TheMalamute

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JamesT

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I count 15 reviews delivered this morning
https://duckduckgo.com/?q="bronco+sport"&t=fpas&df=d&iar=news&ia=news

its a bit overwhelming! ?

generally very positive. About all levels, with good comments about the 1.5L. And even relative to big Bronco for many use cases.

yes, I expect the BL+BL is overkill for me but it is what I’m sticking with because...
 

Cyclone Cowboy

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Did not learn too much more from the reviews, but there were a few yellow alerts if you read carefully, past the PR stuff. Most of what the reviewers were saying is already known. I was somewhat concerned about the "constant corrections needed" when driving at highway speeds." Something to be determined. If so, long drives would be very fatiguing.

The big red alert...... "Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode. I might expect this if ambient temperatures were very high, but it's a perfect 82 degrees Fahrenheit." This potential issue will need to be resolved. No vehicle should overheat in 82 degree weather. I do a lot of driving n 110+ degree weather and in high humidity / heat conditions. "Limp Mode" with a severe storm, dust storm or tornado approaching would be a serious problem -- especially since we always need to keep the engine running. Is there an issue here with the radiator or cooling system design?
 
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Timsvtgen1

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Did not learn too much more from the reviews, but there were a few yellow alerts if you read carefully, past the PR stuff. Most of what the reviewers were saying is already known. I was somewhat concerned about the "constant corrections needed" when driving at highway speeds." Something to be determined. If so, long drives would be very fatiguing.

The big red alert...... "Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode. I might expect this if ambient temperatures were very high, but it's a perfect 82 degrees Fahrenheit." This potential issue will need to be resolved. No vehicle should overheat in 82 degree weather. I do a lot of driving n 110+ degree weather and in high humidity / heat conditions. "Limp Mode" with a severe storm, dust storm or tornado approaching would be a serious problem -- especially since we always need to keep the engine running. Is there an issue here with the radiator or cooling system design?
The overheating is likely the PTU and not the engine. Its overheating is a major issue w/ ptu’s on most every vehicle (not making excuses here) . The BL and FE have an aux cooler for the PTU, the others Base BB OB as far as I know do NOT. As there were diffrent models there, I’m curious as to which model this occurred on, because if it was the BL, that’s not great.
 

GT1

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Did not learn too much more from the reviews, but there were a few yellow alerts if you read carefully, past the PR stuff. Most of what the reviewers were saying is already known. I was somewhat concerned about the "constant corrections needed" when driving at highway speeds." Something to be determined. If so, long drives would be very fatiguing.

The big red alert...... "Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode. I might expect this if ambient temperatures were very high, but it's a perfect 82 degrees Fahrenheit." This potential issue will need to be resolved. No vehicle should overheat in 82 degree weather. I do a lot of driving n 110+ degree weather and in high humidity / heat conditions. "Limp Mode" with a severe storm, dust storm or tornado approaching would be a serious problem -- especially since we always need to keep the engine running. Is there an issue here with the radiator or cooling system design?
Read the manual description on when sand mode is appropriate and when it is not. I think it's early to worry about overheating when we don't know for sure what mode it was in or exactly what overheating issue was. It could easily been that the rear diff was in lock mode and that was over heat issue. More appropriate to ask this of reviewer - in my experience they are more than happy to discuss with people and this avoids speculation.
 

Cabezone

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Yeah these are more previews and full on reviews they didn't really get much time with the vehicles. However now that there are some for test drives that dealerships you're going to get a lot more on road reviews coming up I'm guessing.
 

Timsvtgen1

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Definitely, It will be nice when the press fleet gets dispersed out for extended testing and reviews . TFL hopefully will get one seeing Ford gave them an F-150 recently; They typically find the kinks if any are present.
 


Cyclone Cowboy

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I would not take delivery until February, so I have a lot of time to decide. Someone really needs to do a torture test, not the controlled reviews.
 

SportWest

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I was somewhat concerned about the "constant corrections needed" when driving at highway speeds." Something to be determined. If so, long drives would be very fatiguing.
Indeed, and if this is an issue we'll see it percolate into forums and longer YouTube reviews. This isn't the type of problem that will be uncovered with driving the dealership demo around the block stuff out right now. Agreed: waiting for the serious stress tests.
 

JamesT

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Did not learn too much more from the reviews, but there were a few yellow alerts if you read carefully, past the PR stuff. Most of what the reviewers were saying is already known. I was somewhat concerned about the "constant corrections needed" when driving at highway speeds." Something to be determined. If so, long drives would be very fatiguing.

The big red alert...... "Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode. I might expect this if ambient temperatures were very high, but it's a perfect 82 degrees Fahrenheit." This potential issue will need to be resolved. No vehicle should overheat in 82 degree weather. I do a lot of driving n 110+ degree weather and in high humidity / heat conditions. "Limp Mode" with a severe storm, dust storm or tornado approaching would be a serious problem -- especially since we always need to keep the engine running. Is there an issue here with the radiator or cooling system design?
I think the overheating was Emme Hall’s review. It happened when she was racing around in dunes using sand mode in a first edition.
 

Molson

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Yes, good points. Thanks...... but still needs to be confirmed either way.

The review: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2021-ford-bronco-sport-preview/#comments

Unfortunately, there are no options for comments or questions.
"The Sport has an available twin-clutch rear drive unit derived from the one in the Focus RS hot hatch. This can not only torque-vector power between the rear wheels, sending as much as 100% of the thrust to the side with the traction, but it can also lock the rear differential completely. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode."

Given the context I believe what overheated was the gearbox that lock the rear diff while in sand mode. I read in another review from Motor Trend that it will do that if you leave the rear diff locked too long. "The hardcore Rock Crawl mode was employed only as needed; same with the rear locker. As it's not a true mechanical locking differential, the latter will overheat if you leave it on constantly and the computer will reduce engine power to cool it, but you don't need it most of the time, anyway. "
 

Cyclone Cowboy

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"The Sport has an available twin-clutch rear drive unit derived from the one in the Focus RS hot hatch. This can not only torque-vector power between the rear wheels, sending as much as 100% of the thrust to the side with the traction, but it can also lock the rear differential completely. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of hooning around in the sand, my Bronco Sport overheats and goes into limp-home mode."

Given the context I believe what overheated was the gearbox that lock the rear diff while in sand mode. I read in another review from Motor Trend that it will do that if you leave the rear diff locked too long. "The hardcore Rock Crawl mode was employed only as needed; same with the rear locker. As it's not a true mechanical locking differential, the latter will overheat if you leave it on constantly and the computer will reduce engine power to cool it, but you don't need it most of the time, anyway. "
True, but we don't know if the overheating was the PTU or the issue as you described. I suspect it was as you noted as it would be hard to believe a PTU overheated in 82 degree temps. It would be very unlikely I would be doing that kind of driving regardless. I'm sure they did testing in hot Arizona-type conditions.
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