My Long-Winded Bronco Sport Story . . . "Four Years Before the Sport"

[Bill G]

I’ve been holding off on this for a while; so guess it’s time to step up and tell my Sport story.

Here’s the tale:
I bought my BSBL fully loaded except for tow hitch, ordered 11/20 and picked up 3/21. It’s Carbonized Gray with matching roof and “steelie” wheels and came with Falken 235’s. So now I’ve had it over four years and 35,000 miles (I know – I’m not in the running for the highest mileage). After owning the car (truck???) for a while, I took out the Ford Premium Extended Warranty for 10years/100,000 miles.

Recalls/repairs/servicing:
a) still unresolved (and never will be) “missing key” phenomenon which only affected a few 21’s. I follow Ford’s work-around when it gets hot, curse the weather, and motor on
b) missing sticker in engine bay, which Ford sent me and I stuck on myself
c) reprogram computers (twice as first time didn’t take) once before I replaced the battery and once after the battery recall became real
d) bad battery @ 29,000 miles and 3.5 years, replaced at my cost by dealer. Reimbursed by the dealer after the recall officially hit
e) the only repair I’ve needed has been for a leaking rear shock @ 30,000 miles and 4 years. After some discussion about warranty coverage the dealer replaced both rear shocks under the extended warranty

I have service performed every 5,000 miles and change all drive train fluids every 30,000 miles. I haven’t suffered from any of the drive train gremlins yet.

Upgrades/”mods”:
a) dash, console organizer trays
b) covers for rear defroster connectors
c) rear bumper cover (which came off after about a year. I decided not to replace it
d) fuel line inside rear hood seal to stiffen it up. I didn’t have hood “bounce” while driving, but it looked like the hood would come off in the dryer at the car wash. This mod helped a lot to get it under control.
e) installed HRG and JCR molle panels along the driver’s side of the console and in the l/r window. They help keep little things handy and out of the way
f) replaced the Falken 235/65r17’s with Firestone 235/70r17 Destination AT2’s @ 34,000 miles. Replaced the 225 “full size spare” with matching Firestone 245/65r17 on “steelie” (245/65 is as large as I can cram into the spare tire compartment)
The Falkens were great, but they were getting close the “wear marks”, so I replaced them before the next road trip. I decided against the new Falkens due to the weight increase, and I wanted the extra side wall and diameter of the 235/70’s.

I love the Sport, it’s the “perfect vehicle” for my wife and me. Driving it reminds me of the Gen1 Broncos and the Bronco II I had. It’s just a kick to drive. The Sport is perfect for trail running and back country sight seeing and it has good road manners for just driving around town on the road. Since I don’t do any hard-core off roading I don’t need a 4x4 skewed more to off road than on.

Even in BL trim I get, what I consider decent mileage, 18-20 in town and 30-32 on the road. I get marginally better mileage using Premium gas; economy mode gives about 1mpg better mileage around town, as does the ASS. I stopped using ASS on short drives in LA area traffic after changing out the battery “just because”.

Is the Sport perfect??? – NO!
My brakes squall in reverse when cold/wet and the BO radio isn’t audiophile quality. I ignore the brakes, but may try the aftermarket bushings when I have a brake job (probably after summer). After four years, the driver’s seat is starting to show some wear, so I may have to recover it down the road. The other seats show no wear at all, so it comes down to my fat butt.

I plan on making my own RDU vent line extender since I have the original “short” design – might even check some of the other vent lines while I’m at it, though I haven’t heard anyone complain about them.

Thanks for staying with me, and I hope somebody got something out of this.

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[CancunBadlands]

Great review, planning on upgrading to the 2025?!

 

[Bill G]

Great review, planning on upgrading to the 2025?!

Unless something catastrophic happens to this car it will probably be my last. Even if I bought a new car the Sport would be only one of a group I’d look into as Ford has removed so many things I really like on my ‘21 — I’d even have trouble getting as excited over a ‘22 or ‘23, though I might be able to find used parts to replace the missing things on one of those years.

 

[Escape2Bronco]

Bill, maybe it’s the color! Mine has been trouble free as well for the past three years but then I’m only at 18k miles.

 

[TherinWhitten]

I just got a 21 Badlands with 48k and I think it's a decade car for me. It's fun, functional, and looks good while doing both.
Although Ford made alot of improvements on the 2025, I don't like them removing all the buttons and dials and the analog clusters. I guess we will see in the future.
I appreciate your honesty and glad you are loving it!

My brakes did that little squeal and made me chuckle a bit. It was very cold that morning. I don't think I will consider that a deal breaker. The truck has some personality.

 

[Brent@ANParts]

The squealing brakes when reversing is super common on the Range Rover Evoque, too! I had a friend with this issue and it seemed like there was no way of solving it. Hopefully the Bronco is different.

Also, great review. I'm impressed with how little you've had to do, maintenance/repair wise.

 

[TheDude]

Funny you mention the brakes. That was the one thing that annoyed me on my 21. It seems to be a non issue on the 25 so looks as if they took care of that issue......knock on wood.

 

[Bill G]

A little add-on to my story . . . don’t know why, and I’m not looking a “gift horse” in the mouth: After a bit of driving to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, my speedo is “dead on” after reading 2mph high since I took delivery of the BS in ’21 and I keep checking computer vs calculated mpg and have found the computer is now only @ 1% off. All this after I changed to the 30” tall tires.

 

[Me3]

Nice post Bill, but what’s the “missing key” phenomenon you’re talking about?

 

[Bill G]

Posted about it long ago. There was a tsb about it from Ford back in ‘21, I believe, and after a year plus of them saying a fix was imminent their solution was to put your fob in the “emergency” tray
when the malfunction occurred.
What happens is that when the car gets hot (high temps and vehicle sitting, parked, in the sun) either when you attempt start or right after starting you get a message that the key is missing. If the message appears on trying to start the car won’t start until you place the fob in the tray next to the wireless charger. It’s never been more than a nuisance, and probably only affected those of us in the southwest and maybe Florida. After four years it‘s just second nature to throw the fob in the tray when it‘s hot.
According to Ford only a small number of 2021 BS’s were affected, the problem being the fob communicating with one of the computers, so I figure the cost of `fixing the computer was more than Ford figured it was worth.

 

[Me3]

That must have been before I found this place. I certainly appreciate knowing this little tidbit of info, living here in a desert. Thanks from us newer folks!

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