The good ol' Shake Shack at Crystal Cove. I'm sure to have a photo there once my Bronco arrives.Today marks a month since we picked up our 4dr Badlands.
I’ve now put 1500 miles on it, with local and longer trips and some mild off-roading up to the local mountains and deserts.
The honest truth is, we love it even more than expected! Most amazingly, my wife is also in love, imagine that. I am honestly in danger of losing primary use to her and the kids as they all cant get enough of it.
We got the 2.7L and The Sasquatch package after much worrying about the height (my wife is 5’ 2” and I’m only 5’ 6”), but it’s honestly not that bad and she doesn’t struggle to get in even without running boards as we have the rock rails with the Badlands. The pickup is decent, and while it will never match my Boxster S for on-road thrills it brings a bigger smile to my face to drive around town than I expected. It has decent body roll but seems predictable once you get the handle of how the weight transfer affects it, like some of that diving into turns under braking that folks have experienced. There is no tracking or pulling when driving on road, and it’s overall a super easy car to drive. Fitting in the drive throughs or tight parking spots with a big truck (her words) was one of the biggest concerns for my wife and is now not a worry, thanks in part to the 360 camera, but overall it is just really easy to place drive and place on road.
The brakes though, could use a bit more bite, at least on the heavier models like the badlands, and are something I’m still getting used to. I’ve been getting about 15 mpg on regular the Last 3 or 4 fill-up’s, so yeah, it’s a gas hog, and the tank is small, so you will be at the gas station a lot. I imagine with the smaller tank on the 2 door it might be even worse.
I’ve used the ACC and the lane keeping, and find the ACC way more useful than the lane keeping. The ACC does NOT work all the way down to single digit or 0mph though, so is useless in stop and go traffic, but works great on regular highway cruises.
We got the soft top, and have had it on, down, and off all the way. Up is pretty comparable to my other convertible, though the back vinyl windows do let in more road noise than the back glass on my Boxster‘s soft top, and road and tire noise isn’t that bad, all things considered, but is no crossover For on road refinement. *i got LUX so there is some extra sound deadening under hood etc I think. Putting it back all the way and taking the windows out is pretty easy, though I do have to stand on a seat to get it back closed from half way. We did get some of the roll-bar scratches, but oh well, that’s part of the Bronco life. I did go up the mountain with the top all the way down, and clicked in place, and had the same issues with it flopping around that we saw on the video, so we might need to use the straps next time for that.
Taking the top off: F-that. This sucks for two short people. TLDR, not gonna do it again until we find a different solution.
I wanted to take the top off, because it’s awesome.
in my first attempt I got all the bolts off (this is super easy btw) but the problem is the weight and height of the top. Trying to lift it off as in the demo videos meant my wife was attempting to overhead press ~90ish unbalanced pounds from chin height to at least the top of her head to clear the bracket. This was a no-go so I bolted everything back up and drove to home depot to buy some pulleys.
attempt 2, pulleys in hand, I rigged everything up to the garage rafters and backed in the Bronco with the top already all the way down and unbolted. We rigged everything up and got the top off (with plenty of swinging around and me swearing at it). It was clear during the lift that the garage rafters did not appreciate the load and we resolved to enjoy it off for a few days, before struggling again to get it back on top of the Bronco, where it was an easy thing to bolt back on.
with cooler weather coming up, I think we’ll leave the soft top attached for a while and watch these pages for a better solution similar to the mobile hard top lift.
Off road, I’m a total newb, but the Bronco makes things nice and easy. So far we’ve just gone on some bumpy and rocky fire roads and OHV area trails, as well as some dirt and sand in thedesert, and the Bronco has taken everything like a champ and made it look easy.
We got the MGV interior and have already made use of the washout floors and vinyl seats when my wife took the hose to the interior to get all the sand and dirt out. The seats do get hot in the sun, but they cool down quicker than any leather seats so is not too bad on the warmer days. we do miss the lumbar adjustment for the passenger seat and they are admittedly not the most comofortable seats in the world(Volvo might have that locked down), especially in back, but they are decent and supportive on longer trips and are better than expected for this sort of vehicle.
in a final note, for my soft top friends here, as you see in the first picture, I was able to secure my paddle board with only straps and towels/foam pad. I’m actually wavering on my need to get another rack solution as this worked fine to get us down to the water and back.
i’m looking forward to piling on the miles on and off road and seeing you all out there!
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. ‘23 Bronco
