First Dirt: Is The New Ford Bronco REALLY Better Than The Jeep Wrangler Off-Road?

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you our detailed off-road driving impressions of the brand new 2021 ford bronco yep and we chose a two-door and it has a sasquatch package which means it's the highest ground clearance basically 11.5 inches of ground clearance and it's a 35 inch tall tire now andre there are two different broncos right there's the broncos sport and then there's a full-size bronco what's the difference this is a full-size bronco it's truck based it's on the frame it's got a solid rear axle it's big it's huge it's basically related to the ranger actually and the smaller bronco called the sports is more related to the escape so that's unibody independent suspension but this is the one that everyone has been asking for everyone has been super excited for and this one has the low range the front locker the rear locker i mean it's it's like a rubicon wrangler yeah it also has several very unique features right um another very unique bronco feature is a trail turn assist that's what ford calls it okay i call it rear wheel dig all right so now the um trail turn this is correct absolutely trail turn assist uh been called donut mode and giggle button also uh so when you press that button we have to go full lock with our steering wheel so whichever way we're turning to the left okay uh give it a little bit of throttle you can feel that right there yeah actually pivoting pulling that front end around that left rear or inside tire is locked down for us as we make that turn we just basically did a utah turn right there and stayed in position with that left rear tire almost within like the length of the vehicle absolutely amazing little asset right there yes [Music] well we've got a slight bit of a tight turn coming up here there's a button up here on top of the dash with an arrow yes i'm gonna turn that on it says trail turn assist on there in the dashboard maybe cut this turn a little tighter than you need to and we'll see if we can feel that inside wheel breaking all right let's figure this out so keep going straight and then at the last minute crank it nice here we go i could feel actually the do you feel that yeah so it kind of grabs the brakes and it allows you to make tighter turns pretty useful especially like in colorado on some tight switchbacks exactly mountain climbs i could really see that being a useful feature yeah that's that's it's coming up again so it's all it's in standby mode right now and you know what else happened i could feel resistance on the uh accelerator pedal like i had to use a little bit more gas you know you know what i'm saying yeah that's a weird you can feel that right yeah that's pretty neat it works well it's pretty cool and i like that it's a passive system in standby and you can turn it on and off yeah so the next line on the the row of buttons there is the rear locker yeah and you can get the rear locker and the bronco across a variety of trips so you can get it not only on the top dog off road model but maybe something more affordable like the black diamond trim and let's try the engagement because sometimes with rear lockers especially in the toyota products they come on and off quite slowly push the button it's on right there and it's in my gauge cluster as well that's immediate so that's really cool to see and so this is another cool part about the rear locker it can come on and too high okay so if you're going maybe you don't need four wheel drive but you you know uh maybe you're playing in the snow or other loose surfaces right you can use that um uh we can turn on four high okay or four low okay and then let's talk about the front locker so the front locker is apparently independent from the rear so if you get a wrangler rubicon right yeah in order to activate the front locking differential you have to have the rear one engaged but apparently on the new bronco you can do it separately now there are a few instances off-road where that may be useful like if you're trying to really uniquely position the front in a certain way so as we head back onto some dirt here let me click that front locker button yep and sure enough it's on without the rear locker being on this is initial impression that's that's the coolest part of these lockers is just how quickly they turn on and off you don't have to fight them uh can you do both just just i want to feel how that you know how that works all right so now both lockers are engaged and you know what my steering effort is still relatively easy okay you know oftentimes when you're in four low and the lockers are engaged you could feel it in the steering wheel sometimes interesting this one i i don't quite feel that but you know what this is so loose this ground is so loose i needed that actually i needed the front locker to kind of climb over this hill okay so we're in low range and we have the rock crawl mode engaged i believe yes we do there's a bunch of different goat modes goat modes exactly a bunch of different terrain modes in the new broncos whatever dude do you want do you want to film this a little bit yep i'm going to hop out and grab it so here we have a bronco and the gentleman just clicked on the locking differentials you can see it is flexed out right now and that's going to evenly distribute wheel speed between the left and the right wheels you know what i'm going to use every feature available to me except in this particular bronco iron man i do not have a front sway bar disconnect it's available and another very cool part about sway bar disconnect is that you can actually engage it or disengage it under load [Music] we really want to show you the suede by disconnect so i picked this up this is a first edition four-door bronco and it has all the features all the lockers and turn assist feature and the sway bar disconnect so let's do the demo so this is with the sway bar connected in the new bronco through these articulation mounds and then andre will disconnect it and we'll see if uh there's a noticeable difference in the front end articulation as we're driving through here you're feeling that uh steering wheel pulling in your hand right a little bit yeah a little um so that's a characteristic of that independent front suspension as we're driving through there suspension cycling up and down get a little bit of that pull through those uh tie rod ends and it's getting more and more difficult it is gonna feel we're starting to slip just to touch a little bit like that the tires off the ground right there oh yeah so hold right there really picked up tires there he's probably going to engage one or both of the locking differentials so we're actually off the ground right now rear tires up in the air so we can force our way through this with traction control yeah but uh again we want to be uh sympathetic to our trail and to our vehicle yes so in that situation let's use that state bar disconnect so that very first button press that for me okay whoa i can i could actually drop actually feel the vehicle drop down back on the ground this is of course oh did you see that so andre pushed the sway bar disconnect and the vehicle immediately came down [Music] we just a touch of throttle feel that lock in a little bit of spin that locker comes on engages and now we're driving through this obstacle again very very nice that's what we're looking for right we didn't do anything damaging to the vehicle we didn't tear up the terrain um the whole time we're just keeping that in mind as we're driving through here a lot of what we're doing off-road it isn't so much about um going out and just bashing and tearing anything up we're trying to conserve our grounds that we're using also and our vehicles so that we can go out in the woods and come back and have fun keep moving forward and we're probably going to feel a little bit of slip here in just a second when we get a little bit a little bit of a transition right here right there absolutely we get that so let's try that state bar disconnect again absolutely so we feel that suspension releases under full load so front locker only absolutely there it goes nice oh there we go perfect nice driving through there that front locker pulled us through that obstacle and got us through there without having to engage that rear one since the tires were on the ground on the rear we use that front to get us through there okay so right now i i had both lockers on and then i selected my rear turn assist and the rear locker disengaged automatically because it knows it just knows that i wanted to make a tighter turn and you can hear the abs i don't know you can probably hear it right now and it's trying to grab my rear tire there it goes and now i'm gonna try to negotiate this obstacle here and uh there's actually a spotter that's helping me navigate a little bit more another very cool part of the bronco is that is that it also has a 360 degree camera views because right now i wasn't sure what my obstacles were and the camera views are actually helping and um it is a 360 degree view so yeah andre this is supposed to be the ghost pepper trail which is the most extreme of the three they set up for us journalists i have to say none of this is very extreme um i wish that they would have gone a little bit crazier with some of the obstacles because i feel like we're not really showcasing this vehicle's maximum potential right now we'll do two things first of all the day is still young but but but secondly we're in a short wheelbase which means our breakover angle is incredible it's actually quite a bit better than on the wrangler um and right now i haven't touched a single skid plate or you know you're mostly right it feels really easy because the rocks are big enough to touch a single skid plate andre but of course this is a a ford event and they were the ones who decided to create uh this course and maybe show some of what the vehicle can do so independent front suspension typically has a reputation for not articulating as well as a solid axle yeah and what i mean by articulating is how well the vehicle keeps tires on the ground so if you look at like the front end of a jeep it's it's got a um basically a stick axle where both wheels are tied together which is what you want off-road because it does a great job of pushing one wheel up can't leaving the other onto the rock and you know giving you the best possible traction now ford says they don't need that in the bronco they've gone with a new independent suspension setup they said and with the sway bar disconnect they even mentioned that this vehicle has more front articulation than a wrangler and and more rear articulation they said 17 more in the front yeah 10 more in the rear how does that feel do you think that's true you know what right now i i haven't felt my front tire in the air yet and um so maybe that's true but you know what else you have to look at you have to look at the rti scores right yep like you said when they compare a vehicle for vehicle um rti is the ramp travel index basically if you're going up this ramp incline you know when is the moment you're gonna lift a tire okay so and the bronco actually has pretty good numbers there and we can put the numbers on the screen right yeah and actually show that is it better than the wrangler i don't so so here's the thing uh i was looking up last night wrangler's rti score and i didn't see it published by jeep okay this is not a good sign i don't know why they didn't publish it now of course um how would you say the ride quality is on the short wheel base with the big tires i actually really i'm enjoying this ride i think the tires are helping a lot uh ford has prepared this bronco and they air down to 25 psi and i think that's you know that's not a very low pressure but still um i think it provides a slightly better ride and i'm enjoying it i i do agree andre one of the issues with having the solid axles in the jeep is you get a lot of head toss yeah right going back and forth back and forth because when one tire hits a rock the other one is impacted as well and you just get a lot of this so far in the bronco i've been very impressed with the lateral stability we're not being thrown around as much as you might be in a jeep which is a good thing that is a good thing it is um now we're really gonna have to get this vehicle back home to colorado and and test it on some more difficult terrain to really see how the articulation is with the sway bar disconnect and all the goodies yeah for i think the vast majority of folks it's probably going to be enough though i would agree and i think you know the important things are here the ground clearance the tires you know the ability to have lockers i think those are the key things for [Music] sure [Music] okay this is in the middle of the course and i'm gonna try to show articulation guys we've been talking a lot about rti scores ram travel index and actually um it's getting more challenging we're climbing higher and we're also um there's some you know unsettled areas where you are testing your articulation [Music] yep now thank you andre i've got the window sticker on this particular bronco it's a 2021 um two-door advanced 4x4 black diamond with the 2.7 liter ecoboost so the bigger v6 aha nice and the 10-speed automatic transmission and what do you think the retail price on this model is the base starts at about 28.5 before destination yep but the other bra starting price at about is about 36. for the for the for the the black diamond right yes yeah and then another seven grand approximately for the sasquatch package so that's uh 43 uh 44 45. so according to the sticker this one is cyber orange it's a 600 option it's got the ecoboost that's 1900 bucks 1600. sasquatch on this model is 4995 and that gives you the big tires the front locker um the 470 gears and then towing capability group and the keypad and some other little things forty seven thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars as equipped yes and by the way this doesn't show fuel economy yet but those numbers are out yes we'll find them we'll find them on the screen they're a little poor andre they're not great you know what what else is not super super great what uh the curb weight what's the curb weight it's high okay so model for model it's almost about 300 pounds heavier than the wrangler wow so uh it is a chunky vehicle it's a it's kind of but it feels nice in here you know i have a lot of elbow room so andre some other things we should talk about and this is where things are going to get interesting because if you look at some of the specs on the bronco they are higher than the wrangler yes so approach angle is about the same rate might have a slight advantage but if you look at the breakover angle the ground clearance and departure angle bronco has a slight edge over the jeep actually the uh departure angle is about the same too okay so the problem but the breakover angle and the ground clearance is slightly higher but i do have some interesting news what jeep is not taking the bronco lightly are you what are you saying they have a response what's jeep's response i am looking at a text here from the president of jeep in north america yes are you saying jim morrison jim morrison yeah he's told me something very interesting okay uh at this point when we're filming this it's embargo but when we can publish the driving impression of the forward it will be open jeep has revealed a new model and what is it called and what is it what is it it is a more capable version of the wrangler rubicon it has 35 inch tall tires from the factory just like the broncos sasquatch okay the approach angle 47.4 departure angle 40.4 ground clearance 12.9 and the water forwarding what's the watercoloring on this uh 33 and a half the new jeep 33.6 are you serious yes i kid you not so um jeep is uh jeep's coming back with a little bit of a of a you know a power move there but what are they calling it rubicon plus or what does it say i i don't have that information okay i'll find it here because it'll be public okay at that point but it's very exciting i mean look jeep has had this market to themselves for the last 25 26 years yes uh with really no competition in the open top four wheel drive markets but now that broncos here it's it's forcing everybody to be better you know it's exciting we're good competition hopefully we're gonna see more value more features more tech in both models because they're directly aiming squarely right at each other so it's yeah and and what how funny is it that you know the president of the jeep is actually gave you this information as we're here i mean look let's be honest guys there's a lot of competition from these manufacturers absolutely you know what else would bronco or the other trim they have what it's called wild track i like that name um and it's it's supposed to be higher speed uh capable um off-road so what about the goat modes what are goat modes oh um so good modes i have many here and you know sport eco slippery sand um and right now i'm in raw crawl mode because this is you know we're very you know most of this is very slow and also dude we have to talk about shocks suspension right yeah so uh standard bra and that means so one more thing that's very important is actually the shocks uh standard broncos come with uh you know ford tuned and ford quote unquote branded shocks but the most capable broncos the sasquatch package and the badlands come with bilsteins okay and they're position sensitive they have rebound uh and uh full uh droop stops and um they're different sizes because the sasquatch and the badlands have different heights okay interesting yeah so that right there was your first look at the ford bronco off-road now obviously this is a ford setup event and they did not really put us through anything all that difficult i think this vehicle is capable of so much more so we're gonna have to wait and get this thing out to moab and through the colorado trails to see what it really can do in stock configuration the pros i think the ride is really really good um i think the the higher size the ground clearance approach angles they're definitely their cons engine felt a little twitchy in low range on the trail still not convinced about the independent front suspension in terms of max articulation but a lot more testing to do when we can get this thing back on our home turf as always this has been tommy and behind the camera andre check out tfloffroad.com for more independent and honest reviews

Channel: TFLoffroad

Views: 597,741

Keywords: TFLoffroad, TFL, 2021 ford bronco, ford bronco 2021, 2021 bronco, ford bronco, 2021 ford bronco review, bronco, bronco 2021, new ford bronco, ford bronco sport 2021, 2021 ford bronco 4 door, ford bronco 2021 4 door, new bronco, bronco sport 2021, ford bronco 2021 review, 2021 bronco review, 2021 ford bronco sport badlands, new bronco 2021, bronco off road, 2021 ford bronco suv, 2020 ford bronco, 2021 ford bronco off road, onX maps, onX, onX offroad maps, off-road navigation

Id: 9xRZyxxUak4

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021