My Wife and I Drove, Yesterday, Into the Darkest Depths of Hell, to test drive a Bronco…

[JohnDB]

Automobile sales are down over 13% this year when they were expecting just the reverse...a miss of around 26%.

It's not just the computer chips either. It's the vinyl and plastics and millions of various parts that keep coming up short.

Then like the detachable roof mentioned earlier...screwups in which set of specifications are to be sent or followed are especially frustrating matters of limited materials. Especially when just about every basic material is coming up short lately and basic materials aren't so basic anymore...

When the supplier of plastics for the company making wiring harnesses can't supply.... well you don't get a wiring harness or a car. And it's been going that way for a while.

Gonna last well into next year too.

But if you got one great!

Just hope it doesn't need any warranty work or you have a fender bender...it's going to be a while for parts.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Maybe it's time I upgraded.

I think your picture looks better with this addition…

 

[miketx]

I wonder if Range Rover is mad?

 

[miketx]

I think your picture looks better with this addition…

View attachment 556415

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Still waiting. I don't know whether to be pessimistic or optimistic about the prospects of meeting my dealer's “June-ish” estimate.

I've changed my order, slightly, to omit the trailer towing package which is supposedly one of the constraints slowing down orders that include it.

Here's the new order configuration.

Ford has raised it's MSRP, but my dealer assures me that I'm going to be paying the older, lower MSRP that was in effect at the time I placed my order, about $1,850 less than what Ford's Build&Price shows as the current MSRP for my build.

 

[Muhammed]

…also known as the Bay Area. The destination there, not far from Than Fwanthithco, was a Ford dealership that has an exceptionally good reputation.

There, for the first time, I got to see some new 6th-generation Ford Broncos, and to test drive one. I went into this with very high, possibly unrealistic expectations; a good way top set myself up for disappointment when what I finally get to see doesn't rise to those expectations.

For months, now, I've been convinced that what I want to spend a good chunk of my recent inheritance on is a new vehicle, more suitable to my current profession than the 2016 Dodge Dart that I am currently driving. I've become rather fixated on the new Ford Bronco, and as I look at other possible candidate vehicles, “on paper”, I keep coming back to the Bronco as looking like the best choice for me.

Now, having finally seen several in real life, and having test-driven one of them and examined it in detail, I can say that it has totally, utterly failed to disappoint me. It seems to be everything I expected of it, and better.

I now have my order in, and am waiting at the back of a long line, for a 2022 4-door Bronco Badlands. I wanted the hard top, but the dealer estimate that settling for the soft top would cut my wait time by about half a year, and after my test drive, I've decided I can live with the soft top until a hard top becomes available much later to install in its place. Perhaps, by then, the aftermarket may even come out with something better and/or less expensive than the version that Ford is struggling so much to get to market.

This link leads to the build that I ordered.

View attachment 553009

Boring!

And here I thought this was going to be about Mothman.

 

[flacaltenn]

more suitable to my current profession than the 2016 Dodge Dart that I am currently driving.

Whoooa pardner. I thought the Dodge Dart went out of production LAST century.
But to honor your wise trade -- how about a matching ambassador post to the USMB BADLANDS?

How can you refuse that deal? We have to replace them often tho..

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Whoooa pardner. I thought the Dodge Dart went out of production LAST century.

After the FIAT/Chrysler merger, the name was revived, for a short-lived compact sedan, for the 2013-2016 model years.

Dodge Dart (PF) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bearing the Dodge brand, but really some sort of bizarre Alfa Romeo/FIAT/Mercedes Benz/Hyundai mongrel.

 

[eagle1462010]

Good Luck bro...........I'm driving the wheels off my 2007 Chevy Silverado ext. cab with 8 foot bed

284 k miles and going lol

Except it's red........lol

 

[odanny]

I was wondering how a fork lift operator could afford a new Bronco, and then I saw the word "inheritance".

Enjoy your new ride.

 

[petro]

I'll wave when I pass by, as you're stuck by the side of the road with a dead battery, and no way anywhere nearby to get it recharged.

Well, he could carry a gas generator in the back.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I'm officially pushed now, into the 2023 model year.

Some weeks, my dealer emailed all those of us with pending orders for 2022 Broncos, saying, among other things, that out of over two hundred orders for 2022 Broncos that he still had unfilled, he expected to be able to fill seven of them; with all the rest of us being pushed top the 2023 model year.

My 2023 order is for the same configuation as what I had on order for 2022.

 

[JohnDB]

Wow...
If only we could make cars we might have an automotive industry....

I'm hearing that everyone is quitting their low skill jobs. That parts and components are difficult to come by because of this.
There are a ton of supply chain issues with every manufacturer lately.
Maybe you will get your Bronco this year...maybe.

 

[Blues Man]

I don't know, Man.

I just don't like the look of those new Broncos

I guess I like the classics

 

[Vastator]

…also known as the Bay Area. The destination there, not far from Than Fwanthithco, was a Ford dealership that has an exceptionally good reputation.

There, for the first time, I got to see some new 6th-generation Ford Broncos, and to test drive one. I went into this with very high, possibly unrealistic expectations; a good way top set myself up for disappointment when what I finally get to see doesn't rise to those expectations.

For months, now, I've been convinced that what I want to spend a good chunk of my recent inheritance on is a new vehicle, more suitable to my current profession than the 2016 Dodge Dart that I am currently driving. I've become rather fixated on the new Ford Bronco, and as I look at other possible candidate vehicles, “on paper”, I keep coming back to the Bronco as looking like the best choice for me.

Now, having finally seen several in real life, and having test-driven one of them and examined it in detail, I can say that it has totally, utterly failed to disappoint me. It seems to be everything I expected of it, and better.

I now have my order in, and am waiting at the back of a long line, for a 2022 4-door Bronco Badlands. I wanted the hard top, but the dealer estimate that settling for the soft top would cut my wait time by about half a year, and after my test drive, I've decided I can live with the soft top until a hard top becomes available much later to install in its place. Perhaps, by then, the aftermarket may even come out with something better and/or less expensive than the version that Ford is struggling so much to get to market.

This link leads to the build that I ordered.

View attachment 553009

Is there a V8 option for the new Bronco?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Is there a V8 option for the new Bronco?

No.

Except for the Bronco Raptor, which has a 3.0-liter V6, the only engine choices are the 2.3-liter I4 and the 2.7-liter V6.

 

[B. Kidd]

He'll need a wheelchair lift by the time he gets his Bronco.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

He'll need a wheelchair lift by the time he gets his Bronco.

It's been starting to look that way, hasn't it?

But look what I got in my email, just today. I've been waiting almost a year for this email to finally arrive. I placed my initial order on 15 October 2021, revised it in March to remove the towing package (which is one of the major constraining items), and redid the order just over a week ago to convert the unfilled order for a 2022 Bronco to an order for a 2023 Bronco.

 

[DGS49]

I hope the Bronco is everything you are expecting, and more. Supply chain issues aside, it looks like Ford has designed a vehicle that is head and shoulders better than the old rust bucket that it replaces. Even Scotty Kilmer kinda likes it, and he don't like nothing made in the U.S.

 

[Sunni Man]

Personally, I never buy the first or second year of anything new on the market.
It's going to have teething problems, guaranteed.
I might buy the third year if the first two years issues have been corrected.