Ineos Grenadier Sub Forum

XJLI

Adventurer
The ZF 8 speed auto is the best automatic transmission ever made. It's not hard to find evidence of sustained reliability, robustness, and performance on it in every application it's been placed in. We're arguing over nothing. Same with the axles and transfer case.

Discussing the merits of the B58 in this truck is a way better use of everyone's breath.
 

nickw

Adventurer
The ZF 8 speed auto is the best automatic transmission ever made. It's not hard to find evidence of sustained reliability, robustness, and performance on it in every application it's been placed in. We're arguing over nothing. Same with the axles and transfer case.

Discussing the merits of the B58 in this truck is a way better use of everyone's breath.
Still breaks the ethos of how they have marketed this HD / Defender replacement by using a engine and trans (they are effectively an engineered unit so should be used in the same breadth) out of no other vehicle besides a lightweight passenger car. It's proven itself well in the field, statistically, in small vehicles.....full stop, use that how you will.

Show me the data! What are the specs of the trans? You can't use the term ZF 8 speed just like you can't use "Turbo-Hydromatic" and refer to a TH200 to a TH475, one is for a light car and one is for a dump truck.
 

nickw

Adventurer
I don’t think they are glassing over much — they have a fair bit of information on their web page. They’ve also been doing a number of web series, some with more info than others, on the development journey and why they made the decisions they did. Scott’s impressions of the vehicles mirror more or less what the company has been promising, and that I think is good news.

To Ineos’ credit, they provide more information on their website than most others in the market, but their website is irritating to navigate and I wish they just had a PDF with all this stuff in one place. On this page they talk about a heavy duty torque converter - so I’m not so sure about the “light duty parts in a heavy duty truck” thing — and a rigorous testing program for the transmission, as well as their partnership with Carrara who “has 50 years experience making heavy duty tractor axles for the likes of John Deere and Claas”; it’s fairly easy to learn more about their pedigree from there. They also have some information on the testing program on another page and some very detailed specs about capacities and capabilities, but again I’d love a PDF that has all the nerd stuff all in one place.

As for the transmission stuff, from what I can figure from the Wikipedia entry the different designations of transmission you mentioned are just evolutions of the same transmission. There is a couple of higher torque version of this transmissions (8HP70 and higher), but the list I shared was for the 8HP50, which came out in 2014, and was succeeded by the 8HP51 which came out in 2018.

The transmission has also turned up in its Gen 1 form (released 2008) in the following rigs:



All of these designations have the same input torque specs, and represent a design that’s been in use and evolving since 2008, so I’d say that I agree with Scott that the transmission is well proven; it seems to have had pretty good success in a number of trucks (ram 1500 and VW amarok stood out to me) so no reason to think it’ll be inadequate for the job and specs of the vehicle. The testing program looked pretty robust to me.

One thing I can 100% agree with you on is this:



I reached that conclusion the second (of three) times I had to take mine out!
Maybe the 8HP51 was lightened up for fuel economy reasons over the 8HP50?

With all due respect to the other vehicles you list that use the trans, like the Jeep comment I made which uses the same trans, nobody uses adjectives like "robust" when describing their drivetrains so why does IG get a pass? I 100% think it will work fine, highly doubt anybody will have major issues but for me it's against the ethos of what IG has been selling until they can show some data to back up their decision.

A vehicle drivetrain is as strong as it's weakest link.

I'm just disappointed, I would have been very impressed and would have expected IG to use the bigger trans they use on the diesel on their petrol....that IMO would have aligned with the spirit of what they have been marketing.

IG is ~6000 lbs with ~2000 lbs payload capacity, so GVWR is ~8000 lbs which is heavier than the heaviest GVWR of a Ram 1500....so in essence, unless I am missing something, the engine (for sure) and the trans (quite possibly) are being used in the heaviest vehicle to date?

All my blabbing about doesn't make me right, I think it just poses some logical questions....thanks for being a good sport :)
 

nickw

Adventurer
The IG is ~6000 lb with a 7,700 lb tow rating with 2000 lbs payload, on par with a LC200 so I think the GCWR is probably sim to a LC200 @ ~14,500 lbs.

We can use GM transmissions as a case study the 8L45 and the 8L90....just like the ZF transmissions they are very closely "related", but the specs differ wildly:

8L45 max; 308 hp, 275 ft/lbs, GCWR @ 12,000 lbs
8L90 max; 420 hp, 460 ft/lbs, GCWR @ 22,500 lbs

Both have very specific design limitations, you wouldn't use a xx45 in place of a xx90, or vice versa which certainly feels like what we are seeing with the IG.

As we know, Toyota has no cross pollination between their LC line and their light duty models, everything on a cruiser is much much heavier duty than anything that goes into their passenger cars.
 

85_Ranger4x4

Well-known member
The ZF 8 speed auto is the best automatic transmission ever made. It's not hard to find evidence of sustained reliability, robustness, and performance on it in every application it's been placed in. We're arguing over nothing. Same with the axles and transfer case.

Don't worry about it, ZF also makes tractor axles so it should all be good. :cool:
 

ChasingOurTrunks

Well-known member
Maybe the 8HP51 was lightened up for fuel economy reasons over the 8HP50?

Maybe. I don't know specifically what changes they made, but from Wikipedia:

3rd generation 8HP products were released starting in 2018. Major improvements are total spread of 8.6 and a fuel economy improvement of 2.5% compared to the 2nd generation. There are several options in maximum torque available, also the gearbox is available with mild hybrid and plug in hybrid options: With 15 kW and 200 NM supporting boosting and recuperation in combination with 48 Volt technology up to 90 kW and 250 NM for usage with higher voltage.[10]

The suggestion of electric compatibility is interesting to me - they are very heavy vehicles, and tend to put out a lot of torque. But, I just don't know enough to know what the actual differences are, other than typically when things 'evolve' they so so in a positive direction.


With all due respect to the other vehicles you list that use the trans, like the Jeep comment I made which uses the same trans, nobody uses adjectives like "robust" when describing their drivetrains so why does IG get a pass? I 100% think it will work fine, highly doubt anybody will have major issues but for me it's against the ethos of what IG has been selling until they can show some data to back up their decision.

A vehicle drivetrain is as strong as it's weakest link.

It's a transmission that has been reliably used for nearly 15 years in a wide variety of applications, including trucks. I would describe that as robust. It is a design that, with apparently minimal changes (i.e. they appear to be the same form factor) can withstand up to a thousand foot-pounds of torque. I would also describe that as robust. I don't know enough about transmissions to know the differences between the 370-foot pounds version and the 1,000 foot pounds version, but any bits they have in common would have to be robust enough for 1,000 foot pounds right?

I'm just disappointed, I would have been very impressed and would have expected IG to use the bigger trans they use on the diesel on their petrol....that IMO would have aligned with the spirit of what they have been marketing.

Fair enough, but I reckon there's always a balance. Weight, Cost, Sturdiness. If you want it strong and cheap, it's going to be heavy. If you want it light and strong, it's going to be expensive. Every decision is a compromise. I hear you in that I'd love to know more about the information that drove the compromises Ineos chose, but I have no concerns about the robustness of the ZF based on the specs that are available. Perhaps going up to the stronger one was an unacceptable cost or weight penalty? Either way this is only a problem if the one they chose isn't good enough, and I suspect it will be.

IG is ~6000 lbs with ~2000 lbs payload capacity, so GVWR is ~8000 lbs which is heavier than the heaviest GVWR of a Ram 1500....so in essence, unless I am missing something, the engine (for sure) and the trans (quite possibly) are being used in the heaviest vehicle to date?

All my blabbing about doesn't make me right, I think it just poses some logical questions....thanks for being a good sport :)

That's a good question - I don't know the weights of those other vehicles. I do know the ZF is electric compatible, and those things are beastly heavy, but I don't know how those compare kg to kg. And I guess that's my perspective on this whole thing -- Ineos says they are using an HD torque converter and that the ZF was chosen for it's robustness. There's only three options here:

1) They are lying, and the ZF is not robust enough for the application, and the vehicle won't perform, and that means Sir Jim has wasted a few billion bucks or whatever; I don't think that's likely.
2) They are lying or pumping a half-truth in "marketing speak" (basically like every other 4x4 manufacturer on the North American market!), and the ZF just so happens to be robust enough to not be a failure point for most people most of the time, but it's not a robust transmission in and of itself and they could have spec'd much better. But this begs two questions: If it's not failing in the application, does it matter? and secondly, if they are lying about the robustness of this particular part, they are likely lying about the robustness of other parts too, which puts us back in scenario 1) above -- there will be failures, and a few billion bucks is wasted. To create an analogy with the Jeep - the Jeep commercials always show Wranglers doing crazy cool stuff off road; donuts under overpasses in the mud, rock crawling at 100 kph, or 4 adults and a week's worth of camping gear plus kayaks all crowded into one 2-door with the roof off and a payload of only 800 lbs -- but the fine print always says that you really ought not to do that with their vehicles and if you do there's no promise of warranty coverage. In other words, selling an idea, not a tool.
3) Ineos has access to information that we don't have (or certainly that we don't have the full picture of), and they are confident in truthfully claiming that the transmission they chose passed muster for robustness and reliability and is fit for purpose. That would align with the vision -- they didn't set out to create the strongest 4x4 ever made (and if they did, yeah, your suggestion of using an uprated transmission just for the sake of it would make sense even if it would come with a cost/weight penalty as I mentioned above). Their vision was to create the most "purpose built" 4x4 on the market today.

Given what the rest of the vehicle appears to be from Ineo's promised goal - and some early journalistic interpretations are reflecting this -- the third category is the most likely reality I think.

And thank YOU nick for also being a good sport in the conversation - I always enjoy engaging with you especially when we have different perspectives as you always engage in respectful disagreement. I try to reflect the same (though tone in text can be hard -- please trust that kind, friendly discussion is always my intent!) and I've learned more about the transmission in my future rig as a result of this conversation than I have previously, so I greatly appreciate the discussion!
 

nickw

Adventurer
Maybe. I don't know specifically what changes they made, but from Wikipedia:



The suggestion of electric compatibility is interesting to me - they are very heavy vehicles, and tend to put out a lot of torque. But, I just don't know enough to know what the actual differences are, other than typically when things 'evolve' they so so in a positive direction.




It's a transmission that has been reliably used for nearly 15 years in a wide variety of applications, including trucks. I would describe that as robust. It is a design that, with apparently minimal changes (i.e. they appear to be the same form factor) can withstand up to a thousand foot-pounds of torque. I would also describe that as robust. I don't know enough about transmissions to know the differences between the 370-foot pounds version and the 1,000 foot pounds version, but any bits they have in common would have to be robust enough for 1,000 foot pounds right?



Fair enough, but I reckon there's always a balance. Weight, Cost, Sturdiness. If you want it strong and cheap, it's going to be heavy. If you want it light and strong, it's going to be expensive. Every decision is a compromise. I hear you in that I'd love to know more about the information that drove the compromises Ineos chose, but I have no concerns about the robustness of the ZF based on the specs that are available. Perhaps going up to the stronger one was an unacceptable cost or weight penalty? Either way this is only a problem if the one they chose isn't good enough, and I suspect it will be.



That's a good question - I don't know the weights of those other vehicles. I do know the ZF is electric compatible, and those things are beastly heavy, but I don't know how those compare kg to kg. And I guess that's my perspective on this whole thing -- Ineos says they are using an HD torque converter and that the ZF was chosen for it's robustness. There's only three options here:

1) They are lying, and the ZF is not robust enough for the application, and the vehicle won't perform, and that means Sir Jim has wasted a few billion bucks or whatever; I don't think that's likely.
2) They are lying or pumping a half-truth in "marketing speak" (basically like every other 4x4 manufacturer on the North American market!), and the ZF just so happens to be robust enough to not be a failure point for most people most of the time, but it's not a robust transmission in and of itself and they could have spec'd much better. But this begs two questions: If it's not failing in the application, does it matter? and secondly, if they are lying about the robustness of this particular part, they are likely lying about the robustness of other parts too, which puts us back in scenario 1) above -- there will be failures, and a few billion bucks is wasted. To create an analogy with the Jeep - the Jeep commercials always show Wranglers doing crazy cool stuff off road; donuts under overpasses in the mud, rock crawling at 100 kph, or 4 adults and a week's worth of camping gear plus kayaks all crowded into one 2-door with the roof off and a payload of only 800 lbs -- but the fine print always says that you really ought not to do that with their vehicles and if you do there's no promise of warranty coverage. In other words, selling an idea, not a tool.
3) Ineos has access to information that we don't have (or certainly that we don't have the full picture of), and they are confident in truthfully claiming that the transmission they chose passed muster for robustness and reliability and is fit for purpose. That would align with the vision -- they didn't set out to create the strongest 4x4 ever made (and if they did, yeah, your suggestion of using an uprated transmission just for the sake of it would make sense even if it would come with a cost/weight penalty as I mentioned above). Their vision was to create the most "purpose built" 4x4 on the market today.

Given what the rest of the vehicle appears to be from Ineo's promised goal - and some early journalistic interpretations are reflecting this -- the third category is the most likely reality I think.

And thank YOU nick for also being a good sport in the conversation - I always enjoy engaging with you especially when we have different perspectives as you always engage in respectful disagreement. I try to reflect the same (though tone in text can be hard -- please trust that kind, friendly discussion is always my intent!) and I've learned more about the transmission in my future rig as a result of this conversation than I have previously, so I greatly appreciate the discussion!
Fair points.......no right or wrong answer here! I am extremely open minded when it comes to this kind of thing, and frankly I've had ZERO issues with 2 BMW's, 2 Audis and a VW (bought back) in the last 10-15 years, nothing but good things.

I am coming at it from a different direction but don't disagree with anything you said.

I absolutely do not think a) I am smarter than their engineers or b) think they'd waste their time underbuilding but I would LOVE to see the data, they claim to be on par with vintage Defenders......cool, help me understand. But I'll admit, I geek out over specs, full float axles make me smile along with HD transmissions out of proven platforms, ring gear sizes that are massive, high axle spline count, etc......when I see something that doesn't align with that, it makes me think....what was their thought process?

Torque / power in is one parameter of transmission selection so is GCWR......I'd love to see the specs, then I'll shut the &#(* up :)
 

ChasingOurTrunks

Well-known member
But I'll admit, I geek out over specs, full float axles make me smile along with HD transmissions out of proven platforms, ring gear sizes that are massive, high axle spline count, etc......when I see something that doesn't align with that, it makes me think....what was their thought process?

Cheers to your whole post, but in particular in this section --You're speaking my language here!

It's one of my biggest gripes of most 4x4s for sale - they don't share the specs. Wading depth, roof loads, etc. are hard to find, but imo the info should be on the window stickers on every new 4x4 on the lot. The Gren is closer to that than most (With a respectful nod to both JLR and Jeep - Jeep makes the specs hard to find, but they offer them, and JLR is the only company I'm aware of that even accounts for reduced capacities in off-road conditions; this may be different overseas but this is my experience on North American model's websites).

The best part about the Grenadier is that it's healthy competition in the marketplace. Everything from a Wrangler to a Land Cruiser will now have to differentiate from/compare themselves to the Grenadier (and vise versa), which ultimately means more and likely better choices for folks like us. Everyone wins.

Except for Jeep because they still don't have a contrast colour frame (Kidding!)
 

SkiWill

Well-known member
I think this thread needs to be renamed "The ZF Transmission Thread" or something.

The only thing I'll add, is that ZF knows more about automatic transmissions than all of us combined. I can promise you that the ZF engineers asked Ineos engineers what that transmission application was before ZF agreed to warranty their parts to Ineos.

Also, torque input rating doesn't really have as much to do with "heavy duty" as people seem to suggest. It's most likely a rating of when will the clutch packs start slipping, not necessarily when the thing will grenade. Heat management and countless other variables determine whether it is "heavy duty" or not at a given torque input.

Also, those ZF 8 speeds behind 900+ lb/ft diesels in 3/4 and 1 ton trucks are tuned such that full torque is not delivered in lower gears. You only get those monster torque numbers in higher gears from your Cummins to save driveline components including the transmission. Back when the manual transmission was offered, which I had at one time, the engine was tuned for a maximum of 610 lb/ft of torque because there was no telling the engine what gear you were in to detune.

All this to say, there's a lot of engineering that goes into these transmissions and the controls. I think ZF knows how to make a transmission survive, but seeing the data would be nice. Oh, and the workshop manual to see how to service the vehicle.
 

ChasingOurTrunks

Well-known member
Agreed, SkiWill. It’s fun to speculate about specs and such as we’ve been doing, but I agree with what you’ve said and have no reason not to trust the engineers at ZF/Ineos. They know their stuff it would seem.
 

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