Automotive Engineering - August 2021 - 10

ROAD
READY
Ford engineered 2022 Bronco to give Jeep the willies
Loeffler), the truck's crawling performance
in low range with the 10-speed
auto is also outstanding.
Some key wins for Ford: First, Bronco
is superior to Wrangler in pavement
driving. (Ford had two new Wranglers
at the Texas ranch for back-to-back
comparison drives versus Bronco.) This
is largely due to Ford's choice of an independent
front suspension (IFS), rather
than a solid " live " axle as has graced
every Wrangler and CJ since 1945.
Thanks to the IFS, Bronco's steering and
tracking are not disrupted by rippling
and potholed pavement. " There is less
head-toss over rough terrain when the
wheels are free to move independently, "
noted Gavin McGee, Bronco vehicle dynamics
engineer.
Wrangler's live axle, by comparison,
The 2022 Ford Bronco's off-road capabilities match its class-leading on-road dynamic performance.
Ford engineers refused to utter a single
bad word about Jeep Wrangler during
the course of the week-long 2022
Bronco media drive event in Austin,
Texas. In fact, some among that gracious
bunch admitted, ahem, that they
may have owned and modified a
Wrangler or two in their lifetimes.
Jeep's profit-spinning 4x4 icon has that
effect on competitors and fans alike.
And it " has had this space to itself for
decades, " noted Eric Loeffler, chief program
engineer for U725, Ford's code for
the new Bronco. About five years ago,
Ford decided to unseat the Jeep's monopoly.
The result is a modern take on
another historic nameplate that finally
brings Wrangler a truly serious competitor
- and beats it in at least three
key areas.
SAE's Automotive Engineering comprehensively
covered the new Bronco's
unveiling and technical specifications
(www.sae.org/news/2020/07/2021ford-bronco-reveal)
last summer. Our
recent drive experience was in various
2- and 4-door Broncos among the
10 July/August 2021
seven available trims, with hard and
soft tops, on all manner of Texas public
roads as well as on the challenging
trails of the 360-acre Grey Wolf Ranch
converted by Ford into an " off-roadeo "
compound. And it affirmed our suspicions
about Bronco's potential. The rural
facility near Marble Falls is one of
four such dedicated 4x4 driving camps
in the U.S. offered free to everyone who
buys a new Bronco.
In Texas we sampled vehicles powered
by both the turbocharged 2.3-L
inline-4 and 2.7-L V6, backed by two
transfer cases and two transmissions:
Ford's 10R80 10-speed automatic or the
Magna-sourced MT-88 manual gearbox.
The latter is a 7-speeder featuring a
slightly notchy gearchange and unique
" crawler " gear (6.588:1 ratio) staged
below 1st gear. It allows the Bronco to
move forward as slowly as 1 mph with
no clutch slip required. While this will
please the relatively few hard-core
gear-shifters in Bronco's audience (thus
justifying the cost-add of integrating
and certifying the MT-88, according to
requires the driver to make constant
steering corrections, and bump steer
has become part of Wrangler ownership
lore. Wrangler is the last Jeep
model to still use a live front axle because
it is demanded by the hardcore
off-roading Jeep owners. They claim a
live axle is more durable. But try to find
a contemporary military tactical truck
that doesn't have IFS.
A close look at Bronco's set-up reveals
short, stout half-shafts and CV
joints and boots that are well protected
within the front-suspension corner and
knuckles. Durability will be either proven
or disproven by Bronco off-roaders
in short order, but the bet is on the former.
Will Jeep Engineering adopt IFS to
the next generation Wrangler? It took
years for the Jeep owner base to accept
coil springs; a Bronco test drive may
change some minds.
There's also the matter of suspension
articulation, another regularly argued
metric among off-roaders. Live axles
typically offer greater overall articulation
than independent set-ups, when
measured using an RTI (ramp-travel
index). But according to Loeffler,
Bronco offers 17% more front-axle articulation
than Wrangler, and 10% more
in rear. Let that battle begin.
Bronco also beats Wrangler, based
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
FORD

http://www.sae.org/news/2020/07/2021-ford-bronco-reveal

Automotive Engineering - August 2021

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