2021 Bronco Base DIED WHILE DRIVING today

[M&A]

Four hours into a drive today, going down a fairly steep hill @ ~30mph into a 4 point intersection my Bronco lost all power, brakes and steering. I mean it had nothing.

We barely made it thru the intersection because the cars coming directly at us slammed brakes. I had no control and went off the road into someone’s yard, barely missing their fence. It was the scariest thing we’ve ever encountered. My son in the back screaming STOP at the top of his lungs is burned in my brain.

What makes all of this worse is that Ford just had it in the shop for 3 days because the week before when they had my Bronco in the shop for yearly inspection/oil change and under their care it had the first symptoms of this issue. I received an app notice of a battery failure AND at their request because of this new issue they wanted my car for a “longer look” the following week. Today was first time driving it since they handed it back to me (I use the valet service that picks up and drops it back to me).

Ford could come back and say they will give us a new car and there’s no way I can ever convince my wife to get back in this car. She was absolutely freaked out as the cars coming towards us would have drilled her door.

It took Ford 4 hours to come 17 miles to tow us (probably a contractor) to the local Ford dealer that was closed by the time it arrived. We had to Uber to Enterprise and then drive the rental home four hours.

I guess tomorrow I’ll call Ford to see what is going on and then how they don’t care as I have 16,000 miles and I’m screwed.
I really loved how it looked (I really spruced her up) and the drive. Too bad I’d rather have my wife so the Bronco will have to go and I’ll have to eat the los

The real dilemma I have is I wouldn’t want anyone to drive this particular car and have the same issue. One second later or a few miles slower and we would have been hit in a massive crash.

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[nabronco21]

Sorry something like that happened to you and your family, hopefully you can get some answers of what went wrong.

 

[P52Ranch]

You should file an incident with the NTSHA. The entire incident is concerning but especially the loss of braking.

 

[da_jokker]

Glad everyone is ok. Of course we all really want to know what happened to cause such a failure.

But I'm with your wife...bye bye ford. You couldn't pay me enough. Hello Toyota/Jeep

 

[Newbie]

Great first post.

My opinion:
Your Bronco dieded because of bad service

 

[Imaginary Friend]

You should file an incident with the NTSHA. The entire incident is concerning but especially the loss of braking.

This, absolutely.

 

[da_jokker]

How many miles did you have on it?

No car, not even a Tesla, should be allowed to lose brakes and steering under any circumstances.

are you sure you could not brake or steer? I mean I can see it being hard, but I thought there was still physical/mechanical connections.

 

[OverlandingPastor]

Will be curious on what they find. Praising God for His protection over you and your family.

 

[M&A]

Thanks for all the info. Just talked to Ford in MA and they wanted all my receipts of recent work from my local Ford to see what the issue could be.

Yes we lost all power and control. The brakes wouldn’t even depress at all. I was using all my force and nothing., steering also frozen. Just prior to entering the intersection I had no choice but to slam the car into park and that didn’t work. It just made the car jerk a bit but we kept moving forward. Luckily (if you can call it that) the road after the intersection slightly curved to left. Since I couldn’t steer we just went straight into this guys yard and the grass stopped us.

I’ll keep this post updated when I get news.

 

[SWLABRONCO]

Man I hate to hear that. Glad y'all are all OK. I agree on getting rid of it. My wife loves her Bronco, but if it did that we would not hesitate on getting rid of it.

 

[Taltyman]

I would have been grabbing for the emergency brake handle on the lower left. Oh wait it's not there anymore, it's an e-brake or something that I probably couldn't find in a panic.
edit: So I went out and looked for it and found it. It is on the left side but was hidden by the steering wheel from my view. But then now I'm thinking if the electronics are out does it still work? Geesh, bring back a handle that you can pull on to mechanically tighten a cable going to the rear brakes like the old days.

 

[Tacanta14]

Sorry that you got a crappy Bronco, but you're lucky that you have such a great wife; I would gladly have kept my Bronco to get rid of my ex-wife!

 

[Willub]

Which engine?

 

[TailChaser]

My first idea from the description is the key/connection went bad and went into security lock mode so can’t turn wheel and maybe disabled pedals also or something. Holy gees. Folks are right about these “parking brakes” too, pretty sure they’re electronic so wouldn’t help even if you could find it. Keep us updated, my wife and kid in one on a long road trip now.

 

[indio22]

My CJ-7 has power steering and brakes (both powered by the engine). When the engine dies, the CJ still has driver steering and braking control, but you do have to put some muscle into it. I'm surprised if the Bronco has complete lack of control when the power is out, that wouldn't be good.

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