- First Name
- Matt
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2021
- Threads
- 9
- Messages
- 344
- Reaction score
- 714
- Location
- Santa Clarita California
- Vehicle(s)
- 2021 Bronco Badlands Sasquatch.
- Your Bronco Model
- Badlands
- Thread starter
- #1
I wasn't going to post this quite yet as I had hope the fix would have come and gone much quicker than this but here is how it goes in 2023.
The issue.
My 2021 Badlands with roughly 25.5K miles on it has always made this slight dragging sound. The kind of sound that when you have the radio on, it's not even noticeable. But as soon as you turn it off you hear this ever so slight metal dragging sound from the rear somewhere. It was a sound that became much more notable if I rolled the windows down and rolled past a wall from a building or something that would bounce the sound back at the vehicle. It isn't super annoying, but I thought maybe the dust cover was dragging on the right rear break rotor. So I tried several things to diagnose it including and in no particular order, coasting without the car in gear, riving the motor during the coast in neutral, slightly trail braking during the coast, accelerating in gear, playing with the parking brake, which doesn't work at speed BTW. I fiddled with this for a while and the sound wasn't really obvious on video, at least not from the drivers seat and the tires I have is actually louder than this sound, albeit very different in tone. But still it was nagging at me to see if it was something like the parking brake not freeing up entirely or something easy.
The dealer evaluation. 18 Aug 2023
I made the appointment over the phone and told them about what I noticed and it was easy enough to bring it in to look at. I drop the car off in the a.m. get a Lyft from the dealer to my work and then wait. Around 2:30 I'm thinking maybe I should reach out to see what's happening in case I need to figure out a way home. My service guy sends me back a text to the effect of, The tech duplicated the noise and it's from the rear differential. It needs to go to the heavy line dept which run slow. It's expected to exceed 2 weeks for a diagnoses and then we'll find out about part availability. Do you want me to proceed or to reschedule?
Ouch! Okay so at least they think they know what's up, and it's not going to be easy but maybe I can drop it off before the day before they want to look at it and that's okay. Except that's not how it works here. See they have a line, if your vehicle isn't in the line (physically) it isn't getting looked at. Okay so that's a rather antiquated way of arranging the service schedule I'm thinking but I'm told that it is what it is. So can I get a rental or loaner vehicle please?
Well your Bronco hasn't been diagnosed yet so we don't know if it's covered under warranty. And we don't have any loaners. Do you want to leave it here or not? So the conversation isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. I kind of feel like I'm getting hung out to dry here right? I'm expected just to park the car for an undetermined time frame and it's assumed I will be able to absorb whatever costs to say get to work every day? So I let him go from the call to cool off. I give my sales guy a quick call and ask him for his thoughts and he, being a great guy, goes out of his way to make some calls to see if he can't work something out. In the meanwhile I ask the service guy to see if he can't talk to the "heavy line" manager about if they could work something out so that the Bronco isn't just sitting for two weeks before the tech lays hands on it, as it would seem an expensive proposition to not do that. Both in terms of how many cars are sitting around there, and in whoever is footing a bill for a rental, loaner for the extra unnecessary days. Seems plausible to me and he does get in touch with them. A few hours later we come up with a plan. I'll drop the car off in a week and they'll try and get it on the lift within 4 days or so. I have a trip scheduled out of town that week so those days I don't need it anyways and since they're not offering up any loaners or rentals yet I'm trusting they will find the issue is a defect, and it's covered by warranty. Fingers crossed!
The wait. 21 Sep. 2023
So I dropped it off on the 28th of August and went on my trip. I got a message about 4 days later from the service rep that it's confirmed the differential gears are bad and that the ETA for a new ring and pinion is the 13th of Sept. Okay, so I ask about a rental vehicle for when I return. And they don't have any is the response. Okay. So maybe you can look into that for me as I won't need it till Tuesday after Labor Day. Crickets.....
Tuesday comes and I call. and I text. And then I call another line. And I speak to my sales guy who gets a car lined up for me. Then the service rep decides to text me that he has a Bronco sport for me. Perfect I think. I'll be there shortly. So after a nice two hours wait at the dealer because there wasn't any paperwork for me... I get my loaner. I'm okay, trying to not think about any of it, I know they're busy and they don't have any idea or possibly concern for how things affect their customers, but okay.
Along comes the 13th and I just send a text to my service rep. Hope it's all going well, perhaps they got a notification about the parts yet? Crickets... So two days later I message again. No reply. I call then and leave a message. no reply to the message I leave. four hours later I call the general number and Oh hey how's it going? Let's just have a look here in the system and it looks like the parts are no longer listing an ETA! So there's that.
I have no idea when I'll see the Bronco right now. Haven't heard a peep since. I'll let you all know how it pans out. At least they've given me the loaner, although with those pesky stipulations of no dogs or smoking in the car. No worries I don't smoke but I have a shedder. And nobody else can drive it plus don't put more than 5K miles on it where it already has 3400 on it and they're like no ETA on the parts. So my Australian Cattle Dog, high energy for those unaware, is cooped up at home and not allowed to go to work for the last month and my wife is very much reminding me of how she doesn't appreciate that very much. And I can't take her car because well there's the no other driver thing....
Well first world issues I guess and there's nothing like being in the dog house!
The issue.
My 2021 Badlands with roughly 25.5K miles on it has always made this slight dragging sound. The kind of sound that when you have the radio on, it's not even noticeable. But as soon as you turn it off you hear this ever so slight metal dragging sound from the rear somewhere. It was a sound that became much more notable if I rolled the windows down and rolled past a wall from a building or something that would bounce the sound back at the vehicle. It isn't super annoying, but I thought maybe the dust cover was dragging on the right rear break rotor. So I tried several things to diagnose it including and in no particular order, coasting without the car in gear, riving the motor during the coast in neutral, slightly trail braking during the coast, accelerating in gear, playing with the parking brake, which doesn't work at speed BTW. I fiddled with this for a while and the sound wasn't really obvious on video, at least not from the drivers seat and the tires I have is actually louder than this sound, albeit very different in tone. But still it was nagging at me to see if it was something like the parking brake not freeing up entirely or something easy.
The dealer evaluation. 18 Aug 2023
I made the appointment over the phone and told them about what I noticed and it was easy enough to bring it in to look at. I drop the car off in the a.m. get a Lyft from the dealer to my work and then wait. Around 2:30 I'm thinking maybe I should reach out to see what's happening in case I need to figure out a way home. My service guy sends me back a text to the effect of, The tech duplicated the noise and it's from the rear differential. It needs to go to the heavy line dept which run slow. It's expected to exceed 2 weeks for a diagnoses and then we'll find out about part availability. Do you want me to proceed or to reschedule?
Ouch! Okay so at least they think they know what's up, and it's not going to be easy but maybe I can drop it off before the day before they want to look at it and that's okay. Except that's not how it works here. See they have a line, if your vehicle isn't in the line (physically) it isn't getting looked at. Okay so that's a rather antiquated way of arranging the service schedule I'm thinking but I'm told that it is what it is. So can I get a rental or loaner vehicle please?
Well your Bronco hasn't been diagnosed yet so we don't know if it's covered under warranty. And we don't have any loaners. Do you want to leave it here or not? So the conversation isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. I kind of feel like I'm getting hung out to dry here right? I'm expected just to park the car for an undetermined time frame and it's assumed I will be able to absorb whatever costs to say get to work every day? So I let him go from the call to cool off. I give my sales guy a quick call and ask him for his thoughts and he, being a great guy, goes out of his way to make some calls to see if he can't work something out. In the meanwhile I ask the service guy to see if he can't talk to the "heavy line" manager about if they could work something out so that the Bronco isn't just sitting for two weeks before the tech lays hands on it, as it would seem an expensive proposition to not do that. Both in terms of how many cars are sitting around there, and in whoever is footing a bill for a rental, loaner for the extra unnecessary days. Seems plausible to me and he does get in touch with them. A few hours later we come up with a plan. I'll drop the car off in a week and they'll try and get it on the lift within 4 days or so. I have a trip scheduled out of town that week so those days I don't need it anyways and since they're not offering up any loaners or rentals yet I'm trusting they will find the issue is a defect, and it's covered by warranty. Fingers crossed!
The wait. 21 Sep. 2023
So I dropped it off on the 28th of August and went on my trip. I got a message about 4 days later from the service rep that it's confirmed the differential gears are bad and that the ETA for a new ring and pinion is the 13th of Sept. Okay, so I ask about a rental vehicle for when I return. And they don't have any is the response. Okay. So maybe you can look into that for me as I won't need it till Tuesday after Labor Day. Crickets.....
Tuesday comes and I call. and I text. And then I call another line. And I speak to my sales guy who gets a car lined up for me. Then the service rep decides to text me that he has a Bronco sport for me. Perfect I think. I'll be there shortly. So after a nice two hours wait at the dealer because there wasn't any paperwork for me... I get my loaner. I'm okay, trying to not think about any of it, I know they're busy and they don't have any idea or possibly concern for how things affect their customers, but okay.
Along comes the 13th and I just send a text to my service rep. Hope it's all going well, perhaps they got a notification about the parts yet? Crickets... So two days later I message again. No reply. I call then and leave a message. no reply to the message I leave. four hours later I call the general number and Oh hey how's it going? Let's just have a look here in the system and it looks like the parts are no longer listing an ETA! So there's that.
I have no idea when I'll see the Bronco right now. Haven't heard a peep since. I'll let you all know how it pans out. At least they've given me the loaner, although with those pesky stipulations of no dogs or smoking in the car. No worries I don't smoke but I have a shedder. And nobody else can drive it plus don't put more than 5K miles on it where it already has 3400 on it and they're like no ETA on the parts. So my Australian Cattle Dog, high energy for those unaware, is cooped up at home and not allowed to go to work for the last month and my wife is very much reminding me of how she doesn't appreciate that very much. And I can't take her car because well there's the no other driver thing....
Well first world issues I guess and there's nothing like being in the dog house!
Sponsored
Last edited:
