Bronco vs Wrangler vs Defender: We Drive Them Off-Road Up A Mountain, But Only Two Make It Back!

[Music] yep it's going to get exciting now hey guys this is the video we've been dying to make because for the first time i believe we've got three of the most off-road worthy vehicles you can buy together on a very hard mountain trail so nathan introduce what you are driving the brand new jeep wrangler for buy e this is the most advanced off-road machine you can buy it is a proper plug-in hybrid and i can drive off-road using nothing but battery power oh and it's kind of green too but we have a vehicle that you probably are even more interested in and that's because tommy what are you driving yeah the 2021 ford bronco with the sasquatch package this is the ultimate ford off-roader you can currently buy we bought this yesterday like nine hours ago and now we're gonna go take it up this pretty gnarly trail and dad tell me about your land rover i am driving what i affectionately call the gentleman's off-roader because unlike your unsophisticated vehicles i actually have air suspension so we're going to go up a trail called red cone which is very difficult and which will at the end of this let us judge which of these three are the best off-roader for you if you're looking for cool trails in your area you're going to want to check out an app called onyx off-road i actually use it a lot in my daily off-roading life be sure to use onyx to check out redcone it shows you stuff like the difficulty what to expect and also shows you where to go because you can download offline maps for when you're out of service all right gentlemen this trail will definitely separate the wheat from the chaff or the new technology from the ancient technology as i like to say well that makes me the winner already yeah i'm not really sure what you keep going on about this new technology dad the stuff you need for off-roading hasn't changed since about 1940 so i think old is gold in this case oh my i beg to differ i love the fact that land rover invented terrain management making an on-road car not only comfortable but also incredibly off-road worthy that is a magic trick that both those vehicles do not have i'm not sure you spent much time in this new bronco dad with the independent front suspension and the big 2.7 twin turbo i've got heated seats a heated steering wheel dual zone automatic climate it's pretty darn comfy and mr sophistication you may have invented terrain response over there but i've got goat modes which do pretty much the exact same thing so this bronco has the 2.7 liter twin turbo ecoboost v6 engine it makes 330 horsepower and 415 pound-feet of torque mated to a 10-speed automatic so this is the bronco first edition with of course the sasquatch package what that means rear locking diff front locking diff sway bar disconnect a cool turn assist to help you maneuver around trees and tight obstacles it's got off-road suspension skid plates and it's got these the goodyear territory mt 35 inch tall tires the biggest tires of the group here you're laughing now dab but i'm not sure you're going to be laughing here in a sec rolling on 20 inch rims you know what's amazing about the defender is that with the air suspension and with the way that the vehicle is designed which not only is handsome but also ultimately off-road practical so let's face it off-roading is all about numbers and i've got you guys beat under the hood of the defender is a mild hybrid now this car can't go electric but it is nevertheless very sophisticated it puts out 400 horsepower from a straight six which everybody knows is the smoothest of all power plants plus get this it has an electric supercharger so not only the most tech but also the most horsepower this vehicle has air suspension and terrain management so who needs lockers when you've got the computer figuring out exactly where to send torque and exactly where to proportion the power that you need to get over any obstacle hey tell me how big are your tires versus your wheels great question nathan these are 35 inch tall tires and i think these are 17 inch wheels how about you i think i have the same size a wheels last smaller but you know what i don't have i don't have low profile tires okay what you're looking at there combined is 375 horsepower 470 pound-feet of torque there's a 2-liter turbocharged engine there's a battery in there there's an electric motor in there but none of that really matters because the beginning of this trail i will take an all electric silent mode which will be awesome the great thing here about this rubicon isn't just its powertrain but the fact that it is a rubicon so everything underneath is exactly the same as it would be with the v6 or the four cylinder that you can buy meaning disconnectable front sway bar 410s front and rear solid axles which these guys don't have which means my articulation will kick ass also super off-road capable suspension system mixed in with plenty of armor underneath and i do believe the defender doesn't have much armor all right so we're airing down to about 25 psi between 20 and 25 so you've got the most possible grip and comfort on the trail look the fact of the matter dad is that you're up against two vehicles with at least one solid axle in my case two with nathan you've got body on frame construction on these vehicles we've got tow hooks that are integrated into the front and the back yours is for some reason hidden way down low underneath some plastic thing and you don't even have a rear tow hook should i mention it's uh yeah it's it's kind of a different league here i have to say all right let's talk about what we're doing today because it's a little bit more complicated than your regular jeep wrangler 4x4 and there's roman outside playing around okay first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to put this into electric mode now what you can see is that right now i have 19 miles worth of battery range that means that when i'm in an electric mode at least on a flat surface it should give me that we've done a video before where we actually took this thing out and got really really good distance like almost 27 miles but off-road i've aired down it's not gonna get that range all right well we're about to go into a part that is a little bit uh rocky uh so uh i will show you what this vehicle can do even with my smallish tires wheels but my prodigious amount of tech this is one of the harder obstacles on redcone this is about a three foot boulder you gotta drive straight up this boulder but avoid the right hand boulder that's door killer great test of approach departure breakover absolutely everything in terms of ground clearance traction aids this is this is the real deal yeah that's why uh that's why i'm first because hopefully i can get over this so i can get over this you guys you know i'm making a lot of fun about lockers but this is where i wish i had them this is where you wish you had them that's where i wish i had all right you gotta spot me tommy i'll spot you all right crawl it all right i gotta say i'm a little nervous about this this is putting a very expensive vehicle in harm's way [Music] nice try backing up a little bit more i'm gonna try to stack some boulders in that hole you're not on the uh that you're not on the rocker you're underneath still so no visible damage all right yeah it's not good that's what i was worried about [Music] float nice give that a try yes wow uh you guys go next i got through yes yes they're a minor scrape that was not ideal because we did shove the uh rear tire into this rock or the rear wheel i should say and see how the bronco does hey guys this video is supporting the ronald mcdonald house that's a great charity it's a home away from home for parents with sick children who are in the hospital so if you guys are looking for a charity and if you want to thank the fact that we have this bronco check out the ronald mcdonald house and help support a great cause okay so i'm going to do the same thing that um the other two dead same obstacle hopefully not bash a wheel like nathan did though hoping this is where the 35s come into play so i'm gonna do sway bar disconnect front locker rear locker all the goodies engaged but i have the extra width which is not going to help my situation here um i'm crawling it make sure i'm still in the rock crawl mode rock crawl engaged climb come on bronco climb nice nice tearing toward that big boulder nice and on easy skid plate but that is what they're there for i guess that's what i'm going with yes first try all right good job dude parker let him go bye right yes good work bronco didn't have to stack rocks like the defender didn't slam the wheel into the boulder like the wrangler best result yet i think and uh finally got to use those skid plates finally we've had this thing like eight hours finally got to use these skill plates what am i talking about so all three made it over the obstacle but not 15 feet down the trail disaster struck the land rover [Music] um all right if you go straight back [Music] all right well now we see the the detriment of a 20-inch wheel and that was not even that big of a rock so uh it's gonna get exciting now that little scrape and this pointy rock is actually what took out the tire now it's really not all that jagged it's kind of a smooth point but if you take that at the sidewall on a low profile tire you're going to hit the sidewall of the wheel and the tire and then that's what happens that's why you want a big chunky tire [Music] uh all right so change the tire and uh we decided to air back up a little bit since we don't have another spare rather have less grip and uh more chance and then less chance of actually doing that again and i'm going to ask tommy to drive the defender he's the best off-roader tommy can you drive the defender yeah do you drive the defender yeah that's fine i don't think i'm the best but i'll give it a whirl tommy uh you're the best off-roader in the mica family and at this point i don't trust myself i trust you i trust myself in the bronco because that makes off-roading pretty bulletproof this one you need a little bit of skill apparently that i don't have [Applause] tires are aired back up to avoid any sidewall deflection now actually i'm not gonna enjoy the rest of my trip i'm gonna say that right now oh and i don't have any grip now g'day [Music] different spot i took a different line on it same exact thing happened so the defender's wide right i couldn't go around this side you came at it like this hit the pinch side while here i came in it straight on hit it right here tire like this and the side will get out again wow well there's only one thing we can do guys and that is throw the spare into the back of the uh bronco bronco leave it here and come back uh and change out the tire again but i'm afraid i don't know i don't know how we're gonna get it down i honestly don't we can't go down that way all right so the only plan now is um we're gonna have to finish the trail uh in the jeep and the bronco um so the micas both have taken out a tire now tommy yeah i feel really bad about it so look here's the plan we're gonna have another video out of this right so what we gotta do is uh take this tire take it into town have a replace this tire right uh and then uh leave us here overnight then on monday come back put this one on flip the uh defender out we can turn around here go back down and bring it home and let's finish up this video and at least we've got an answer to one of the questions that we've been asking which of the three is the most off-road worthy well we certainly know which of the three is the least off-road worthy at least when it comes to these tires so a quick word about these tires that we have on the land rover these are actually the optional off-road tires that you can buy from land rover now they are mounted on a 20-inch rim and you're probably thinking should have got the ones on the 17 or an inch wheel well if you want the six cylinder trust me you want the six cylinder fender you can only get that in either a 19 to 20 or 22 inch wheel so uh no 17 or 18 to be had and we test these vehicles as they are equipped from the factory in this case with the optional off-road tires and the land river also has the advanced off-road capability pack it is missing the rear locking diff but these are the most aggressive tires you can buy from the factory and the land rover and part two getting that thing down the trail yeah you're gonna want to stay tuned for that all right my man nathan we are on our way up we are leaving uh the defender here uh because we are out of spare tires i'm not gonna i do appreciate that nathan you are a true gentleman yeah well i got the second flat nathan i mean it was my fault yeah that's why we got steelies on the uh on the first one all right well uh let's keep going uh we'll come rescue this tomorrow uh let's finish this trail well do most of it [Music] that bronco's got really good articulation pretty damn decent ground clearance too but it's pretty close to what i got [Music] oh i heard that yeah i heard that can you imagine if i was in a gladiator holy cow he's just like i love gladiators but man this is the type of stuff that hurts long wheelbase vehicles you take a pickup truck up here have a pretty decent lift the good news is both of these vehicles have skid plates underneath the bad news is if roman ever manages to get his defender out it's going to be rough not that i'm laughing i'm not laughing that odd all right now for the rock garden in the four bronco very excited for this let's see how the articulation is they got all the toys engaged so sway bar disconnected front of your locker's on and we shall see what happens all right here comes tommy up the rock garden oh by nathan tommy's got the advantage of having 30 fives i'm gonna take a hard line on purpose stuck stuck on the rear control arm there take a slightly different line [Music] all right well i wanted to take the really hard line but didn't quite have [Music] didn't quite have the clearance still 35 maybe if i had 37's i could go over that boulder and for the curious i'm down to seven miles range we've gone 1.9 miles so i'm at 30 battery but it's still letting me use nothing but electricity i think nathan's narrowness makes it actually easier well they both made it up the rock garden i would say tommy tried to take a harder line but didn't quite make it uh but eventually uh they both did it it's funny the jeep is narrower so you can pick your line better but with the 35s on the bronco you can go over taller things and i did notice that we got our first bit of uh trail damage first one's always the most painful let me show you lower control arm lower control arm there it is yeah the mount for the lower control arm yeah all right yeah not a huge deal nope not a big deal all right let's keep filling up you didn't knock it off right it's still there yeah it's still welded on i think okay [Music] so [Music] all right let's try the turn assist coming around this really sharp bend so i'm gonna crank the wheel all the way to the right it's gonna drag that inside tire oh look at that now that is very hard on the trail so i'm gonna turn that off um i'm going to demonstrate something cool i'm totally unlocked coming up to this articulated section and check this out all right so you know very off kilter watch this i'm going to disconnect the front sway bar you see that the whole thing like dipped down as the sway bar disconnected and you can do that under load and now i'm going to lock the front and the rear and we'll see how the articulation is all right picked up tires just a little bit there in the front that's for sure and did the same there as well but fully flexed out just slightly off the ground is what it feels like from my vantage point but of course with the it's lockers really a concern because you're sending equal power to the left and the right wheels i'm firing off with gigawatts of love baby because i am still using electricity i'm down to one percent i am thrilled about this it's it's hard to modulate because it it kind of it's like spring loaded it's in some torque right right boom and it's and it's not like an engine where you have to get the rpm going right yeah it's a different way of driving isn't it it kind of reminds me of a diesel when you have it in low gear because the torque's right there so it takes some time to get used to but i've been watching tommy i can't take the same lines he takes no the 35s look how wide it looks from back here i know but those 35s make a really big difference it really does and he hasn't had any issues but that's the thing is that when he goes around the corner i have to judge it differently when i'm following him ford claims that the bronco has 17 percent more front articulation than the wrangler even with an independent front suspension in this shot both the wrangler and the bronco have their front sway bars disconnected and i'll let you make that call which one articulates better in the front leave me a comment in the section [Music] below [Music] there we go 3.1 miles and the engine kicked on so which makes sense i don't know if you can see that hey nathan is that the sound of an internal combustion engine out here yeah not just the motorcycle behind me it's mine as well and i gotta tell you it went from being dead silent to also in the roar of this little engine that two liter turbo it's really not that loud but compared to what i was doing it's weird how far did you go 3.91 miles on all electricity now now think about this nathan you've got you know old turbo in there but what does that mean for people who have ordered a rivien or who have ordered a cyber truck think about what kind of range they're going to get and then how are they going to recharge up here when you know their range is cut by 80 percent and more importantly they have like 100 kilowatt hour batteries i just had a 17 kilowatt hour battery all right so then they'll go 10 miles how far do you go on road in that uh wrangler when you did your range test uh just under 27 miles yeah so you had like an 80 to 85 percent cut in your power yeah okay that bronco is remarkably capable i'm i'm constantly surprised by it but it's big it's it's really big tommy's been threading the needle as best he can you know the funny thing is that on camera i know things don't look as remarkable as they are in person tommy's skills are decent and he understands the shape of the vehicle and where the right point is to turn and how to get past something before you know all that stuff the design of the vehicle articulation obviously turning circles stuff like that all of it comes into play and honestly i think the jeep is doing better i'm sorry ford fans ultimately we emerged from the trees and then it was all alpine thunder to the very top of the mountain [Music] started with three vehicles but unfortunately we ended up with two bummer bro but these are the two best off-roaders you can buy in the united states as far as i'm concerned and now you cannot argue i suppose we could have put a different set of tires on the defender but we test them the way they come from the factory and if the factory uh equips it then that's how we're gonna test it right i mean that's fair if they're saying it's an off-roader and we've got the off-road tires that's a fair test yeah i agree with you 100 percent but now the question is as we get to the top out of these two which is the better off rotor so uh let's uh fly a drone again show them where we ended up on the top of red cone and then we have to come to a consensus i think as to which one we think is the new king of the red cone mountain [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay well the defender obviously didn't make it up here so it's kind of disqualified but you know that's like asking me to pick which of my two children is my favorite yeah but you only have one all right i will in my opinion right and this is because of me i think they're both incredible off-road yeah uh but because this one has lumbar support oh for crying out loud i know dude my back is completely hosed up and you know having adjustable seats with lumbar support is what's going to sway my decision uh because you know for me that's crucial wrong so here's the thing this vehicle was more maneuverable it had better articulation i was able to pick my line a lot easier i know tommy knows what he's doing but he had to go and do 3.4 points here several times not so much with this one plus i have a battery that allowed me to go three miles off harsh off-roading no problem so i didn't use the engine i get better gas mileage and i have more torque all right well i gotta say 35 can't beat 35. i can't wait to get the extreme version of the wrangler and 35s up out here um but i think for now bronco's a winner all right well there you have it if we put some better tires on the defender i'd say the defender's the winner that's got lumbar support too that car all right hey come back next time when we do the rescue and the defender video because that's gonna be part two of this thanks for watching and uh to be continued the mica boys are so wrong [Applause] you

Channel: TFLoffroad

Views: 2,867,415

Keywords: TFLoffroad, TFL, 2021 ford bronco, ford bronco, ford bronco 2021, new ford bronco, 2021 ford bronco review, 2021 bronco, 2021 ford bronco 4 door, bronco, 2021 ford bronco reveal, ford bronco sport 2021, bronco 2021, 2021 ford bronco 2 door, ford bronco 2021 4 door, 2021 ford bronco badlands, 2021 ford bronco interior, ford bronco 2021 review, 2021 ford bronco sport badlands, 2020 ford bronco, 2021 ford bronco off road, new bronco, land rover defender, jeep wrangler, rubicon

Id: 391AsASvmi8

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/peakdecline]

The Wrangler appears to me to have a have an articulation advantage over the Bronco; see the 21-22 minute area. Also this does highlight the Wrangler being a bit smaller and in particular narrower. None of that is to discount the Bronco's capability... For an IFS vehicle this side of a Land Cruiser its very impressive. And 35s definitely help. Actually this video is a perfect example of how much tires and wheels matter.

Overall about what I expected for an off-road comparison between these vehicles. I think for most people the Bronco's formula of nearly as good off-road but much better on road will be a better fit. But the Wrangler still shows its hard to beat off-road.

[u/BannedFromRcars]

Definitely the comparison test a lot of people have been looking for. The Wrangler still does amazing off road even without the “35s” (actually 34.4”) tires. It’s size and articulation of the SFA were really flexed on this trail. I’d be curious to see the 2 of them compared on some desert running as well though as it seems IFS does shine in that off road scenario. While the Bronco falters in some cases I’d still rather it just cause of how much better suited it is on road. 99/100 miles are going to be spent dailying or traversing and would prefer IFS that doesn’t have death wobble personally.

One big point to the Wrangler though, that soft top looks 10x better than the Bronco’s soft top. Much smoother overall and like a finished product than the sad soufflé which is the Bronco’s.

[u/[deleted]]

That Bronco looks cool af.

[u/[deleted]]

That is exactly what I'd expect. Bronco is better for most people, Wrangler better for the truly hard core, Defender broken. LOL

[u/whitedan2]

Bronco does it for me tbh... It just looks like an icon.

[u/[deleted]]

Very interesting watch, I wonder how a 4Runner TRD pro would do in the comparison. It'd definitely be better the Defender.

[u/anihilism]

JL is the superior offroad platform. It obviously is more maneuverable and has better flex

Jeep will release a 35” capable trim at some point (probably with just different fenders to avoid rub at full flex) and then this argument is even more put to bed. Also you can get a Mopar lift with full warranty coverage today as a Dealer-Installed kit which already fully supports 35s

Source: offroad

[u/[deleted]]

Old defenders are better, water is wet.

[u/anonymousbystander7]

Haven’t driven the bronco and I’m sure it is more refined on road, but I still can’t get over how much I enjoyed driving a friend’s stick shift, 2-door JK a few years back.Just cruising around town with the top off,,it was such a unique, fun experience - like driving an overgrown tractor, but in a good way somehow. I guess it really is a keep thing.