I'm in the same boat brother. I want to stick with forest roads with the occaional high clearance roads and be able to protect my undercarriage. I'm heavily considering the asfir over the ARB to save weight and they would only be roughly $200 more for that set up.
I took delivery of my bronco in January of this year, and the first time I started it without the remote start I also noticed the rattle. My bronco had 250 miles on it and is currently getting repaired.
Took delivery of my bronco two weeks ago, and the day I didn’t use the remote start I hopped in and started her up to that cold start rattle. I set up an appointment with dealer to look at it, next availability is in about two weeks.
Any further updates on this issue? I just took delivery of my2023 bronco and I’m getting a ticking on cold start or when the motor has been off for several hours. The sound can be heard for 2-3 seconds then it goes away. I can turn off and start up shortly after and the tick is not present.