2021 Bronco Base DIED WHILE DRIVING today

[JT58Bronc]

Wow, very interesting. 3 out of the 4 vehicles I own have mechanical Emergency/parking brakes and now I am glad that they do. I for one do not like Electrical E brakes. Don't like them on the Bronco and I had them on my previous VW's- 2019 Jetta and 2023 GTI. On the GTI the parking brake automatically engaged when the engine shut off. I don't apply E brakes unless vehicle is parked on a hill. I often forgot to disengage it and stalled the car when taking off. I had to purposely hold two switches down to by pass the brake activating- frustrating. At least the Bronco's does not engage unless you activate it.

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[LanceIto]

You would think the Ford engineers would have made that parking brake usable or even activated in loss of electronics. Isolated system? It would be nice to hear from @Ford Motor Company

From O&M Manual…

Releasing the Electric Parking Brake if the Vehicle Battery is Running Out of Charge

Connect a booster battery to the vehicle battery to release the electric parking brake if the vehicle battery is running out of charge. See Jump Starting the Vehicle.

Does this indicate that the parking brake is on a isolated leg from the rest of the computer system????

 

[Imaginary Friend]

A good friend of mine in college (late 90's) had this pretty little girlfriend who drove a mid-80's (?) Nissan pickup. Always thought it was kind've a cool truck. Then one day I rode in it with her and discovered it had no power anything. She was manhandling the steering and firmly braking.

Then one day he drove it on set (I was a film major) and I had to move it. Dang! It was very hard to steer especially. She may have been tiny, but she could drive a truck.

When I learned to drive, my family had an early '70s Dodge 3/4-ton (360 V8) in the fleet that had no power steering or brakes, and a 4-speed with the granny low. Talk about truly learning to drive. But I got pretty good at it and could even parallel park the beast.

Similar experience to my Jeeps (TJ JK JL). Worst was the JK which would shut down completely randomly for about 5 seconds. Everything electronic would just blip off. Happened perhaps 5 or 6 times and was never replicated. TJ would shut down all electronics and I was able to figure out that the entire dashboard was becoming unplugged. I knew it for certain when the entire dashboard came down into my lap. The JL 'only' did it 2 or three times in 5 years. There would be a loud audible "POP" through the stereo and all electronics would blip off and then back on and reset everything Almost as if there was a static discharge. Was never replicated nor serviced.

Crazy, never seen anything like that in my five Wranglers, TJ, JK, and JL.

 

[uncledoodoo]

When I learned to drive, my family had an early '70s Dodge 3/4-ton (360 V8) in the fleet that had no power steering or brakes, and a 4-speed with the granny low. Talk about truly learning to drive. But I got pretty good at it and could even parallel park the beast.



Crazy, never seen anything like that in my five Wranglers, TJ, JK, and JL.

My XJ had the issue, turned out to be old battery cables shorting out. Replaced them with an upgraded kit and never an issue again. I think it's pretty common as they sell a sht-ton of those cables.

 

[murphtron]

Wow, very interesting. 3 out of the 4 vehicles I own have mechanical Emergency/parking brakes and now I am glad that they do. I for one do not like Electrical E brakes. Don't like them on the Bronco and I had them on my previous VW's- 2019 Jetta and 2023 GTI. On the GTI the parking brake automatically engaged when the engine shut off. I don't apply E brakes unless vehicle is parked on a hill. I often forgot to disengage it and stalled the car when taking off. I had to purposely hold two switches down to by pass the brake activating- frustrating. At least the Bronco's does not engage unless you activate it.

Yeah in my other three vehicles they all have cable actuated parking brakes. Including my 2018 GTI. I actually looked up the GTI to confirm (I mean it feels like a cable brake!) and it is. Interesting that some 2023 GTIs have cable parking brakes. The 2023 GTI R does not.

I’m going to try to apply the Bronco e-brake while driving and see how it behaves, per the Ford instructions posted above. But I remain unconvinced it has much value in an emergency. And despite what one person claims, the e-brake switch handle is in a poor location.

And there are numerous reports on B6G of phantom e-brake error messages displayed on the dash that leave no trace when pulling codes. That’s the one negative experience I’ve had in 14k miles.

 

[Ducati1098]

From O&M Manual…

Releasing the Electric Parking Brake if the Vehicle Battery is Running Out of Charge

Connect a booster battery to the vehicle battery to release the electric parking brake if the vehicle battery is running out of charge. See Jump Starting the Vehicle.

Does this indicate that the parking brake is on a isolated leg from the rest of the computer system????

The ABS module controls the parking brake motors. So if that is down or not working, then they wont apply/release.

 

[Rednek]

I had a simular issue on my 21 2.3l a/t,was pulling my new teardrop trailer home and at highway speeds a deer jumped out from ditch applied brakes and no assist at all! Turned out it was a bad vaccuum line to engine.the 2.7 is a different beast as it has a electronic booster.

 

[BeerForMyHorses]

@Ford Motor Company would you like to address this for everyone?

 

[23_Badlands]

Lotsa discussion about losing this, losing that when electrical/computer systems go haywire.

I believe this is where 7sp owners have a distinct advantage. There's nothing in the Bronco (that I'm aware of) that can stop you from pushing the clutch pedal and moving the gear shift. You may not be able to emergency stop per se, but you can certainly slam-dunk it into 1st or 2nd to slow things down pretty quickly.

 

[2023bronco]

Just prior to entering the intersection I had no choice but to slam the car into park and that didn’t work. It just made the car jerk a bit but we kept moving forward.

I'll bet your parking pawl is now broken. Make sure the dealership knows.

Edit: FWIW, you probably would've been better off trying to get it into the lowest gear (plus the parking brake).

 

[zuke]

Drifted Down my driveway with the ignition off tonight for science..... In a manual at least, the parking brake works as described in the owner's manual, steering and brakes work, but require a lot of effort, as expected.

I still had battery power though, so I don't know if the parking brake would work in all situations, but the hydraulic brakes and steering are going to work with no power at all, you just don't get any assist.

 

[murphtron]

Drifted Down my driveway with the ignition off tonight for science..... In a manual at least, the parking brake works as described in the owner's manual, steering and brakes work, but require a lot of effort, as expected.

I still had battery power though, so I don't know if the parking brake would work in all situations, but the hydraulic brakes and steering are going to work with no power at all, you just don't get any assist.

I feel for the OP. Just to be clear. I’m not blaming him/her for what happened. And I’m sure it was harrowing. This thread has veered away from their situation (partly because of my rant against e-brakes). And I want to know what happened and what we can all learn from the situation. And clearly it’s not the first report of the Bronco losing power unexpectedly.

To learn more about the e-brake, I also tried to engage the e-brake while moving as, someone posted above, with the instructions directly from Ford. Pull and hold the e-brake handle while moving to engage the e-brake. It worked as described. I was moving about 20mph down the street and pulled & held it. The e-brake engaged and I could feel it slowing the vehicle. A warning light and sound went off while I was holding it. Then when I let go the warnings stopped. And the e-brake disengaged.

Not exactly a definitive test. But it provided more insight into how the e-brake works and could possibly help. Not sure how it works at higher speeds as I didn’t test that.

 

[Willub]

I'll bet your parking pawl is now broken. Make sure the dealership knows.

Edit: FWIW, you probably would've been better off trying to get it into the lowest gear (plus the parking brake).

It would roll away while in “park”. They’d figure it out As far as I know, autos don’t actually go in to “park” while at speed. That would be silly. The shifter will go in to “park”, but the pawl isn’t going to engage.

 

[VoltageDrop]

I have mixed feelings about this. Glad it’s there if I need it…not super excited that my face has to be down near the steering wheel in order to Pull and Hold to stop. I can imagine serious facial injury by the airbag if I have a frontal impact while holding.

This, and fumbling around for some flimsy plastic flap while steering around traffic is not a recipe for success. It'd be pretty awesome to move the engine start button and put an old school Toyota parking brake that pulls straight out of the dash right where that button was.

All this talk losing this, losing that when electrical/computer systems go haywire.

I believe this is where 7sp owners have a distinct advantage. There's nothing in the Bronco (that I'm aware of) that can stop you from pushing the clutch pedal and moving the gear shift. You may not be able to emergency stop per se, but you can certainly slam-dunk it into 1st or 2nd to slow things down pretty quickly.

It didn't help the guy who rolled backwards down the trail into a tree. Luckily, he was in the woods and not in Moab or he might've made the newspaper. It's easy to say what one should do in a panic situation but an ideal design would allow the average person to slow the vehicle without power assist by putting some muscle into the brake pedal.

Now I'm wondering what kind of failure modes might exist for the electric booster because somebody posted a couple years ago there's not a physical link from the pedal to the master cylinder so it might be worth pulling the fuse to see how hard braking becomes.

 

[JimL]

I find it curious that in the “two” incidents being cited here, in neither case did the drivers even attempt to use the e-brake. And then the B6G crowd piles on claiming e-brakes are worthless. I use my e-brake every single time I park my Bronco (I have a 7MT). The e-brake is in an easy reach spot in an emergency and activate as fast as a manually operated brake would.

I personally fail to understand the hate toward e-brakes, and I don’t understand why people refuse to use them.

I was test-driving a new Fusion once when it ran out of gas on a highway off-ramp, at speed. I was able to use a combination of existing momentum and gradually using the hand brake (holding in the button with my thumb so the ratchet wouldn't catch) to feather off speed. I was able to get it into a parking lot just 1/4 mile from the dealership, into a parking spot. Yeah it was hard to steer, esp with one hand while I worked the brake with the other. That salesman was damned impressed and honestly so was I. Hand E-brake levers are the best

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