no value in warm words like "we know and investgate"...it is simply not helpful, a plaster at max, not more. Maybe it is even a lie to calm the waves and buy time.

Common sense and experience tells me they know about almost all, maybe all, problems. There are enough feedback channels open.

However, some will be investigated and there must be a solution because otherwise there will be trouble. Some will be solved, because it's easy and/or cheap. Others won't be solved quickly to various reasons like cost, time, importance and if there is a way to solve it silently. And some problems can't be solved soon, like design flaws. If there is for example a fold which is too weak or mishaped, solving that would mean a huge impact like new tools etc. You may get a workaround, not more.

I mentioned it already somewhere else, the car was released too soon. I could imagine, that the support organization was not prepared for this. And as Ineos is actually going through tough cost cuttings, it is questionable if it will get better soon.

In addition I see strategic mistakes like offering things like the winch, dual-battery system, etc. on their own. It increases complexity for the support and dealers, it increases costs for storage, spare parts, building, manuals, education of personnel, homologation. And if it fails or is done in a bad way, the negative credits go to Ineos. You can find enough examples here. Bringing a car to the market, especially for the very first time, in times which require to follow so unbelivable many rules and laws etc is a very, very complex and difficult thing. One of the most difficult things I can think of. Why make it even more difficult? If you can't live without doing that, leave it for the second generation, when you have tamed your car and your organization is ready.

I would have left that completely to the aftermarket. There are experts and the aftermarket has more freedom than the manufacturer. Ineos would have been at least out of the line of fire for bad solutions and could focus on their product. The customer would benefit from a broad range of different offers at different prices. Ok, at least that will be the case, as the aftermarket will offer their solutions anyway.

How they did it means, they had to develop this stuff, buy it (logistic costs), test it, homologate it, and now they have to take care about all that on their own and the costs are shared among all customers, if you buy a winch or not.

They even could have taken the role of a supervisor, like Land Rover did in the past, to approve solutions but let the aftermarket do it, support it and also get the good and bad credits.

AWo

 

[Jean Mercier]

No problem, you can always disagree with me. I do not take that personel, @Jean Mercier, I highly respect and appreciate your posts.

However, you won't find any employee who will bypass the official organization. You can blame Ineos for their official support, but that is how it works. You have to live with that as an owner.

For me personal there is no value in warm words like "we know and investgate"...it is simply not helpful, a plaster at max, not more. Maybe it is even a lie to calm the waves and buy time.

Common sense and experience tells me they know about almost all, maybe all, problems. There are enough feedback channels open.

However, some will be investigated and there must be a solution because otherwise there will be trouble. Some will be solved, because it's easy and/or cheap. Others won't be solved quickly to various reasons like cost, time, importance and if there is a way to solve it silently. And some problems can't be solved soon, like design flaws. If there is for example a fold which is too weak or mishaped, solving that would mean a huge impact like new tools etc. You may get a workaround, not more.

I mentioned it already somewhere else, the car was released too soon. I could imagine, that the support organization was not prepared for this. And as Ineos is actually going through tough cost cuttings, it is questionablw if it will get better soon.

In addition I see strategic mistakes like offering things like the winch, dual-battery system, etc. on their own. It increases complexity for the support and dealers, it increases costs for storage, spare parts, building, manuals, education of personnel, homologation. And if it fails or is done in a bad way, the negative credits go to Ineos. You can find enough examples here. Bringing a car to the market, especially for the very first time, in times which require to follow so unbelivable many rules and laws etc is a very, very complex and difficult thing. One of the most difficult things I can think of. Why make it even more difficult? If you can't live without doing that, leave it for the second generation, when you have tamed your car and your organization is ready.

I would have left that completely to the aftermarket. There are experts and the aftermarket has more freedom than the manufacturer. Ineos would have been at least out of the line of fire for bad solutions and could focus on their product. The customer would benefit from a broad range of different offers at different prices. Ok, at least that will the case, as the aftermarket will offer their solutions anyway.

How they did it means, they had to develop this stuff, buy it (logistic costs), test it, homologate it, and now they have to take care about all that on their own and the costs are shared among all customers, if you buy a winch or not.
1
They even could have taken the role of a supervisor, like Land Rover did in the past, to approve solutions but let the aftermarket do it, support it and also get the good and bad credits.

AWo

I agree with more than 90 % of what you say, 10% or less is ... why aren't they more helpful with the guinea pigs, me and a lot of others?

 

[AWo]

There is an interesting book on how IT companies become great, called "Crossing the gap".

All companies which are big players today or were in the 90ties ignored customer problems during the phase of entering the market. The focus is 100% on selling to get market shares.

And selling is now cruical for Ineos.

That behaviour was necessary after the gap was crossed and to become the market leader. Microsoft is the best example.

The rest is dealt with later...

AWo

 

[Jean Mercier]

There is an interesting book on how IT companies become great, called "Crossing the gap".

All companies which are big players today or were in the 90ties ignored customer problems during the phase of entering the m arket. The focus is 100% on selling to get market share.

And selling is now cruical for Ineos.

That behaviour was necessary after the gap was ceossed and to become the market leader. Microsoft is the best example.

The rest is dealt with later...

AWo

Business as usual

 

[James]

There is an interesting book on how IT companies become great, called "Crossing the gap".

All companies which are big players today or were in the 90ties ignored customer problems during the phase of entering the market. The focus is 100% on selling to get market shares.

And selling is now cruical for Ineos.

That behaviour was necessary after the gap was crossed and to become the market leader. Microsoft is the best example.

The rest is dealt with later...

AWo

Really thought provoking AWo.

Jim R has said that, in hindsight they would have offered only 4 colours, and no contrast roof, for example. This tends to support your observations about the wisdom of offering winches and dual batteries as factory and warranted. The complexities multiply very quickly, from planning, to production and support, on to customer image.

Regarding 'closing the gap', your point is excellent, but it makes me wonder at the flavour it will develop into in an Ineos context.

Ineos has a culture based on its history with specialist chemicals companies, selling to a small number of highly educated customers, not retail to consumers (except Belstaff, sanitiser). To the extent that this ethos carries into Automotive, it was at least present in the idea of a small and very focused niche/potential customer base for the Grenadier. Whilst clearly being VERY strongly attached to the idea of making a profit, it is not necessarily the typical growth of a manufacturing entity, and quite different from software, where the zero marginal cost of production inevitably promotes scale (company size) to the top of the list of priorities.

I suspect, that whilst the market imperatives you note still operate, Ineos Automotive will be closer to cleaving to the culture of a niche specialist. Sales are very definitely critical, but perhaps that is being viewed as an outcome of strong word of mouth and credibility in a specialist niche, and is completely dis-connected with aspirations to increase production tenfold, let alone the exponential growth an IT startup would see as necessary to long term stability.

It is certainly a very important phase for them, and for all of us who have supported their vision, now shared.

Thanks as always for your perspective,

J

 

[AWo]

Ineos culture was maybe lost when they bought BP Chemicals in 2006 which was double of their size (1/3 Ineos, 2/3 BP Chemicals at that time) of their size and served big customers with hundred and thousands of tons...That 9 billion dollar deal made Ineos big.

I wrote it somwhere else here, that Ineos is not known for organic growth but for acquiring and selling companies. The latest will be the Total deal in Lavera, France, if approved by the officials.

With Automotive they in the rare position of generating growth out of their own.

AWo

 

[hopefulkiwi]

i think that their initial plan was comletely undone by the pandemic and with all sorts of delays and supply issues time was lost .it became imperative to release the vehicle,without real time to really test the pre and actual production vehicle so they just jumped the gap

 

[AWo]

Unfortunatley that is not the case. Of course, the pandemic had an impact, but it was also a missed chance. Instead of hiding behind the pandemic, where most customers would have understand if Ineos would have claimed "Sorry, we have a delay due to the pandemic" they pushed the car out with many problems.

See, the initial schedule from 2016 was to release the Grenadier in 2020 (absolutley unrelistic), a schedule missed before the pandemic even has started. At this stage there was nothing else than the plan to buy the tools from Land Rover and continue with the modified Defender.

See this press release from 09/2017. Ineos granted themself a two year time frame(!!!!) to develop a complete car, the Land Rover plans were gone already. if you check the milestones below you can see that this is very daring as no partner was found for anything in 2017 when this schedule was released!

As we know, that didn't work out.

On the Abenteuer&Allrad fair 2019 Alexander Quindt showed me the first rolling chassis hidden under an US SUV and in the beginning of 2020 I had an interview with Mark Tennant, telling me that the first prototype was running since December 2019. The plan was to show the first chassis on the Abenteuer& Allrad in 2020 which didn't happen due to the pandemic.

The problem the automotive industrie had was the availability of parts and electronic chips. But you can see, that in 2019 they "just" had a rolling chassis (I think they had done a great job, just their plans are completely unrealistic). No exterior design, no interiuer design was ready, It is clear to see, that no production problems where the delay. Just the development was not on time. In April 2020 Ineos showed the suspension development in a video, still no production related delay, but still developing the car.

Some milestones where you can see, that Corona supply issues were not the main reason of delay:

02/2018 MBTech was announced as the development partner. You can take this date as the beginning, the very start of the development.
03/2018 BMW is announced as the engine supplier...a very important step in development as many, many things depent on this
12/2019 Carraro is announced as the supplier for axles. 1.5 years after MBTech started developing they knew who will suppliy the axles...still no SOP (Start of production) in sight at that stage
12/2019 Magna Steyr is announced as the partner for transforming the prototypes to a production vehicle
03/2020 Corona pandemic has started....SOP is still far away, suppliier problems are not yet a big problem...still developing.
07/2020 First internal video of the unwrapped Grenadie published
12/2021 I received two Grenadier prototypes 2b. Usually the next step is the production car, Ineos needed a 2d protoype. They were still testing diagnostoc software in my garage....

So in contrast to the press release above, see this press release, where the interior release is planned for 2021. No talk about the car being released in 2020 anymore. So 2020 was missed before the pandemic.

AWo

 

[Tazzieman]

But now I have my car , it's a fabulous drive and that's all that matters to me.
I don't worry about the past or the future.
Mostly , things work out for the better, if you hook your red wire onto life's positive terminal.

 

[AWo]

But now I have my car , it's a fabulous drive and that's all that matters to me.
I don't worry about the past or the future.
Mostly , things work out for the better, if you hook your red wire onto life's positive terminal.

You're right. All owners should be happy and enjoy what they got.

But I just want to set a few things right. Heritage is something important, even if it is still short....and I think the customers should know how it was and that problems are not only forced onto that project from external things, but a lot come from the inside. That may help to get a better perspective onto the problems the customers are facing,

That shows that Ineos has completely underestimated what it takes to build a car and that becomes also visible in a too weak support organization.

How was it called? "A hard way home"....that is definitive true...

AWo

 

[Tazzieman]

How was it called? "A hard way home"....that is definitive true...

AWo

Remind me again , are you getting one?

 

[AWo]

Remind me again , are you getting one?

Getting what?

AWo

 

[ECrider]

a semi?