Animosity toward IFS offroader

[Thane]

Most jeep owners are never exposed to the need for that SFA articulation... ever.
Vast majority of jeeps have no lockers and no need for lockers, yet lockers drastically improve off road capability.

... and without a lift you don't get the great articulation numbers.

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[rdass623]

I live in Jersey.

Funny story though. My dog scared a deer in our backyard and it ran and broke its neck on our fence. It was 100 degrees, and I was not putting a dead deer in a bag to wait for garbage day and explode. Called vets, state police and anyone who might be able to dispose of the body, but no dice (except for some exterminator who wanted $300 - told him we already did the hard part and killed and bagged it).

So, I called me neighbor (as a joke) and said "hey Larry, can you help me get rid of a dead body". Told my daughter the story, and she flipped out cause she was working with Homeland Security at the time and was like "Dad, you know that probably triggered someone..."

So, like anyone who live near the Pinelands (or anyone who watched The Sopranos), I reintroduced the deer to the woods and let mother nature take her course.

did you ever consider field dressing it and renaming it dinner?

 

[Tech Tim]

Typically it’s cheaper and easier to lift vehicles with solid axles too.

This is the big plus of a live axle in the Jeep.

Straight axle has less moving parts so fewer parts to wear out.

Lets count the main components between a Bronco and a Wrangler:

Parts	Bronco	Wrangler
Control Arms	2 per side	2 per side
Ball joints	2 per side	2 per side
CVs or Ujoints on axle shaft	2 per side	1 per side
Tie rod ends	1 per side	2 per side
Drive Shaft w/ u-joints	1 (only rotating)	1 (moving up/down & rotating)
Steering box or Rack	1 Rack	1 Steering box
Sway bar	1	1
Axle/Differential assembly	1	1

You have two more CVs and two less tie rod ends on the IFS Bronco.

The biggest difference boils down to length of control arms. The live axle Wrangler has longer control arms, allowing the driveshaft to move in a larger arc with less binding on the U-joints/CVs.

The shorter upper and lower control arms on the IFS Bronco have a shorter arc and will be putting the CVs at risk of binding with less travel.

Looking forward to seeing some cool long travel kits for the Bronco soon.

 

[okbob]

The only folks that will realize the difference are the true crawler folks. The majority of Jeep folks never leave the pavement, and when they do it's almost all just gravel roads. Same for the new bronco owners I'm sure. IFS will fit the needs of 99% of new bronco owners.

 

[mds5917]

did you ever consider field dressing it and renaming it dinner?

Venison is not my thing, but it was a very small young deer - not enough meat to make it worth the effort. That's how it fit in a Hefty bag

 

[ramblinwreck]

they need something to hang their hat on.

basically it's a feature/function that is used 1% of the time and suffered the other 99%, do the math.

1% of the time sounds like an extreme overestimate. How many of a Jeep’s miles ever end up in extreme articulation where a SFA provides an advantage? I’d bet less than 1% of Jeep’s EVER end up in this situation. And if the Jeep’s that do, it’s extremely rare.

 

[Laminar]

having driven HMMWV aka the humvee on the aremy, the independent suspension, front and rear made it more capable than any civilian produced vehicle. i would argue it is as capable as most rock climbers out there.

The portal axles and lockers help, but the thing has almost no flex and lifts a tire just about instantly. The Hummer's RTI is bad - half of what the new Bronco can do and even that much less than a Rubicon.

IFS is tunable into any situation you can think of.

The physics of CV joints strictly limit suspension travel. You cannot "tune" it to flex like a SFA. If your max CV angle is 50 degrees and your axle length is 16" (about what a stock F-150 has), the max suspension travel your IFS can handle is 12" before running into axle bind on either end. You can install new a-arms and knuckles and longer axles to push the front wheels out further and get more travel that way, but you can't fake the CV joint angles.

 

[Its Brawnco]

Lots of people saying the Bronco isn't a true offroader

Anyone saying this isn't worth your time since they've apparently never seen a dune buggy, trophy tuck, or Hummer H1. There's pluses and minuses to both front suspensions but they've all been mentioned here.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The big gripe I have about IFS has infiltrated solid axles too... unit wheel bearings.

I wheel a TTB, most dont know what to make of it and just leave me alone.

 

[Lab00Rat]

I live in Jersey.

Funny story though. My dog scared a deer in our backyard and it ran and broke its neck on our fence. It was 100 degrees, and I was not putting a dead deer in a bag to wait for garbage day and explode. Called vets, state police and anyone who might be able to dispose of the body, but no dice (except for some exterminator who wanted $300 - told him we already did the hard part and killed and bagged it).

So, I called me neighbor (as a joke) and said "hey Larry, can you help me get rid of a dead body". Told my daughter the story, and she flipped out cause she was working with Homeland Security at the time and was like "Dad, you know that probably triggered someone..."

So, like anyone who live near the Pinelands (or anyone who watched The Sopranos), I reintroduced the deer to the woods and let mother nature take her course.

When I lived in Alaska 30+ years ago, moose were a real problem on the roads. They would destroy big rig trucks and kill people in cars. However, not a single one ever went to waste. Chainsaws and determination made many a fine meals of all the road kill moose. Maybe eat what you kill, regardless of the harvest method, no? It's pretty common.

 

[BDSQACH]

Apparently with the Bronco IFS vs solid axel… The solid axle will have all the wheels on the ground but possibly less weight on some wheels but in a similar scenario the IFS could have more weight/traction per wheel.
But yes all out modified single axle is better.
Honestly more worried about over all safety and crash ratings if I’m going to put my family in it on a daily.

 

[goatman]

So I haven't seen it here, but the big/main comparison I see between the Bronco and Wrangler is the axle setup. Lots of people saying the Bronco isn't a true offroader/as good as the Wrangler because of the IFS.

Never really understood that argument because last I checked just about every mainstream off road vehicle (quad or SxS) are IFS and IRS. Never see anyone complaining that they aren't offroad capable.

So why wouldn't a IFS vehicle like the Bronco be just as capable as a Wrangler? Does IFS not scale so well once vehicles get larger/heavier? Or is it all to do about nothing?

Things change. And so many people just repeat what they've heard with no real knowledge. Ask all of the King of the Hammers racers that have IFS if their cars are not real off road vehicles. People like Shannon Campbell (3 time winner), Jason Scherer (3 time winner), Loren Healy (2 time winner) all drive IFS Ultra4 race cars. How about all of the Trophy Trucks, Class 1 cars, Class 8 trucks and class 7 trucks (and plenty of others) in desert racing that all have IFS. Don't think anyone would say those are not real off road vehicles.

I can't wait to go out in my new Bronco with all of my Jeep friends. And to let them drive it on the road. So far, on this forum, their are many people who have/had Jeeps and they all talk about how much better the Bronco drives than their Jeeps. We'll have a much better driving daily driver, a much faster car off road, and stay with them on the trails. Works for me...big time!

 

[MaverickMan]

Id rather solid because I know it will last longer with abuse. However its not like they were gonna give us anything bigger than a dana 44, which honestly isnt really enough for abusive driving with anything over 35s. So taking load off the gear housing by going ifs is a easy way to make it live with 37s or bigger tires and lockers. Makes it harder to lift yeah, but I think we are gonna find that the Broncos wheel wells will do alot of tire accomodation for us especially with aftermarket fenders coming.

I do with they would have evolved the TTB to give us something different to stand out from the rest.

 

[Daktari]

silly fan boy talk or nostalgia. Unless you're talking to an extreme rock crawler. But those usually have a dedicated rig for that, not their expensive new daily driver.

I have zero interest in extreme crawling, and if I did, I'd get a dedicated machine and trailer it there. I'm pretty sure I will never encounter a moment where a SFA would have gotten me home and my Bronco left me stranded. Not with lockers front and back. Nothing to worry about. I'd just not hang out with people that say nonsense like "not an off roader" to a Bronco, LOL.

 

[MacMarauder]

When I lived in Alaska 30+ years ago, moose were a real problem on the roads. They would destroy big rig trucks and kill people in cars. However, not a single one ever went to waste. Chainsaws and determination made many a fine meals of all the road kill moose. Maybe eat what you kill, regardless of the harvest method, no? It's pretty common.

I was a passenger in a car that hit a moose. This was in northern Canada and we were very lucky no one was seriously injured. Car was totaled and some locals took the body so you are right nothing to waste!

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