Classic Bronco instrument cluster

[jrollo7]

Look at this 60th anniversary Mustang instrument cluster (all digital) that Ford is providing to Mustang owners (for free!) as an over-the-air update:

Wouldn't it be awesome if Ford offered something like that for us Bronco people?

Of course, some of the accessory gauges would need to go on the side, not much different than as it is now, but blackout the whole background and do this retro treatment and I might even be willing to pay a reasonable amount for it. (But free would be nice!)

For our Broncos please! Now!

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[HPNQ420]

I'll ruffle some feathers here but the Gen 1 Bronco gauges sucked far worse than Gen 6 and I want nothing to do with them.
Nobody ever accused me of being in my right mind. I prefer digital and I even got a digital cluster for my 66.

Not as bad as the wipers.

 

[Tricky Mike]

Not as bad as the wipers.

Big brain thought: the wiper issues some people have with 6Gs is just an easter egg.

 

[Lowcountry Bronco]

Big brain thought: the wiper issues some people have with 6Gs is just an easter egg.

See how many around can put that one together. Clue ... Think Dyson

 

[tyrobronco]

They tried, by putting the speedo on the left side, just like it was to the left of the column in the 1st gen.

Except they then gave us a digital one right next to it, which pretty much means nobody ever looks at the analog one, myself included.

It is bizarre someone thought two speedometers would be a good use of space. It is the only thing I don't like about the Bronco.

 

[Brian_B]

It is bizarre someone thought two speedometers would be a good use of space. It is the only thing I don't like about the Bronco.

Not only two speedometers - but 2 speedometers that combined take up over 50% of the real estate of the gauge cluster. The analog one is not horribly bad, other than it gets hidden by the steering wheel (and I could think of a dozen other better things to put there, but in and of itself it isn't horrible) -- but the digital one - it's huge, plain and ridiculous. A plain, fat, monocolor bar graph that takes up the vast majority of the digital display.

 

[HotdogThud]

It is bizarre someone thought two speedometers would be a good use of space. It is the only thing I don't like about the Bronco.

The whole instrument cluster is a trainwreck of ergonomics to me. It's like it was designed by five different people in five different rooms and they were only allowed one-way communication once a day.

The dual speedo, having the trans temp and oil temp gauges have the same temps but different scale, the single left stalk doing too much, having the audio controls split among two sides of the steering wheel instead of having it be controllable by a single hand, the washer button that is impossible to use without hitting the right blinker, wiper controls that can't be used without removing your hand from the steering wheel, having three different controls to change the track (steering wheel, screen, buttons below head unit), the headlight switch not being recessed causing it to get turned on and off by stray legs on entry and exit, the steering wheel side spokes being about 10 deg too high on the axis so your hands sit at 230 and 930 instead of 3 and 9 like they should.

Yeah, I've put some thought into this.

 

[Reidt131]

The whole instrument cluster is a trainwreck of ergonomics to me. It's like it was designed by five different people in five different rooms and they were only allowed one-way communication once a day.

The dual speedo, having the trans temp and oil temp gauges have the same temps but different scale, the single left stalk doing too much, having the audio controls split among two sides of the steering wheel instead of having it be controllable by a single hand, the washer button that is impossible to use without hitting the right blinker, wiper controls that can't be used without removing your hand from the steering wheel, having three different controls to change the track (steering wheel, screen, buttons below head unit), the headlight switch not being recessed causing it to get turned on and off by stray legs on entry and exit, the steering wheel side spokes being about 10 deg too high on the axis so your hands sit at 230 and 930 instead of 3 and 9 like they should.

Yeah, I've put some thought into this.

I've never minded Ford's consolidation of blinker and wiper controls into one stalk, but I agree with you on most of the other points. Especially having the forward back track and up down volume buttons on the wheel on different sides, so dumb.

 

[tock13]

The whole instrument cluster is a trainwreck of ergonomics to me. It's like it was designed by five different people in five different rooms and they were only allowed one-way communication once a day.

The dual speedo, having the trans temp and oil temp gauges have the same temps but different scale, the single left stalk doing too much, having the audio controls split among two sides of the steering wheel instead of having it be controllable by a single hand, the washer button that is impossible to use without hitting the right blinker, wiper controls that can't be used without removing your hand from the steering wheel, having three different controls to change the track (steering wheel, screen, buttons below head unit), the headlight switch not being recessed causing it to get turned on and off by stray legs on entry and exit, the steering wheel side spokes being about 10 deg too high on the axis so your hands sit at 230 and 930 instead of 3 and 9 like they should.

Yeah, I've put some thought into this.

Like your reading my mind here….spot on critique!! The damn trans/engine temp scale difference drives me nuts. Wtf Ford.

I thought the rear hatch design on the soft top was the single most rediculous engineering flop on the Bronco but since owning my own, my list grew to match yours!

 

[Beach_Bum]

At one point, there was supposed to be a "High Level Instrument Panel." I can't recall if it was to come with Badlands and higher trims or the Lux package, but I do remember seeing that in the build and price and wondering exactly what that meant.

An early rendering of the IP suggests designers were thinking of a full digital instrument panel with a classic-looking analog style speedometer:

And still to this day, there is the confusion about what the HLIP is/was. First and foremost, it was the High Level Information Panel not High Level Instrument Panel. From a layman's point of view, there is no difference. But an engineer refers to the "dashboard" as an information panel. The HLIP was tied to Broncos with the High/Lux package back in the first iteration of Build & Price and the Dealer Order Guide for MY'21 Broncos. By the time Job1 rolled around, the HLIP was quietly omitted from the bullet list of features.

You can search my handle with subject line of HLIP to reveal the latest unveiling of the HLIP that has made it's appearance in MY'24 Badlands Broncos. If you don't want to search, it is only the soft-touch stitched MGV "dashboard" on MY'24 Badlands.

 

[timhood]

I've never minded Ford's consolidation of blinker and wiper controls into one stalk, but I agree with you on most of the other points. Especially having the forward back track and up down volume buttons on the wheel on different sides, so dumb.

It’s not like they don’t know how to do that. Our 10+ year-old Escape uses a four-way arrow pad that works nicely.

 

[IXxMcCoyxXl]

It would be great for the Raptor folk that have the full digital screen. Us lesser crowd have an analog speedo and the rest is digital, so that would give us side by side speedo's which would really work up the crowd here!

You are in the wrong mode.

 

[Lowcountry Bronco]

You are in the wrong mode.

I'll tell Google to offer better picture stock, maybe they're conserving resources since they're at a steady 69.

 

[Tofudude]

The biggest insult is that the Chinese built broncos are getting the full digital cluster.

 

[OrangecrushBronco]

They tried, by putting the speedo on the left side, just like it was to the left of the column in the 1st gen.

Except they then gave us a digital one right next to it, which pretty much means nobody ever looks at the analog one, myself included.

I use the analog one all the time.

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