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- Badlands Sasquatch
- Your Bronco Model
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I posted some of this info in the Matt Bower thread, but figured I'd post here also and go into a bit more detail since some info is still a little scarce as these are still trickling out. I feel really fortunate/lucky that we got it so soon and I've had the chance to play around with it a bit on the highway, curvy mountain roads, and some gravel roads.
I reserved on 7/14 around 9a or so, I was in the 8/30 delivery group and took delivery on 9/20 from Matt Bower in New Orleans. The experience with them, in summary, was outstanding and I'd highly suggest them. I put more in the other thread on that. From there, I drove 13 1/2 hours from New Orleans to Brevard, NC, where I live. The drive was on a combination of dry straight roads up to soaking wet curvy mountain roads at night, so I got a pretty good idea for how it handled.
Coming from my Outback that I've had for about 6 years, the adjustment to a taller vehicle was a bit interesting. The change in height and visibility took some getting used to, but it wasn't really an issue. The most immediate thing I noticed was responsive the car was on the road. When you hit the gas, it really seems to pick up and go. The entire trip I barely went past 1/3rd throttle since I'm trying to be delicate during breakin, but it was surprisingly quick. The steering was surprising also, i expected an awful radius, but it turns almost as tight as my Outback even without turn assist. The road noise was very noticeable but I have never had a soft top car outside of a CJ-7 I owned in Florida that never had side windows, but I could talk on the phone or with someone next to me at highway speeds no problem. The only time it became really loud was going 80 mph with rain and a headwind, but dialing it back 5mph made that stop.
One of the most interesting things to me is how it doesn't really seem to shake around when semis pass, even my Subaru will shake a bit, but the Bronco stayed fairly steady and it was a non issue. I didn't find any drifting or wandering in the steering or with the tires, it stayed pretty planted. The only time I started encountering control issues was in deep puddles on the road at speed, they hydroplane a bit worse than other tires I've had. Despite being a soft top and somewhat loud, it remained comfortable and I didn't feel excessively fatigued after 13 hours of driving especially after I got my seat position sorted out.
The vinyl seats are soft and comfortable. The heated seats work better than any car I've owned other than an early Cayman, you can actually feel the heat and they are really nice on long trips. The rubber mats seem OK, but not great, I think I was expecting something thicker than what they delivered, but they will do the job especially since the floor of the car is plastic. The steering wheel feels good and the heat on it works effectively also, I found it kindof relaxing on my hands after a while. The steering controls are intuitive and mostly in the right place, although I find the adjustment on the adaptive cruise control a bit less easy to use compared to others, since it is one button instead of two, but that is very minor.
The views on the instrument panel are really nice and convenient. I like that you have the option to see your 4wd status and angles, I thought that was a nice touch, but on the road I kept the panel up that had temps and boost on it the most. I found I averaged ~200f on oil and ~190f on transmission most of the trip. I found all the instruments intuitive to read, although finding the speed did take a little adjustment since it isn't front and center with so much else around it, but again, minor and I adjusted quickly.
I posted about the adaptive cruise control in another thread (https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/adaptive-cruise-driving-impressions.23367/page-2#post-843885). I know people have different opinions on this, but I've had ACC in a car since 2016 and I think it is one of the best improvements in vehicles I can remember. It reduces fatigue on long trips like this considerably. The ACC system in the Bronco was no exception, it worked exactly as I expected and was very intuitive. The only gripe I have is that changing distances is a one button task instead of two, which means if you want to lengthen from, say two lengths, you first have to click through one length until it rolls back around to four. This can result in some hairy moments if you don't do it quickly. It brakes smoothly, isn't jarring or aggressive, and accelerates fairly smooth.
The lane assistance is another story. I found it inconsistent despite being able to identify lanes, I had no clear indication for when it would push me back into the lane vs do nothing. I tested it a bit on straight, flat roads and it was real iffy on how it would work. I think this could use some improvement. The way they identify whether or not your hands are on the wheel is also very error prone, if you have this system enabled on a straight road, it'll flag you as not having hands on the wheel because it didn't detect input. It gets annoying considering that alert takes up 3/4ths the screen and eventually starts vibrating the steering wheel. I would have this happen on straight sections of road several times in a row. Even worse, on a very curvy wet road, the auto adjustments were very abrupt and unpredictable, which led to a near incident when it decided to take over unexpectedly in a curve and nearly pushed me out of it. Compounding this, the amount of input/force required by the driver to override it is considerable. Compared to other cars with similar systems I've driven, I felt it to be a safety hazard and ultimately disabled it. It isn't a huge deal because the Bronco drives so stable, but this could use reworking and I think it is only really useful on long straight roads. I don't consider this feature that useful compared to ACC, so it isn't a big deal to me.
The infotainment system is intuitive and easy to use, by far the best one I've used. The settings are easy to find, everything makes sense, and it is very clear. I really appreciated how you don't have to click through several contextual screens to do certain tasks, like changing phones, it is very easy to use. The Carplay implementation works great and is easy to use as well. The builtin GPS did go a little wonky on me leaving Louisiana, I'm not sure why, but it seems to have sorted itself out. I also really appreciate that they treat you like an adult and don't disable every button on the thing while driving, so passengers in the car can use it and still make most changes. All that said, when using Carplay and the wireless charger, my phone gets VERY hot. I need to work out what is going on, but my iPhone 12 (I think?) wirelessly charges every night fine, but on the cars charger, it gets too hot to use. I will try to debug in the coming days, other Ford vehicles seem to have this issue also, so I'll try their fixes and report back to this thread.
The automatic headlights work very well, but I have a few gripes about these, one big one and some minor issues. On the minor issues front, the selector switch is right where my knee rests, so 3 times on the drive it kept getting hit and swapping to other modes. I eventually figured out what was happening and it hasn't happened again, but I think this could be placed better. Additionally, if you switch to high beams with automatic lights on, it disables automatic switching until you rotate the switch again, at least it did for me (I didn't leave it that way more than a few minutes, maybe it defaults back?). All that said, by far the biggest gripe I have with the lights and with the car in general is the lack of foglights. This posed a pretty significant issue for me driving in the rain and fog on the way home, this is the first car I've owned out of sports cars, SUVs, and trucks that didn't have any foglights standard. The main headlights do a great job of lighting up the road, but lower down, it can be very difficult to identify road features without them. I've since ordered (backordered, anyway) the Baja kit, but the fact I can't trivially tie this in to the headlights, have to use an aux switch, and pay for foglights is a big irritating considering how big of an improvement they are on visibility at night. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't annoyed about the fact I have to pay almost $900 for foglights that are controlled by an aux switch. We have a ton of rain and fog where I live though, so it is a necessity, I just didn't realize it since they were always there.
The GOAT modes are straightforward, although it might be nice to have an indicator light on the diff lockers, turn assist, and disconnects about what is available in your current mode. I will get that hang of it eventually, but it isn't really straightforward knowing when you can use what. Minor issue, learn the modes and get over it, I get it, but it would be nice if it was a bit clearer. It's also worth noting you have to move to N to go into any 4L settings. The change to 4H or 4A is very smooth and you barely notice it at all, same with engaging the lockers. No dramatic clunking or other noises, although going into 4L you do feel a bit more, overall most of these modes are really smooth to get in and out of.
On the braking front, I was going 50mph down a road and came around a turn to find an obstacle on the road, so I had to slam on the brakes hard and fast. I was really impressed with how quickly it slowed in the rain and how it didn't feel uncomfortable to brake that hard. Stuff went flying in the car, but I didn't feel like it dove out of control and I didn't get flung forward like some other cars I've had would have.
Raising and lowering the front half of the top, while not trivial necessarily, is real easy and goes up/down with no fuss. That said, accessing the rear with the soft top is a bit tedious. The whole back of the soft top raises up and you have a bar that extends out that you can use to hold it up, similar to the hood of the car. I think this could be a little better thought out also, but it is functional and given how well the soft top works on the road, i'll take the minor inconvenience.
We drove on some rough gravel roads tonight, which was my first time with some of the GOAT modes. I kept it in "Slippery" most of the time, I wanted to try Baja mode, but it wanted to rev really high and I'm still breaking in, so I kept it on Slippery. I really like how in some of the modes (like mud/ruts), the front view camera shows where your tires are going with tire treads, that was a cool touch. I locked the lockers, disabled the swaybar, etc and everything happened without drama. I went to experiment with the turn assist, but silly me, I didn't realize how much it would force the front end to dig in. I realized very quick I was leaving tread marks on a public gravel road, so I stopped almost immediately. I think it is important to realize that you will leave treads when you use this feature, leave no trace and all that, I would avoid using this unless you absolutely have to use it or the surface won't be damaged. I think it is a great feature though and I'm stoked to try it out eventually. I did expect the rear to drag a little bit, but the amount the front dug in was impressive. At any rate, it was fun on the gravel roads, my very pregnant wife wasn't even uncomfortable through the ruts and washed out areas, it seemed like the damping was very controlled and not all over the place.
Going forward, I have some Diode ditch lights I plan on wiring up and the Baja foglights on pre-order. I'm also going to install the MOLLE mount on the rear gate, along with a fire extinguisher on the rollbar, and a few other things I plan on keeping with me (first aid kit, recovery stuff, etc). I do wish there was an easier mounting solution for the hi-jack, but I haven't found a useful place to mount it, I will try under the rear seats, however that would be temporary since it would interfere with lowering them. I had planned on getting the 4wheel Parts bumper, however I read mixed things on their products and they wouldn't confirm if it worked with the ACC, I don't plan on wheeling it super hard out of the gate, so I'll stick with the modular bumper for now.
I'm at around 750 miles on the car and love it so far. I have minor gripes but that's true of anything, the only thing I really think is a big issue for me is the lack of foglights. It's an easy fix, but knowing I won't be able to tie them in directly to the headlights (easily anyway) and live with an aux switch is a bit annoying. The next thing for me is to finish breakin and I'll start experimenting with some light wheeling on trails to see how it does. Been years since I did any and so I'm starting over fresh, so hopefully taking it slow.
I'll update this post as time goes on with my experiences there and with photos relevant to this post tomorrow. I took some earlier but I realized they had the nav screen with my address on it, so I'll retake them later. If there is anything specific anyone wants to know, let me know.
Updated:
Here are some photos I thought folks might find interesting.
On the soft top, here it is "opened". I'm not sure if it can open further, I haven't explored it but will later. You do this by unlatching two latches on the side, then pulling the bar out as shown below.
Below are two modes on the instrument panel, the first is rock crawl mode in 4L and the second in Baja mode, which as you can see is off-road only and defaults to 4H. The manual recommends not running 4H/4L on road unless it is snow or similar conditions:
The stabilizer bar disconnect is not always available put prompts a warning if you try to use it in an unsupported mode. As far as I can tell, most modes allow it in 4L/4H:
This is what i was talking about with the light, pardon my hairy leg and foot. You can see how close your knee gets to it, if I move the seat up at all then I start hitting it.
In off road modes, the front camera adds treads to see where you are going, which is nice:
Some other instrument panel modes:
Finally, engine compartment:
The oil dipstick, shown above, is a bit tricky to access. It is fairly far back and requires a specific orientation to go back in, but you get the hang of it. After 800 miles the oil is still clean looking.
I though the location of the intake was interesting. They appeared to keep it as high up as possible, assuming that is what I'm looking at. What I found interesting is that there is a bypass of sorts that drops out the bottom. You can kindof see it in the photo above, there is a bit of a bypass that drops down and the dropdown has a door that dumps out below it. Is the purpose of that to allow water or debris to fall out before it goes into the intake? I am not super proficient in modern engines, so I'm assuming that is what I'm looking at.
I reserved on 7/14 around 9a or so, I was in the 8/30 delivery group and took delivery on 9/20 from Matt Bower in New Orleans. The experience with them, in summary, was outstanding and I'd highly suggest them. I put more in the other thread on that. From there, I drove 13 1/2 hours from New Orleans to Brevard, NC, where I live. The drive was on a combination of dry straight roads up to soaking wet curvy mountain roads at night, so I got a pretty good idea for how it handled.
Coming from my Outback that I've had for about 6 years, the adjustment to a taller vehicle was a bit interesting. The change in height and visibility took some getting used to, but it wasn't really an issue. The most immediate thing I noticed was responsive the car was on the road. When you hit the gas, it really seems to pick up and go. The entire trip I barely went past 1/3rd throttle since I'm trying to be delicate during breakin, but it was surprisingly quick. The steering was surprising also, i expected an awful radius, but it turns almost as tight as my Outback even without turn assist. The road noise was very noticeable but I have never had a soft top car outside of a CJ-7 I owned in Florida that never had side windows, but I could talk on the phone or with someone next to me at highway speeds no problem. The only time it became really loud was going 80 mph with rain and a headwind, but dialing it back 5mph made that stop.
One of the most interesting things to me is how it doesn't really seem to shake around when semis pass, even my Subaru will shake a bit, but the Bronco stayed fairly steady and it was a non issue. I didn't find any drifting or wandering in the steering or with the tires, it stayed pretty planted. The only time I started encountering control issues was in deep puddles on the road at speed, they hydroplane a bit worse than other tires I've had. Despite being a soft top and somewhat loud, it remained comfortable and I didn't feel excessively fatigued after 13 hours of driving especially after I got my seat position sorted out.
The vinyl seats are soft and comfortable. The heated seats work better than any car I've owned other than an early Cayman, you can actually feel the heat and they are really nice on long trips. The rubber mats seem OK, but not great, I think I was expecting something thicker than what they delivered, but they will do the job especially since the floor of the car is plastic. The steering wheel feels good and the heat on it works effectively also, I found it kindof relaxing on my hands after a while. The steering controls are intuitive and mostly in the right place, although I find the adjustment on the adaptive cruise control a bit less easy to use compared to others, since it is one button instead of two, but that is very minor.
The views on the instrument panel are really nice and convenient. I like that you have the option to see your 4wd status and angles, I thought that was a nice touch, but on the road I kept the panel up that had temps and boost on it the most. I found I averaged ~200f on oil and ~190f on transmission most of the trip. I found all the instruments intuitive to read, although finding the speed did take a little adjustment since it isn't front and center with so much else around it, but again, minor and I adjusted quickly.
I posted about the adaptive cruise control in another thread (https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/adaptive-cruise-driving-impressions.23367/page-2#post-843885). I know people have different opinions on this, but I've had ACC in a car since 2016 and I think it is one of the best improvements in vehicles I can remember. It reduces fatigue on long trips like this considerably. The ACC system in the Bronco was no exception, it worked exactly as I expected and was very intuitive. The only gripe I have is that changing distances is a one button task instead of two, which means if you want to lengthen from, say two lengths, you first have to click through one length until it rolls back around to four. This can result in some hairy moments if you don't do it quickly. It brakes smoothly, isn't jarring or aggressive, and accelerates fairly smooth.
The lane assistance is another story. I found it inconsistent despite being able to identify lanes, I had no clear indication for when it would push me back into the lane vs do nothing. I tested it a bit on straight, flat roads and it was real iffy on how it would work. I think this could use some improvement. The way they identify whether or not your hands are on the wheel is also very error prone, if you have this system enabled on a straight road, it'll flag you as not having hands on the wheel because it didn't detect input. It gets annoying considering that alert takes up 3/4ths the screen and eventually starts vibrating the steering wheel. I would have this happen on straight sections of road several times in a row. Even worse, on a very curvy wet road, the auto adjustments were very abrupt and unpredictable, which led to a near incident when it decided to take over unexpectedly in a curve and nearly pushed me out of it. Compounding this, the amount of input/force required by the driver to override it is considerable. Compared to other cars with similar systems I've driven, I felt it to be a safety hazard and ultimately disabled it. It isn't a huge deal because the Bronco drives so stable, but this could use reworking and I think it is only really useful on long straight roads. I don't consider this feature that useful compared to ACC, so it isn't a big deal to me.
The infotainment system is intuitive and easy to use, by far the best one I've used. The settings are easy to find, everything makes sense, and it is very clear. I really appreciated how you don't have to click through several contextual screens to do certain tasks, like changing phones, it is very easy to use. The Carplay implementation works great and is easy to use as well. The builtin GPS did go a little wonky on me leaving Louisiana, I'm not sure why, but it seems to have sorted itself out. I also really appreciate that they treat you like an adult and don't disable every button on the thing while driving, so passengers in the car can use it and still make most changes. All that said, when using Carplay and the wireless charger, my phone gets VERY hot. I need to work out what is going on, but my iPhone 12 (I think?) wirelessly charges every night fine, but on the cars charger, it gets too hot to use. I will try to debug in the coming days, other Ford vehicles seem to have this issue also, so I'll try their fixes and report back to this thread.
The automatic headlights work very well, but I have a few gripes about these, one big one and some minor issues. On the minor issues front, the selector switch is right where my knee rests, so 3 times on the drive it kept getting hit and swapping to other modes. I eventually figured out what was happening and it hasn't happened again, but I think this could be placed better. Additionally, if you switch to high beams with automatic lights on, it disables automatic switching until you rotate the switch again, at least it did for me (I didn't leave it that way more than a few minutes, maybe it defaults back?). All that said, by far the biggest gripe I have with the lights and with the car in general is the lack of foglights. This posed a pretty significant issue for me driving in the rain and fog on the way home, this is the first car I've owned out of sports cars, SUVs, and trucks that didn't have any foglights standard. The main headlights do a great job of lighting up the road, but lower down, it can be very difficult to identify road features without them. I've since ordered (backordered, anyway) the Baja kit, but the fact I can't trivially tie this in to the headlights, have to use an aux switch, and pay for foglights is a big irritating considering how big of an improvement they are on visibility at night. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't annoyed about the fact I have to pay almost $900 for foglights that are controlled by an aux switch. We have a ton of rain and fog where I live though, so it is a necessity, I just didn't realize it since they were always there.
The GOAT modes are straightforward, although it might be nice to have an indicator light on the diff lockers, turn assist, and disconnects about what is available in your current mode. I will get that hang of it eventually, but it isn't really straightforward knowing when you can use what. Minor issue, learn the modes and get over it, I get it, but it would be nice if it was a bit clearer. It's also worth noting you have to move to N to go into any 4L settings. The change to 4H or 4A is very smooth and you barely notice it at all, same with engaging the lockers. No dramatic clunking or other noises, although going into 4L you do feel a bit more, overall most of these modes are really smooth to get in and out of.
On the braking front, I was going 50mph down a road and came around a turn to find an obstacle on the road, so I had to slam on the brakes hard and fast. I was really impressed with how quickly it slowed in the rain and how it didn't feel uncomfortable to brake that hard. Stuff went flying in the car, but I didn't feel like it dove out of control and I didn't get flung forward like some other cars I've had would have.
Raising and lowering the front half of the top, while not trivial necessarily, is real easy and goes up/down with no fuss. That said, accessing the rear with the soft top is a bit tedious. The whole back of the soft top raises up and you have a bar that extends out that you can use to hold it up, similar to the hood of the car. I think this could be a little better thought out also, but it is functional and given how well the soft top works on the road, i'll take the minor inconvenience.
We drove on some rough gravel roads tonight, which was my first time with some of the GOAT modes. I kept it in "Slippery" most of the time, I wanted to try Baja mode, but it wanted to rev really high and I'm still breaking in, so I kept it on Slippery. I really like how in some of the modes (like mud/ruts), the front view camera shows where your tires are going with tire treads, that was a cool touch. I locked the lockers, disabled the swaybar, etc and everything happened without drama. I went to experiment with the turn assist, but silly me, I didn't realize how much it would force the front end to dig in. I realized very quick I was leaving tread marks on a public gravel road, so I stopped almost immediately. I think it is important to realize that you will leave treads when you use this feature, leave no trace and all that, I would avoid using this unless you absolutely have to use it or the surface won't be damaged. I think it is a great feature though and I'm stoked to try it out eventually. I did expect the rear to drag a little bit, but the amount the front dug in was impressive. At any rate, it was fun on the gravel roads, my very pregnant wife wasn't even uncomfortable through the ruts and washed out areas, it seemed like the damping was very controlled and not all over the place.
Going forward, I have some Diode ditch lights I plan on wiring up and the Baja foglights on pre-order. I'm also going to install the MOLLE mount on the rear gate, along with a fire extinguisher on the rollbar, and a few other things I plan on keeping with me (first aid kit, recovery stuff, etc). I do wish there was an easier mounting solution for the hi-jack, but I haven't found a useful place to mount it, I will try under the rear seats, however that would be temporary since it would interfere with lowering them. I had planned on getting the 4wheel Parts bumper, however I read mixed things on their products and they wouldn't confirm if it worked with the ACC, I don't plan on wheeling it super hard out of the gate, so I'll stick with the modular bumper for now.
I'm at around 750 miles on the car and love it so far. I have minor gripes but that's true of anything, the only thing I really think is a big issue for me is the lack of foglights. It's an easy fix, but knowing I won't be able to tie them in directly to the headlights (easily anyway) and live with an aux switch is a bit annoying. The next thing for me is to finish breakin and I'll start experimenting with some light wheeling on trails to see how it does. Been years since I did any and so I'm starting over fresh, so hopefully taking it slow.
I'll update this post as time goes on with my experiences there and with photos relevant to this post tomorrow. I took some earlier but I realized they had the nav screen with my address on it, so I'll retake them later. If there is anything specific anyone wants to know, let me know.
Updated:
Here are some photos I thought folks might find interesting.
On the soft top, here it is "opened". I'm not sure if it can open further, I haven't explored it but will later. You do this by unlatching two latches on the side, then pulling the bar out as shown below.
Below are two modes on the instrument panel, the first is rock crawl mode in 4L and the second in Baja mode, which as you can see is off-road only and defaults to 4H. The manual recommends not running 4H/4L on road unless it is snow or similar conditions:
The stabilizer bar disconnect is not always available put prompts a warning if you try to use it in an unsupported mode. As far as I can tell, most modes allow it in 4L/4H:
This is what i was talking about with the light, pardon my hairy leg and foot. You can see how close your knee gets to it, if I move the seat up at all then I start hitting it.
In off road modes, the front camera adds treads to see where you are going, which is nice:
Some other instrument panel modes:
Finally, engine compartment:
The oil dipstick, shown above, is a bit tricky to access. It is fairly far back and requires a specific orientation to go back in, but you get the hang of it. After 800 miles the oil is still clean looking.
I though the location of the intake was interesting. They appeared to keep it as high up as possible, assuming that is what I'm looking at. What I found interesting is that there is a bypass of sorts that drops out the bottom. You can kindof see it in the photo above, there is a bit of a bypass that drops down and the dropdown has a door that dumps out below it. Is the purpose of that to allow water or debris to fall out before it goes into the intake? I am not super proficient in modern engines, so I'm assuming that is what I'm looking at.
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