TRAVIS LANGNESS:
The Jeep Wrangler has been the king of
off-roading for a long time and with good reason. It can go places other
vehicles can't even dream of, and it does so in a
relentless pursuit of being really good off
road while sacrificing some on-road comfort, no
matter what Jeep Wrangler owners will tell you. Uncomfortable, loud? I'll show you
uncomfortable and loud. I'll take the doors off and
throw them in a river for good. (SLOW MOTION) In
a river for good. But no reign as the king of
off-roaders can last forever, and that is where the
Ford Bronco comes in. [MUSIC PLAYING] This thing is aimed right at
the heart of the Jeep Wrangler. It comes in 2- and
4-door configurations just like the Wrangler, a soft
top and hardtop configurations just like the Wrangler. These two are
competing to see which one is the best SUV for
you and which one will get all of your off-roading cash. Speaking of cash, if you want
a cash offer on your car today, go to edmunds.com/sellmycar. [LAUGHS] King of segue. I bet you didn't
see that one coming. Aside from trophy truck
stuff, things like the RAM TRX and the Ford F-150 Raptor,
the Bronco and the Wrangler are the best off-roaders
you can currently buy. And why? Well, like trucks, they're built
on body-on-frame construction. They've got four-wheel drive,
knobby tires, great approach and departure angles,
locking differentials, tons of articulation. The list goes on and on. But these things will go
places that nothing else will. f And more than just getting
to those tough places or going up steep
rock hills, we want to know what they're
like on their way there. Are they comfortable? Do they soak up bumps? But then what are they
like when they get there? What's the articulation like? How easy is it to switch
out of two-wheel drive into four-wheel drive? Et cetera, et cetera. And we've got tests for
all of those things, including that bump factor. These off-roaders ain't cheap. Sure, the Bronco and the
Wrangler start under $30,000, or at least that's what
the brochures tell you, but that's before you
include destination, which is part of the price
of the vehicles, and before you option them up to
be able to take on any off road obstacle you come across. The Bronco we brought out is
our first edition long-termer. We keep it in our fleet
for a year and test it. If you haven't seen
our video on that, go ahead and click the
link to check it out, but it is basically the
most expensive Bronco you can currently get aside
from the Raptor, which isn't out yet. So to compete with
it, we had to get a pretty well-equipped
Wrangler, which is what we have. We got the Wrangler Rubicon 4XE
which is the Rubicon version. That's the basically
most affordable version of the Wrangler, and the 4XE
means it's a plug-in hybrid. Now, we could have brought
out the Extreme Recon with the 3.92 V8, but we
thought that was overkill. Plus, if you consider the price
of this particular Wrangler being around $68,000 with the
one-touch convertible top, you take that $4,000
option off, you've got a $64,000
truck, a lot closer to what the first edition Bronco
is rocking with its $62,000 price. So the first of the off-road
tests for these vehicles is the world famous
ziggurat of integrity. We're going to take
both of these trucks up to ziggurat and
see how far they go before lifting a tire up. Essentially, it's an
articulation test, and I'm going to give them
the best chances they've got. I'm going to
disconnect sway bars, engage lockers,
four-wheel drive low, see how high it can get
before the rear tire comes off the ground. And it might not come
off the ground at all. And in that case, it would be
a success for both the Wrangler and the Bronco. But Wrangler first. All right, sway bar
is disconnected, front and rear lockers
engaged, four low, moving up, easy does it. All right, now we watch the 5
foot 8 man climb out of the car that's 12 feet off the ground. Oh, that was fun. So as expected, Wrangler
made it all the way up. Rear tire's still on the ground. That is a win over the ziggurat. You can see all the fun
hardware underneath here, the body-on-frame construction
we talked about, the lockers. There's not much different
about the 4XE underneath. And that's kind of
what makes it cool, is it's a plug-in hybrid
that's also still a Wrangler. Now, I got to get back in,
which is going to suck. Does anybody have
a step stool, guys? No? This is where you
need flexibility. The technique is,
please don't die. All right, so now we're
going to go for the Bronco. I've got the front and
rear lockers engaged, stabilizer bar disconnected,
four low, same chances as the Wrangler. See how well it does. I feel that rear
wheel coming up. I'll give it a looksie. So we have found a weak
spot for the Bronco. And as I get out of
it, you see even more that this rear wheel is
off the ground, which means you're going to lose traction. So that's a point in
the Wrangler's favor because it's going to
maintain traction longer. Now, this thing
is larger, wider. It has taller tires on it, so
I thought it would do better. In this case, I would
err down significantly if I was going off road. With 35's, make
the comfort better, make traction a
little bit better. But I'm actually pretty
surprised that the Bronco didn't make it all
the way up there without keeping all four
wheels on the ground. And yeah, I can see
full air underneath. Now, it could make it
up there, but the point I'm looking to
prove here is which one has better articulation. And in this case, it's
clearly the Wrangler. Now, we're going to do the
"less famous than the ziggurat but still world
famous" hill climb. This one has actually caught
out a couple of vehicles in the past, where
it's high centered and we couldn't make
it all the way up. But I don't think the
Wrangler and the Bronco are going to have
any trouble with it. I'm going to start
out in four high. I'm not going to
engage the lockers, and I'm see how far I
can make it up the hill. If there's a problem,
if I lose traction, if I can't quite make
an articulation move, then I'll start
changing settings. All right, pretty simple. Here we go. Up the hill climb. Now, I try and
pick the same line every time, sort of
right up the center, do my best not to get stuck. I don't want to give
myself a problem that I have to solve later. I'm still in four high,
still in four high, and the electric motor on
this is really good at just crawling up things. I don't think I'm even going
to need to go into four low. Oh, hey, there we go. Big, big ditch. Still in four high, going
to make it out, though. My high center a bit, oh, a
little bit of sliding, sliding. Stayed in four high. [LAUGHS] Definitely got some
dirt spitting out there, but made it to the top. Well, that was fun. I had to send it a little bit. Got some dirt inside the
cabin because the window was open, but had a good time. It was relatively easy,
and I stayed in four high the whole time. Let's try it with the Bronco. All right, we're going
up the same line. I can actually
see where the tire tracks are from the
Wrangler just a moment ago. I'm still in four
high in the Bronco. I want to treat it
the same way, see if it can make it up without
any assists from the systems. Sway bars still connected. Ooh, four high doesn't want
to do it in the Bronco. I might have to
switch to four low. Oh, don't want to get stuck. All right, so I'm going
to go into four low. I got to go into
neutral for that. OK, we are switched
into four low. That's real interesting. Did not want to go in four high. I wonder if the-- OK, no, now I'm just
going to dig myself a hole, so I got
to back out of it, give it a little
bit better chance. I think what I'm going to do
is engage the front locker. It seems that the left side
on that one is-- remember, this is the same
line as the Wrangler. I might have to do
with the 35s, too. OK, lockers, lockers,
now that did it. Front locker did it. It got me out of that mess. But now, I'm on a line
that I do not like. I got dipped into a hole. This is not as
easy for the Bronco as it was for the Wrangler. The Wrangler just went
right up this stuff. So I'm going to do
rear lockers as well. Four low, front and
rear lockers engaged, going up the exact same
line as the Wrangler. Now it feels a
little bit easier. That was just too
much for the Bronco without the lockers,
which is, man, you think you know a truck,
and you put it up against some tough stuff. Now, I probably could have
left it in the four high and then just
engage the lockers. But you try one thing. Then you try the next. And you're up the hill. Now, that was not as
easy as I expected. It was a lot more
difficult. I had to engage four low, which
didn't do the trick. Then I had to engage the
front locker, which got me past one of the sets
of hills, and then I had to engage the
rear locker to get me past another one of
the sets of hills. And finding the buttons
was easy on the dashboard, but boy, it's a lot easier
to do that in the Wrangler than it was in a Bronco. All right, so we're going to
do an out and back on the dirt. It's essentially a little
course that we've designed here with some cones, and we've done
it before with like the Ford Raptor. The best time I could get
was around 30 seconds. Oh, boy. Come on, Raptor. Don't let me down. 37s. Whoops. Now I'm going to do
it in the Wrangler, four high, see how
fast I can do it. And hopefully, I do well. Count me down. JOHN: 3, 2, 1, go. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Oh, boy. I don't want to
get too much dirt. Oh, there we go. Now this is much tighter. I thought I wasn't going
to-- oh, can I make it? No, I got to back up. Oh, that's going to
cost so much time. OK, the Bronco has
the trail turn assist, so it's going to
do better there. Boy, this thing is bouncy. OK, OK, OK, too
much bounce there. Too much bounce. Oh, boy. A little faster and
across the line. whoo, that is fun. It raises your heart
rate quite a bit. What was my time, John? JOHN: 30.56 seconds. TRAVIS LANGNESS:
[LAUGHS] Oh, man. That is like one second
off of the Raptor's pace. That's really good. All right, now
we're in the Bronco. We set a time about 31
seconds with the Wrangler, and I'm going to try and
do better in the Bronco. That was a lot better than two
of the other Fords we tested. This one, though, has
a trick up its sleeve that I get to use
at the other end, and I'm very excited for it. Four high, put it in drive. Let's go. JOHN: All right,
go in 3, 2, 1, go. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Would it-- would it-- a little bit
of loss of traction. This thing is so powerful. All right, and
trail turn assist. Keep that inside
wheel going [LAUGHS] and I do not have
the 3-point turn. Now that is a big difference. That is going to save me
like probably three seconds. Man, this part gets
real dippy, and then I speed out at the
end, cross the line. That trail turn
assist is really cool. It breaks the inside
wheel, and I can just do a really tight u-turn. And it does it at a
pretty good speed to. It's doing it again. That's fun. What was the time, John? JOHN: 25:32. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Wow, wow. The fact that you don't
have to do a 3-point turn really cuts the time down. Let's talk about the interior
on the Jeep versus the interior on the Bronco, and we'll
go with the Jeep first, obviously, because that's
the one I'm sitting in. Now, this display, this is about
8.4 inch, I think, display, was one of our favorites
when it debuted, and honestly, it's remained
one of my favorites. I really enjoy the
user functionality of this, how quickly
it responds to inputs, and it's a really
good-looking display. Plus, the forward-facing
camera gives you a great view, forward if you're traversing
some tough rocky areas. Then there's the
layout of the buttons, pretty good except for the
fact that the AUX controls, for example, if you hook up
a winch or exterior lights, are buried behind this,
the gear selector. The cup holder is reasonable
size and a big large center stack here that has two
separate openings, one for smaller items in the top. It's not great in terms
of interior storage. The doors have nets
because, well, they're designed to come off so why
design them with cup holders? And they want to give
more interior space. The Jeep is actually pretty
narrow compared to the Bronco, so there's not much room. You're pretty close to
the person next to you when you're sitting
in the front. Otherwise, there's not
much to explore in here. It's a reasonably nice interior. It's not what you would expect
from a standard SUV in $60,000 to $70,000 price
range, but I like it. So now let's check out the
interior of the Bronco, and comparatively,
the first thing that stands out up
against the Wrangler is this massive 12-inch screen. And this is able to be
here because of the way Ford has organized the buttons. These are, obviously,
much smaller buttons than what you get
in the Wrangler, so depending on
your preferences, you may like one over the other. I don't think these are
too small to operate. There's nice
duplication of features down here in the buttons
and on the touch screen. And then some of the
off-road controls, for example, the locking
front rear differentials, are up here. And where on the
Wrangler there's the gear selector right in
front of the AUX controls, Ford has decided to put
the AUX controls up here. So you've got your
Upfitter switches, and it's like being
in an airplane. That's so cool. I much prefer that. It just kind of makes me
geek out a little bit. And then you also get
additional center console space. So in the Wrangler, there's
kind of this weird slot underneath the controls that's
not blocked off on either side, so if you put your
smartphone there, it's just going to slide off
to one side or the other. Here, you get
wireless smartphone charging, the USB ports down in
front, similar-sized cup holder space, and similar-sized
center console. So a big deep center console,
fit plenty of water bottles in there. Another benefit you get in
the Bronco is wider seats. Because there's
a wider interior, you can fit larger
seats in here, and me, being a wider
human, I like these seats better for road trips. Now, there is a drawback
on the Bronco's interior. It, like the Wrangler, has
nets on the doors instead of actual physical
holders because they know you're going to be
taking the doors on and off or at least they think you might
be, and so they put in nets. But in the Bronco, the nets
only go half the distance of the door. In the Wrangler, they
go full the distance, so you get less
net for your money. Oh, and one final thing--
the cameras on the Ford are excellent. The 360-degree camera is
super high resolution, and when it's supported
by a screen this large, when you have the forward-
and rear-facing camera-- which you also get on the Jeep-- but when you have them
here in such a big screen, it's easier to see. Plus, you can put this
thing in Baja mode and go full speed ahead with
a forward camera in operation. It's a pretty cool feature. The Rubicon, the
four-door over there, it's got 31 cubes of cargo space
behind the rear seats and 72 cubes when you fold them down. The Bronco, respectively, has
35 and 83 cubes, so more cargo space, which you would
expect from a vehicle that's a little bit bigger. And I'd love to show you that
cargo space, but it's broken. This is our long-term Bronco. We keep it in our fleet
for a year and test it. We bought this one for
the purposes of testing, and sometimes that
includes when things break. Honestly, we've
tried everything. We're going to take
it to a Ford dealer to get it fixed next week,
but trust me on this one. It's got more cargo space. We know what both of
these are off road, but let's talk about them on
road just for a brief moment. We've already done deep dives
on both of these cars, how they are to drive with these trucks. So if you want to see
those, check the links in the description below. But briefly, I'll talk about
how this vehicle, the Bronco, has rack and pinion steering
and the Wrangler has recirculating ball steering,
which means the steering is really light, really
vague, and when you're on the highway
cruising 65, 70 miles an hour, it moves around a lot. If you have a big
load in the rear or if you're towing something,
it gets exponentially worse. The only thing that I can
compare a modern Wrangler to in terms of driving dynamics
is my old heavy duty van. It feels like its nose
is pointed in the air and the tires are barely
touching the ground. Honestly, the Bronco
just wins outright. So if you want one that's
better to drive every day, pick the Ford. So which one of these
SUVs comes out on top? Well, the Wrangler is a
little bit easier to off road. At least when it came
to our hill climb test and our articulation
test, the Wrangler won handily. But the Bronco did win in
terms of the [? whoops ?] test. And the Wrangler
comes with a number of different powertrains, the
V8, the V6, the turbo four, or the plug-in hybrid
where the Bronco only gets two choices for engines. But the Bronco wins in
almost every other category. It's more comfortable. It's got better tech,
better interior, more space, and it doesn't fight
you when you're trying to steer it on the freeway. As a result, it wins out in
the Edmunds ratings categories and, overall, ekes out a
win against the Wrangler. But which one would you choose? Which one would
you daily drive in? Which one would you want
to go off-roading with? Let us know in the
comments below. Click like and
subscribe, and let us know what you want to see
the Bronco and the Wrangler up against next.
