Cross-Country to Baja: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[dkittel]

Where are you located? I live in Ashburn Virginia.

DC

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[Peitnahtan]

tl;dr - New Bronco owners 2025 Bronco Badlands (2.3L, MT, 4-door, Black, non-SAS, no recall notices) take first roadtrip.

The Good - Excellent roadtrip with the pups from East Coast to Punta Chivato, BCS Mexico
The Bad - Cracked windshield
The Ugly - Shock reservoir fell off the rear passenger side Bilstein at about 5000 miles! (wtf?)

The Good…
We purchased a 2025 Bronco Badlands (2.3L, MT, 4-door, Black, non-SAS, no recall notices) in late November 2025. We’d been planning for some time to start road-tripping in retirement. We took off on a cross-country journey in early February. 10 days, mostly following Route 60 through WV, KY, MO, OK, TX, NM and AZ.

Headed south in AZ to cross the border into Mexico at San Luis Colorado and then down Mex 5 and Mex 1 to Mulege, BCS. The entire trip was a joy with new sights, new weather, new terrain daily (sometimes hourly) and unexpected side trips the entire way. And our two city dogs were absolutely glued to the back seat passenger windows enjoying all the new sights and every pit stop was a sensory treat for them.

We set off with about 1000 miles on the odometer and had a flawless trip.

Our co-pilots

Sights along the way…

The Bad…

and The Ugly…

We had been enjoying exploring Mulege and Santa Rosalia, while staying at a place by the water about 15 km off the highway. Simple dirt/sand roads and no extreme driving - just enjoying being able to get out to beaches, ranchos and orchards we’d never tried in a non-lifted vehicle before.

We were caught completely by surprise a few days ago when after a short drive to a friends home on a dirt rode we’d navigated many times in the past, that when we arrived, there was fluid sprayed all over the right rear wheel. Looking for a possible brake or other fluid leak, we discovered the rear right side shock’s oil reservoir was missing!

At this point in time the odometer was only about 5000 miles and maybe 40 miles of that was simple dirt roads. In our location, car parts and repair are somewhat limited (Tijuana/Ensenada 12 hours to the north or La Paz 6 hours to the south). Mr. Google was telling us that driving on the broken shock could be dangerous, especially at highway speeds, so we set out to try and find a means to have the shock repaired/replaced without significant time driving on the highway. Calls to Ford Roadside Assistance US were fruitless as said they’d only assist once the vehicle was on the north side of the border. Calls to Ford Roadside Assistance in Mexico left us in a position of having to first have a determination of what was wrong with the vehicle so FRA could then determine where they would arrange a tow to. With the onus on us ‘to determine what was wrong’ we contacted the Ford dealership in La Paz to see if they had a replacement shock or could obtain one. A day of back and forth left us with them telling us that the part could be located in their system - but the part number was for the same shocks subject to recall on earlier model years. A quick call to our dealer in the US confirmed there was a superseding part number, but Ford La Paz told us they did not have this superseding part in their system and that ‘we could order ourselves from the US’.

With a return trip to the US looming in a couple weeks, it was time to map out a Plan B for getting the vehicle ready for a return cross-country trip. We contacted numerous car parts shops in the area to no avail, but finally found an off-road suspension shop in Tijuana that could order and drop ship a new set of Bilsteins B8 5100 (positive reviews and straightforward direct swap) to a business near our location.

Given no other options, we opted to have them shipped and installed by a local mechanic. They ride pretty great on the road btw.

So, the upshot is we tried everything we knew to try to seek assistance and possible warranty repair from Ford, but our circumstances dictated that we had no other options and limited time to rectify the problem prior to returning to the US. Absorbing the cost to buy, ship and install new 5100’s was the most expedient option we had to get the vehicle road worthy again before we returned cross-country.

Anyway, we know things (broken windshields) happen, but we feel that there is no reasonable expectation that a shock would fail on this vehicle with so little mileage and very limited and mundane off-road use. It’s a bit of a black-eye given the purported off-road worthiness of the Badlands Bronco. It would be wonderful if someone from Ford sees this post and chimes in with some support or offer of post-repair cost share, but we don’t really expect that will happen. Just a word of caution to other 2025 owners that it could happen to you too.

We’d love to hear if others have had similar failure on 2025 vehicles or know of others that have.

Cheers from the road(s) less traveled.

Still love our Bronco!

This trip looks amazing! I've been meaning to plan a trip down to Baja. How was the venture down there? Any issues you came across while you were there? Did you stay in hotels? What would you recommend?

 

[Surge]

I was born and raised in Baja and just got back from a similar trip from Texas to La Paz on my 2025 Badlands. Unfortunately I’m not much for taking pictures or writing trip reports.
Fortunately I didn’t have any cracked windshields or disintegrating shocks. Glad you enjoyed it!

 

[dkittel]

This trip looks amazing! I've been meaning to plan a trip down to Baja. How was the venture down there? Any issues you came across while you were there? Did you stay in hotels? What would you recommend?

We've been visiting Baja Sur for a number of years and staying in a house at the beach, so we have a pretty good idea what expect. We really don't know much about Baja North except what we experienced driving down Mex 5 from the San Luis Colorado border crossing (easy - just long as most are if not early morning). The drive down is beautiful, but the road is often narrow and does require attention. As for hotels, they are plentiful; in La Paz and San Jose del Cabos, many in Loreto as well. Mulege has a few, including B&B, vrbo type rentals, a couple glamping places and couple hotels as well. Much depends on what you are looking to do (fish, off-road, get out to missions/ranchos, relax on the beach, immerse in the culture, etc.). Food is simple, but always good and the people are fantastic. The only issues we've had visiting is our recent windshield and shock fails. The larger town all have adequate shopping these days. BTW, while we had done a fair amount of roadtrip/route research and googling, we used Gemini with some pretty specific prompts to help lay out an itinerary that was doable in N number of days, find dog-friendly lodging along the way, plan for gas stops, recommend lunch/dinner places, recommend places to see along the way and to lay out the daily driving metrics (# miles, routes, time driving, etc.). Have to say it worked pretty well, and given what we'd researched, we tweaked the results to remove things not of interest, avoid interstates as much as possible and add in scenic byways and specific places we wanted to see.

 

[Peitnahtan]

We've been visiting Baja Sur for a number of years and staying in a house at the beach, so we have a pretty good idea what expect. We really don't know much about Baja North except what we experienced driving down Mex 5 from the San Luis Colorado border crossing (easy - just long as most are if not early morning). The drive down is beautiful, but the road is often narrow and does require attention. As for hotels, they are plentiful; in La Paz and San Jose del Cabos, many in Loreto as well. Mulege has a few, including B&B, vrbo type rentals, a couple glamping places and couple hotels as well. Much depends on what you are looking to do (fish, off-road, get out to missions/ranchos, relax on the beach, immerse in the culture, etc.). Food is simple, but always good and the people are fantastic. The only issues we've had visiting is our recent windshield and shock fails. The larger town all have adequate shopping these days. BTW, while we had done a fair amount of roadtrip/route research and googling, we used Gemini with some pretty specific prompts to help lay out an itinerary that was doable in N number of days, find dog-friendly lodging along the way, plan for gas stops, recommend lunch/dinner places, recommend places to see along the way and to lay out the daily driving metrics (# miles, routes, time driving, etc.). Have to say it worked pretty well, and given what we'd researched, we tweaked the results to remove things not of interest, avoid interstates as much as possible and add in scenic byways and specific places we wanted to see.

Thank you, much appreciated. This was very helpful!

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