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The Grenadier slightly piqued my interest so I rented one on a family trip and put on 1,000 miles. Flew into SFO, so had it in San Fran, Yosemite and Monterrey/Big Sur.
Thought I would share some thoughts. I didn’t take it off road unfortunately but this is more around everyday use -
I liked it, not as much as I thought I would. If it were strictly driven by me and me alone that’s one thing, but it was pretty flawed/compromised for everyday driving / family passengers. The steering and turning radius is lacking for around town driving. I think this has been improved slightly for the 2026, mine was a 2025.
The steering doesn’t really snap back to center and takes a bit getting used to. You need to manually turn back to center when coming out of turns. It feels weighty which is nice but there’s a lot of input needed. I got used to it but my wife pretty much hated the feel of it. For example, if you were to drive it like a regular vehicle and made a right hand turn onto a street with a row of cars parked on the right side, the grenadier would just keep turning and smash into the parked cars. Obviously you’re cognizant to correct it, and it was comical/strange in the beginning, but you get the point. For better or worse this means less time doing things besides driving. Taking the switchbacks into Yosemite meant really timing up the straightaways to take a sip of my morning coffee or bite of breakfast sandwich. It’s a both hands available type driving experience if you’re not on a straightaway. Again, maybe for the best, but a point to make regardless. I don’t know if I’d describe it as focused driving with heavy low speed steering, or rather driving something that had tractor parts.
The turning radius is probably one of the worst of a recently manufactured vehicle for this size, and is the primary common complaint. Lots of corrections are needed around a parking lot. Especially tight lots - Turning into spaces flanked by occupied spots usually required a 3 point turn which is a bit crazy. Or for example, pulling out of a parking lot aisle with someone passing, you would need to completely stop and wait to have enough room to turn. There were a few awkward moments of others seeing you stop, then they stop and wave you on, and you roll down your window to explain that they need to move or reverse because your unable to make the turn without hitting them. They just don’t expect you to have the turning radius of a semi truck when you’re in a defender looking suv.
in general I would say just…finicky…My wife and kids were successful about 50% of the time to fully close the doors. And sometimes the car would throw itself into park when reversing out of a spot, to the point you think you hit something, but it was really because a door wasn’t 100% shut with a thud. It could have also been provoked by seatbelts not being buckled but I doubt it - pretty sure it was the doors. This happened a bunch. Another point on the doors is that without passive entry/push button locks on the handles, and the fact that the car has a regular horn and a very low pitched toot horn provided this annoying combo that after exiting the vehicle I was locking it at a distance on the fob and the lock/unlock beep is just the toot horn or something just very faint. You can’t really hear it. Meaning if my wife or kids door wasn’t completely flush, and you lock the car on the fob, it may actually be unlocked without you knowing. This happened a couple times with a family worth of luggage in the back, once in inner San Fran - got back to the car and it was unlocked, so I wasn’t really happy about it.
constant rear rattle. Seemingly the tailgate or ladder.
No passive entry for the locks or push button Start. Which after unpacking and repacking a car full of luggage every couple days was noticeably a bit annoying putting down arms full of stuff to pull out the key and unlock the vehicle. One of those features you get accustomed to with modern cars that becomes obvious when it’s not there. The sticker on mine was 83k BTW.
no rear window lockouts for kids. Probably no big deal for most, but dealing with a toddler in the backseat constantly not listening and messing with the windows got old quick. Seems trivial, but when driving around the Big Sur wildfires, and trying to keep out the smoke it actually was an issue - pulling over multiple times arguing etc, for something that could so simply be resolved with a feature every other vehicle has. Or my toddler opening up the window while exiting the car (happened often given the allure, since we’ve always had the lockout feature) then you walk around, take out the key (since it doesn’t have keyless) turn back on the car and roll up the window. You forgive these things because it’s a pretty cool truck, but also think why am I dealing with this in 2026 on a 83k vehicle. It’s not even an option. And they figured this tech out 30 yrs ago.
some technical issues. Like an off road mode flashing error on the screen that stayed on for a couple hours.
Everything else (minus the price) was to the positive. Huge cargo, very nice seats. I loved every second of the airplane cockpit and safari windows. If it I wasn’t using it for family use I probably would have enjoyed it more. Also I think the 2026 improved the turning radius some (5%), and the steering feel a bit.
edit - looking into it further - here are the things missing (I don’t think these are options but I could be wrong) but my $83k spec fieldmaster did NOT have: power front seats (obviously no memory), rear heated seats, adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, passive entry locks, push button start (obviously no remote start), child rear window locks. Etc. not really being a princess since it only includes tech that’s absolutely necessary, but the main point here is there’s about $10-15k worth of content missing when comparing this $83k sticker to competitors.
Going back to my general point - these are all things I would be okay with if it were strictly my truck, or a weekend vehicle. You get used to how to properly use the vehicle fairly quickly, just like you would a foreign exotic. The Bronco has some of those flaws too that the sole driver is aware of on how to fix or correct - Ike resetting the windows or similar door latching issues. But once you start introducing wife/kids/guest passengers for everyday use that are not cognizant or accustomed to these small things on the grenadier you could see where it becomes annoying, and potentially inexcusable for the price seeing how this is a 4 door suv.
some pics
Thought I would share some thoughts. I didn’t take it off road unfortunately but this is more around everyday use -
I liked it, not as much as I thought I would. If it were strictly driven by me and me alone that’s one thing, but it was pretty flawed/compromised for everyday driving / family passengers. The steering and turning radius is lacking for around town driving. I think this has been improved slightly for the 2026, mine was a 2025.
The steering doesn’t really snap back to center and takes a bit getting used to. You need to manually turn back to center when coming out of turns. It feels weighty which is nice but there’s a lot of input needed. I got used to it but my wife pretty much hated the feel of it. For example, if you were to drive it like a regular vehicle and made a right hand turn onto a street with a row of cars parked on the right side, the grenadier would just keep turning and smash into the parked cars. Obviously you’re cognizant to correct it, and it was comical/strange in the beginning, but you get the point. For better or worse this means less time doing things besides driving. Taking the switchbacks into Yosemite meant really timing up the straightaways to take a sip of my morning coffee or bite of breakfast sandwich. It’s a both hands available type driving experience if you’re not on a straightaway. Again, maybe for the best, but a point to make regardless. I don’t know if I’d describe it as focused driving with heavy low speed steering, or rather driving something that had tractor parts.
The turning radius is probably one of the worst of a recently manufactured vehicle for this size, and is the primary common complaint. Lots of corrections are needed around a parking lot. Especially tight lots - Turning into spaces flanked by occupied spots usually required a 3 point turn which is a bit crazy. Or for example, pulling out of a parking lot aisle with someone passing, you would need to completely stop and wait to have enough room to turn. There were a few awkward moments of others seeing you stop, then they stop and wave you on, and you roll down your window to explain that they need to move or reverse because your unable to make the turn without hitting them. They just don’t expect you to have the turning radius of a semi truck when you’re in a defender looking suv.
in general I would say just…finicky…My wife and kids were successful about 50% of the time to fully close the doors. And sometimes the car would throw itself into park when reversing out of a spot, to the point you think you hit something, but it was really because a door wasn’t 100% shut with a thud. It could have also been provoked by seatbelts not being buckled but I doubt it - pretty sure it was the doors. This happened a bunch. Another point on the doors is that without passive entry/push button locks on the handles, and the fact that the car has a regular horn and a very low pitched toot horn provided this annoying combo that after exiting the vehicle I was locking it at a distance on the fob and the lock/unlock beep is just the toot horn or something just very faint. You can’t really hear it. Meaning if my wife or kids door wasn’t completely flush, and you lock the car on the fob, it may actually be unlocked without you knowing. This happened a couple times with a family worth of luggage in the back, once in inner San Fran - got back to the car and it was unlocked, so I wasn’t really happy about it.
constant rear rattle. Seemingly the tailgate or ladder.
No passive entry for the locks or push button Start. Which after unpacking and repacking a car full of luggage every couple days was noticeably a bit annoying putting down arms full of stuff to pull out the key and unlock the vehicle. One of those features you get accustomed to with modern cars that becomes obvious when it’s not there. The sticker on mine was 83k BTW.
no rear window lockouts for kids. Probably no big deal for most, but dealing with a toddler in the backseat constantly not listening and messing with the windows got old quick. Seems trivial, but when driving around the Big Sur wildfires, and trying to keep out the smoke it actually was an issue - pulling over multiple times arguing etc, for something that could so simply be resolved with a feature every other vehicle has. Or my toddler opening up the window while exiting the car (happened often given the allure, since we’ve always had the lockout feature) then you walk around, take out the key (since it doesn’t have keyless) turn back on the car and roll up the window. You forgive these things because it’s a pretty cool truck, but also think why am I dealing with this in 2026 on a 83k vehicle. It’s not even an option. And they figured this tech out 30 yrs ago.
some technical issues. Like an off road mode flashing error on the screen that stayed on for a couple hours.
Everything else (minus the price) was to the positive. Huge cargo, very nice seats. I loved every second of the airplane cockpit and safari windows. If it I wasn’t using it for family use I probably would have enjoyed it more. Also I think the 2026 improved the turning radius some (5%), and the steering feel a bit.
edit - looking into it further - here are the things missing (I don’t think these are options but I could be wrong) but my $83k spec fieldmaster did NOT have: power front seats (obviously no memory), rear heated seats, adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, passive entry locks, push button start (obviously no remote start), child rear window locks. Etc. not really being a princess since it only includes tech that’s absolutely necessary, but the main point here is there’s about $10-15k worth of content missing when comparing this $83k sticker to competitors.
Going back to my general point - these are all things I would be okay with if it were strictly my truck, or a weekend vehicle. You get used to how to properly use the vehicle fairly quickly, just like you would a foreign exotic. The Bronco has some of those flaws too that the sole driver is aware of on how to fix or correct - Ike resetting the windows or similar door latching issues. But once you start introducing wife/kids/guest passengers for everyday use that are not cognizant or accustomed to these small things on the grenadier you could see where it becomes annoying, and potentially inexcusable for the price seeing how this is a 4 door suv.
some pics
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