The Ford Bronco Destroys The Competition - 10 Key Features (Off-Road)

the ford bronco was made to unapologetically absolutely dominate shopping mall parking lots but wait i'm sorry that must be the wrong script hello everyone and welcome blah blah blah uh yes okay so absolutely dominate the competition off-road and jokes aside the ford bronco is packed with very clever non-gimmicky features that are genuinely useful off-road so we'll be highlighting 10 of those features in this video but i'm going to do my best to include a more realistic way each of these features can be used when inevitably your fifty thousand dollar purpose-built off-road machine ends up being more commonly used to bring home house plants from the local nursery and like maybe a bag of mulch or something so let's start off with the broncos most prominent party trick trail turn assist so here's the problem the ford bronco is big like really big and you're probably looking at this video of it thinking nah it looks pretty reasonable until you find out that car and driver weighed the two door they tested and it came in at just 25 pounds shy of 5 000 pounds to give you an idea compared to a regular cab ford f-150 with four-wheel drive an 8-foot bed and the exact same 2.7 liter turbo engine used in the bronco the bronco weighs over 400 pounds more which brings us back to trail turn assist if you're driving a behemoth you probably want to be able to rotate so for tight maneuvers pressing a quick button on the dash lets you lock the inside rear tire when you're at full steering lock significantly reducing the radius of your turn and letting you maneuver through tight spaces or if your kid has a sandbox you can prove to them that your big toy is just as capable as the toys they play with proving that you needed it after all speaking of sand the bronco has an independent front suspension when you're blasting down a thousand mile baja race this comes in handy because independent suspensions unlike solid axles help improve high speed stability since the impacts at one end of the car don't make as much of an impact on the other end of the car each tire lives in its own little world and does the job it's supposed to do keeping the car in its intended path without dragging down the whole team every time it hits a speed bump unlike that one teammate on the last group project you worked on there's another beautiful thing about independent front suspensions which is why you'll find them on nearly every single car sold today with the exception of very few like the jeep wrangler it allows you to use a more modern rack and pinion steering system rather than recirculating ball steering which means the steering doesn't completely suck when you're driving on the road and let's be honest roads get you places there's a real reason you have to drive on them even if you bought a vehicle that's supposed to go off-road and wouldn't it be nice if the steering gave some semblance of communication and response for the majority of the miles your vehicle drives yeah i think so for an off-roader the bronco steering is brilliant now whether kelly clarkson is driving or not the suspension isn't the only thing that's independent up front as it's paired with a locking differential that doesn't depend on the other differentials to activate cars like the jeep wrangler or mercedes g-wagon they often assume you're only going to lock the front if everything has gone terribly wrong so the only way to enable the front locker is to lock the rear and then lock the front ford gives you the choice which i commend you can lock the front regardless of whether the rear differential is open or locked when activated both of the front wheels are forced to rotate together so that engine torque goes wherever it can be put down this is incredibly useful off-road but what about in the real world well you know when snowflakes and i'm not talking about jeep owners i'm talking about actual ice falling from the sky when snowflakes start to fall school boards like to wait until the very last second before canceling class you're already on the way to school with your kid and then and only then will they notify you it's a snow day forcing you to turn around and head home well having the ability to lock the front differential as you climb that steep cul-de-sac driveway covered in snow means you're able to put as much power to the ground as possible speaking of snow let's talk about goat mode ford's clearly made up of more engineers than anything else because like me they're terrible at spelling goat stands for goes over any type of terrain i know i know they could have simply removed type of and gotten an a plus but us engineers are genuinely worthless when it comes to writing spelling and reading thankfully the bronco isn't worthless regardless of what surface it's driving on so whether it's mud snow rocks or a baja course each mode will alter the many systems including the steering throttle trail cameras traction control differential locks suspension and so on to tackle the condition without the driver having to do any work thinking about how to best handle the situation there's even an eco mode so that instead of getting 15 miles per gallon like current driver achieved you can get i don't know maybe like 16 miles per gallon or something but again in all seriousness i tested several of these modes and they're genuinely useful and well thought out which is why i came up with my own acronym guinea pig guinea pig genuinely useful and well thought out pig genius now remember how i said goat mode can help reduce your mental load well trail cruise control can reduce that even further as well as your physical load simply pressing the center button on the goat mode dial and then hitting a set button on your steering wheel and you enable trail control this will hold your vehicle speed regardless of what's happening around you so you can focus on maneuvering a difficult obstacle or ensuring you keep the intended driving line without worrying about throttle or brakes for example coming down a steep incline and according to ford.com this trail control is not available if you're going faster than three miles per hour in reverse which tells me you can even use it in reverse cruise control in reverse it's a clever easy to use feature but you're wondering how does this help me shop at costco well it doesn't you don't have to bring up costco every time your friend says they're looking to buy something we all know where you bought it yes yes it was a great deal we get it on top of this clever off-road cruise control ford actually offers something i found incredible off-road one pedal driving if you've ever driven an electric car you'll find this to be a very natural way to drive with one pedal activated when you let off the gas pedal in the ford bronco it brings the car to a stop the brakes begin to engage as you release the accelerator which gives you very fine speed control without moving your foot to the other pedal there are many scenarios off-roading where you'll want this control say you're navigating over a slippery object like a fallen tree in the rain and you need to keep a precise speed it's not uncommon to left foot break in these scenarios with your right foot on the accelerator it's certainly not an impossible task but one pedal driving makes this much more approachable and very easy speaking of one pedal driving did you know that the rear wheel drive ford mustang machi which also has one pedal driving is over 500 as efficient based on epa fuel economy rating as the ford bronco five times the efficiency it's difficult to overstate how terrible the broncos fuel economy is and i don't have many good jokes about it either but i do have a quote from ford ford's commitment to sustainability extends beyond our fuel-efficient vehicles which is funny because it's a quote from 2014 six years before the details of the bronco were announced but i get it no one cares that the ford bronco gets bad fuel economy or that depending on the spec it actually has less range than an electric machi and if you want to minimize your fuel economy as much as possible there's a special gear for that in the manual transmission bronco it comes with a very cool crawler gear also affectionately called a granny gear which gives you a bonkers crawl ratio of 94.75 to 1 when combined with the 2 speed transfer case meaning for nearly every 95 rotations of the engine the wheels rotate just once this is incredibly valuable when off-roading because it gives you very fine low-speed control without slipping the clutch you can fully release the clutch and cruise along at one mile per hour engine idle combined with the wild gearing has enough torque to keep the bronco crawling without any input from your right foot so for technical steep low speed off-roading it helps the manual hold its own against the automatic counterparts real world you won't be complaining about your manual transmission while stuck in la traffic this bad boy will happily inch along clutch out at a near standstill leaving your left leg relaxed speaking of la what better place to demonstrate the sway bar disconnect here's yet another example of how the bronco out does the competition sway bars help prevent excessive body roll and improve handling but off-road they can limit how much axle articulation you have disconnecting the sway bar can allow you to travel over large obstacles while keeping both tires on the ground with sway bar disconnects there are usually two options a manual disconnect meaning you have to like use your hands and stuff to do it or an electronic disconnect but you have to be on level ground to do it the bronco has an electronic sway bar disconnect on top of which you can disengage even when the sway bar is loaded or the car is in a tricky situation this allows you to react in real time rather than preemptively know when you need to disconnect and it makes a big difference in actual articulation since the sway bar is no longer tying both sides of the independent suspension together and for the mall crawlers consider this ain't no curb too high ain't no pothole too low ain't no puddle wide enough to keep you from getting to i don't know starbucks speaking of parking lots one of my favorite things about the new ford bronco is its modular build so whether it's the roof the doors the fenders the grille it's all very modular and easy to remove and replace using bronco bolts yes little bolts that say bronco on them and an included tool kit for removing them and while there are heavy duty bash bars that again can be easily replaced and are also rated to hold the full weight of the bronco protecting the sides of the vehicle it's inevitable that if you're getting into super harry off-roading some damage can occur bronco makes it easy to swap parts in and out to adjust and remove the front bumper for better approach angles or to remove parts so you can more easily clean them after filling your car with mud now what does this have to do with parking lots well you see the next time you get into a little fender bender no need to call insurance just bring your bronco bolt tool kit to the nearest shopping mall parking lot and quickly and conveniently grab whatever parts you need from the nearest bronco a full set of fender flares can be removed without any tools in just minutes detect sarcasm don't steal be nice finally we get to yet another of what i'm calling a guinea pig feature again that's genuinely useful and well thought out pig the vehicle has six pre-wired overhead switches there's a main fuse box and five wiring harnesses routing power cables throughout the vehicle up front the glove box the a-pillars and even the rear cargo area so you can add whatever powered accessories you'd like without the need to drill into your brand new bronco to feed wiring because here's the thing people who off-road love light bars i mean love light bars and it's obvious why because cars don't come with lights wait yes i do okay but what if you wanted to shine your lights higher headlights have to point down as to not shine into the eyes of the cars ahead of you it's not like cars have beams that point high up like you would call them i don't know like high beams or something anyways you need light bars it's that simple for the same reason every subaru has a roof rack with nothing in it have some culture and while maybe it sounds like i'm mildly cynical about the new ford bronco really and truly it's one of the most impressive vehicles i've driven off-road and not just because it's another truck with lots of ground clearance big tires and a proper four-wheel drive system but because so many aspects of it are engineered in a fashion that allows it to master its craft without gimmicks it's a crazy popular vehicle but it actually lives up to the hype if the only complaints i have about it are poor fuel economy and range i'd call that a huge win considering it's a 5 000 pound brick shaped object a beautiful brick i might add i love the bronco and if you happen to get your hands on one you probably will too if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below thanks for watching

Channel: Engineering Explained

Views: 343,786

Keywords: Ford Bronco, Ford, Bronco, trail turn assist, independent front suspension, trail cruise control, one-pedal driving, crawler gear, mode selector, sway bar disconnect, pre-wired bronco, modular bronco, ford bronco raptor, locking differential, off road, ford bronco review, car review

Id: umqQQACg_hE

Length: 12min 17sec (737 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 15 2021