- First Name
- David
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2020
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- 2
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- 435
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- 1,409
- Location
- Brighton,MI
- Vehicle(s)
- F-150
- Your Bronco Model
- Big Bend
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- #1
Quite frankly I didn't expect to get much information out of this, but I was pleasantly surprised. As a full disclaimer I am a picky SOB and notice a lot of things others never would. Like every time you meet a hero, there is some good, some bad. That's just reality, so keep that in mind. Also this is a pre-production unit of course, built in January, so some of these things can be fixed.
The Good:
1. The Roast interior is gorgeous. Almost makes me want to switch to an OBX. Everything is far more subtle in person than in pictures I've seen. I don't know if they made changes, or previous pictures were not accurate, but the seats and dash are much darker than what I assumed. The VB accents are hardy noticable and did not bother me one bit. To the contrary I actually like them quite a bit. One of the main reasons I bailed on my original OBX build was the accents not matching my preferred color, but it wouldn't bother me at all now having seen it in person.
2. The OBX looks quite substantial. The tires and painted flares are still an abomination, but this does not look like a Ford flex. Even the OBX would make a 4runner look like a mall crawler in comparison. It looks much larger than a Wrangler and has way more presence.
3. The seats themselves are mostly leather, not a MGV leather mix. The seatbacks and armrest felt like a thinner material, and maybe faux leather, but are not MGV. The door soft points and center console are MGV. Why they are describing them likr that I have no clue.
4. Interior space is generally tight, but very comfortable and I had zero issues finding a good seating position or sitting behind myself (I'm 5'11 for reference). I spread my knees out as wide as I could and they did not touch any part of the console or doors. Ford clearly squeezed every last inch out of this though, so like I said it's tight, but my friend who is 6'6 found a comfortable seating position. The back seats were tight with him in the driver's seat, but a woman who was 5'4 sat behind him with no issues, but I will say it may have been an issue with the molle grid on the MGV interiors though. It seems "cozy" not like a similar sized crossover, but Ford has done a great job of making what space it has work.
5. The pinch weld between the floor pan and rocker panels looks much better on this one. I was thinking I would need the rock rails just to cover it, but it looks fine to me. Still a bit "industrial" but it is clean looking and finished with a thick textured paint.
6. The interior is for the most part of very good quality. I have a 2019 F-150, and my biggest disappointment with it is the very cheap, flimsy, and poorly fit plastics. The plastics are mostly hard, but are generally thicker and of good quality. The one major exception is the lower trim around the 12in screen. You could easily push down on it (see pic) and the cut quality was poor. The vents, and most of the touch points were shocking good quality. Far superior to my F-150 and very Toyota like. The steering wheel and leather are were soft and good quality as well. Perhaps too soft, I might be worried about the long term durability, but it felt nice. There were panel gaps that could have been better, but overall this is much better than what I expected from a Ford interior.
The Bad/Meh...
1. I've had a few heated steering wheels in my day, some great, some useless. This one is somewhere in between. Only the upper part of the wheel got hot(10,2 and everything in between), and it was "warm" at best. I'd take it it, but if you are moving up to Lux for it I think you'll be disappointed.
2. There is way less aluminum on this truck than I expected. The hinged surfaces and front fenders are the only aluminum parts. Everything else is steel. Living in Michigan and battling rust on every vehicle I've had for more than 3 years, this is a disappointment. I was hoping to keep this for 10+ years, but 10 michigan winters will do some damage to this truck. I'm sure you southern folks could care less.
3. It's hard to see with the black paint, but the front bumper was as crooked as a summer day is long. One of the tow hooks was also misaligned. Looked like it was in an accident. Hopefully just a pre production issue.
4. The frontal offset collision tusk looks pretty bad with the mod. bumper. Why they didn't make it cover the tusk, especially when that part is removable, is beyond me.
5. The gauge cluster, while very cool looking and with lots of info, was very laggy and frustrating to use. I really hope this is a pre-production issue. It would be very annoying to live with that on a daily basis.
6. The 12 in screen looks great and sync 4 is a huge improvement over 3, but it definitely looks like a TV on your dash. Some people will love it, some will hate it. I don't know myself, I tried to imagine myself driving it and it was always in my peripheral vision and kind of distracting. I think I might get used to it tough. There is also a calm setting that just displays the time. It's white in the daytime, black at night, so that may help.
7. I thought I had heard Husky was making the floor mats, but that is definitely not the case. They are more of a hard weather tech type material, and the rear is in 3 pieces. They do look cool with the Bronco logo, but I had my dealer take them off my order and will go with huskies.
8. The wiring for the rear camera and CHMSL looked sketchy as hell. Again I hope this is a pre-production issue. If not I can see corrosion being a problem.
9. I was hoping they would have the autohold feature like on the F-150. It's the only good thing about an E parking brake, but I couldn't find it in the settings anywhere.
10. The brake rotors look small, much smaller than my F-150. I've seen sas driving around before and the rotors looked larger than what I saw on the OBX, but that could be an illusion because of the wheel size on OBX.
Other thoughts
1. During their presentation the guy said the lift on sas. was 3 inches not 10mm as we have heard. After the event I was the last one there and asked the guy if he was sure. He showed me the binder with all their talking points and it indeed said 3 inch lift. I asked to take a picture of it, but he declined. His presentation was filmed by a woman from BN, so hopefully they will post that up. Overall I still question that. It doesn't look like 3 inches to me, but also it doesn't look like 10mm, so I have no clue.
2.The rear door they were doing their removable demonstration on was badly chipped from banging it into the hinge while taking it off. I would look into some sort of door edge guards.
3.Payload was almost 1200 lbs on this OBX Lux with the 2.7 and HD bumper. Not bad IMHO.
4. Like I've experienced on the Tacoma the running boards were so high they only made it more difficult to get into the truck. My head felt like it was 3ft above the roof, And I had to crouch to get down. Unless you are very short I would pass.
5. High level IP? Not a damn clue. I got to check out a much earlier base two door in person months ago (admittedly a bit of a franken bronco). I looked it up and down and couldn't find anything different.
The Good:
1. The Roast interior is gorgeous. Almost makes me want to switch to an OBX. Everything is far more subtle in person than in pictures I've seen. I don't know if they made changes, or previous pictures were not accurate, but the seats and dash are much darker than what I assumed. The VB accents are hardy noticable and did not bother me one bit. To the contrary I actually like them quite a bit. One of the main reasons I bailed on my original OBX build was the accents not matching my preferred color, but it wouldn't bother me at all now having seen it in person.
2. The OBX looks quite substantial. The tires and painted flares are still an abomination, but this does not look like a Ford flex. Even the OBX would make a 4runner look like a mall crawler in comparison. It looks much larger than a Wrangler and has way more presence.
3. The seats themselves are mostly leather, not a MGV leather mix. The seatbacks and armrest felt like a thinner material, and maybe faux leather, but are not MGV. The door soft points and center console are MGV. Why they are describing them likr that I have no clue.
4. Interior space is generally tight, but very comfortable and I had zero issues finding a good seating position or sitting behind myself (I'm 5'11 for reference). I spread my knees out as wide as I could and they did not touch any part of the console or doors. Ford clearly squeezed every last inch out of this though, so like I said it's tight, but my friend who is 6'6 found a comfortable seating position. The back seats were tight with him in the driver's seat, but a woman who was 5'4 sat behind him with no issues, but I will say it may have been an issue with the molle grid on the MGV interiors though. It seems "cozy" not like a similar sized crossover, but Ford has done a great job of making what space it has work.
5. The pinch weld between the floor pan and rocker panels looks much better on this one. I was thinking I would need the rock rails just to cover it, but it looks fine to me. Still a bit "industrial" but it is clean looking and finished with a thick textured paint.
6. The interior is for the most part of very good quality. I have a 2019 F-150, and my biggest disappointment with it is the very cheap, flimsy, and poorly fit plastics. The plastics are mostly hard, but are generally thicker and of good quality. The one major exception is the lower trim around the 12in screen. You could easily push down on it (see pic) and the cut quality was poor. The vents, and most of the touch points were shocking good quality. Far superior to my F-150 and very Toyota like. The steering wheel and leather are were soft and good quality as well. Perhaps too soft, I might be worried about the long term durability, but it felt nice. There were panel gaps that could have been better, but overall this is much better than what I expected from a Ford interior.
The Bad/Meh...
1. I've had a few heated steering wheels in my day, some great, some useless. This one is somewhere in between. Only the upper part of the wheel got hot(10,2 and everything in between), and it was "warm" at best. I'd take it it, but if you are moving up to Lux for it I think you'll be disappointed.
2. There is way less aluminum on this truck than I expected. The hinged surfaces and front fenders are the only aluminum parts. Everything else is steel. Living in Michigan and battling rust on every vehicle I've had for more than 3 years, this is a disappointment. I was hoping to keep this for 10+ years, but 10 michigan winters will do some damage to this truck. I'm sure you southern folks could care less.
3. It's hard to see with the black paint, but the front bumper was as crooked as a summer day is long. One of the tow hooks was also misaligned. Looked like it was in an accident. Hopefully just a pre production issue.
4. The frontal offset collision tusk looks pretty bad with the mod. bumper. Why they didn't make it cover the tusk, especially when that part is removable, is beyond me.
5. The gauge cluster, while very cool looking and with lots of info, was very laggy and frustrating to use. I really hope this is a pre-production issue. It would be very annoying to live with that on a daily basis.
6. The 12 in screen looks great and sync 4 is a huge improvement over 3, but it definitely looks like a TV on your dash. Some people will love it, some will hate it. I don't know myself, I tried to imagine myself driving it and it was always in my peripheral vision and kind of distracting. I think I might get used to it tough. There is also a calm setting that just displays the time. It's white in the daytime, black at night, so that may help.
7. I thought I had heard Husky was making the floor mats, but that is definitely not the case. They are more of a hard weather tech type material, and the rear is in 3 pieces. They do look cool with the Bronco logo, but I had my dealer take them off my order and will go with huskies.
8. The wiring for the rear camera and CHMSL looked sketchy as hell. Again I hope this is a pre-production issue. If not I can see corrosion being a problem.
9. I was hoping they would have the autohold feature like on the F-150. It's the only good thing about an E parking brake, but I couldn't find it in the settings anywhere.
10. The brake rotors look small, much smaller than my F-150. I've seen sas driving around before and the rotors looked larger than what I saw on the OBX, but that could be an illusion because of the wheel size on OBX.
Other thoughts
1. During their presentation the guy said the lift on sas. was 3 inches not 10mm as we have heard. After the event I was the last one there and asked the guy if he was sure. He showed me the binder with all their talking points and it indeed said 3 inch lift. I asked to take a picture of it, but he declined. His presentation was filmed by a woman from BN, so hopefully they will post that up. Overall I still question that. It doesn't look like 3 inches to me, but also it doesn't look like 10mm, so I have no clue.
2.The rear door they were doing their removable demonstration on was badly chipped from banging it into the hinge while taking it off. I would look into some sort of door edge guards.
3.Payload was almost 1200 lbs on this OBX Lux with the 2.7 and HD bumper. Not bad IMHO.
4. Like I've experienced on the Tacoma the running boards were so high they only made it more difficult to get into the truck. My head felt like it was 3ft above the roof, And I had to crouch to get down. Unless you are very short I would pass.
5. High level IP? Not a damn clue. I got to check out a much earlier base two door in person months ago (admittedly a bit of a franken bronco). I looked it up and down and couldn't find anything different.
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