Bronco v. Wrangler v. 4Runner rock crawling off road comparison (TFL Off-Road - YouTube)

[NCLife]

BLUF: Bronco wins....good watch though

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[Lcubed]

interesting they never actually turned the knob for the GOAT modes, but complained about poor off road smarts

 

[Sgt Badlands]

The kid favors Jeeps. So he’s biased.

 

[stampede1]

interesting they never actually turned the knob for the GOAT modes, but complained about poor off road smarts

He said he activated (and showed it as he did it) the GOAT Rock Crawl Mode. But he then deactivated the rear locker which that mode automatically engages. He minimized the fact that the Wrangler had-and used-the swaybar disconnect while the Bronco did not. I agree with his old man: the Bronco wins this one overall.

 

[ScLeCo]

For people who drive cars for a living I'm always amazed at how bad at it they are.

 

[SierraBronco]

For people who drive cars for a living I'm always amazed at how bad at it they are.

Right? Wifey was watching with me and was appalled at the lack of throttle control/listening to the spotter

 

[Sgt Badlands]

That Jeep is 80k. Maybe they should have compared it to a Raptor.

 

[Karsa]

TFL off-road is nonsense, they have zero skills or know how, stopped watching them quite a while ago - not a channel to learn anything from.

 

[Smocaine]

While it's very possible to go point-for-point with Jeeps (because Ford, and to some extent Jeep now designed the trims that way) and control for equipment factors, most of these review channels can't or won't do it.
In this comparison, the MSRP headroom could have gotten you, say, a Badsquatch to put up against Jeep's 35s-and-swaybar-disconnect rig.
I'm not sure if that's just me not liking TFL or a sign of the auto-journalism slump in general.

Part of me wishes the 4Runner did better, but comparisons like this make it feel like the Bronco is one of the meanest things on IFS - anything more capable tends to have two solid sticks.

In a perfect world, I would be watching a 12-hour series by a man with a thick European accent directly comparing a manual, base-engine 2-door Jeep and Bronco, each with 35s, winches, lockers, and disconnects, over every terrain imaginable for 500,000 miles.

 

[GPPBronco]

Unpopular opinion (I guess… ): I like TFL. It’s entertaining and informative. Agreed, they don’t always do the most apples-apples comparisons, but I’m sure it isn’t easy to get the cars together to make that happen. It seems like the video shared does a good job of showing how those makes/models/trims handle those trails. They’re always pretty clear about the hardware differences (lockers, tire size, sway bars, etc.).

I also appreciate their approach to evaluating which options are essential, vs. the ones you can skip - based upon your use case. This moderating perspective actually helped when I was ordering my Bronco, sorting through some of the “option inflation” that happens on this forum and generally in the enthusiast community.

 

[ATLien]

Unpopular opinion (I guess… ): I like TFL. It’s entertaining and informative. Agreed, they don’t always do the most apples-apples comparisons, but I’m sure it isn’t easy to get the cars together to make that happen. It seems like the video shared does a good job of showing how those makes/models/trims handle those trails. They’re always pretty clear about the hardware differences (lockers, tire size, sway bars, etc.).

I also appreciate their approach to evaluating which options are essential, vs. the ones you can skip - based upon your use case. This moderating perspective actually helped when I was ordering my Bronco, sorting through some of the “option inflation” that happens on this forum and generally in the enthusiast community.

Agree, I think TFL generally does a great job, and I enjoy their videos more than most other off road/truck youtube reviewers. They may make some mistakes in the heat of the moment, but who doesn't? In this video, they admitted upfront that the comparison wasn't apples to apples.

Also, if you've been watching them for a while, you'll recall they were very high on the Bronco in the early days when they had a First Edition.

 

[DwnSth]

Well, they did choose the Bronco at the end....mainly because of the price. I actually like TFL - mostly because they have loads of content. However, they are not great at off-road comparisons but they are not afraid to bring various vehicle on the trails at the same time. The video was sponsored by Toyota so I take the whole thing as a show for how capable the Toyota is even though it's not in the same class as the other two. Would love to see the vehicle much more similarly optioned, at least as close as each can get to the other from the factory.

 

[Ninjak]

I have watched a few TFL videos; they own an Everglades now. Though I will say, and agree with others, their Off-Road skillset is a bit lacking. The younger son likes to argue about lockers turning on automatically, then complains about having to turn them off, to simply complain about slippage because he did not turn them on....HUH?

Other than that, they are entertainment, worth a watch for some things.

 

[Techun]

It seems like so much of his criticism is on things no one cares about. The trail or crawl control is a cool feature...but who cares? Who wants to do risky things on autopilot without control?

If you ignore that, it's a fair and honest review I think.

 

[zoober]

As I learnt at the off rodeo, trail control is best used during descents. It worked wonderfully in Tn rocks mud and trees, with braking engaging quicker than me. I want more throttle control ascending than trail control offers.
So skinny jeans just showed he didn’t know what to use when.

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