My Ford Bronco

[FloridaBurgBronco]

I disagree. I believed in Ford too and purchased a 2023 Bronco Wildtrac. I believe that Ford has committed fraud in saying that these vehicles can be flat towed by an RV, and their behavior towards their customers when a transmission is lost as a result of this is criminal as well. We are immediately guilty until proven innocent and they refuse to evaluate or consider any evidence. Many experienced RVers can tell you that Broncos are safe to flat tow is absolutely false based on their personal experience. But Ford discards these customers like yesterday’s trash. Ford’s quality has plummeted as stated in the class action lawsuit filed by new stock owners of Ford filed in August 2023. Ford overvalued their stock because they failed to take into consideration the huge volume of warranty work required because of poor quality workmanship and poor design of their vehicles. I believe this is a big reason they are failing to honor their contractual obligation of warranty work to their customers. I will never buy another Ford vehicle, and if I owned Ford stock, I would sell it immediately. I am so sorry to hear this happed to Floridaburgbronco. I can totally empathize with his experience.

Yep, in 2022, Jim Farley even admitted they had let quality go and it would take several years to get ti back to decent or whatever term he used. I mean they are close to being four years in a row the top manufacturer in terms of recalls. That is not a good distinction. They paid me $6000 and a monthly payment. That was over half of what the repair was and I would still be a Ford customer, but like you, I will not buy a Ford again. In their letter they said they'd honor the existing warranty going forward. Well, it doens't carry a lot of weight to say that and not cover what your own app said was a problem. The more I think about it, them telling I didn't need to be there during the test and that they checked the RCM and not the PCM tells me it was a shady operation and they had no intention of figuring it out. I have a Toyota now, not a Toyota guy, but I like them. They had an issue with the Tundra and LX engines, they didn't decide to replace the ones in question, they replaced/replacing all the engines during that production date line. WOW, that's over board, but at least they care about their name and reputation. I wish Ford would.

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[FloridaBurgBronco]

Before my Bronco, I had a 22 Sierra 5.3. I had a lifter tick and it was 3 pages of user error, bad gas, wrong oil, blah blah. Even though it's a serious problem with GMC/Chevy V8s. People are so brand and model loyal that nothing can be wrong/.

I will admit...sadly to being one of these people from time to time. Not necessarily shouting down people who post but being more brand loyal than I should. Someone recently asked are you a Toyota guy now since I bought a 4Runner. I said now, at least not yet and maybe never, but I do like the 4Runner and that community as much as I liked the Bronco community.

 

[FloridaBurgBronco]

When it comes to the domestics, I've always had the best luck with Fords. Until I got my '19 F150, that is. In the shop three times within the first 20K miles (most involved was a full set of cam phaser solenoids), terrible fit and finish to boot. Pisses me off every time I get behind the wheel and see the warped dash. Pretty sad when the F150 is Ford's cash cow.

My experience with this truck is near the top of the list of reasons I haven't pulled the trigger on a Bronco, I have a hard time rewarding mediocrity. But now that Ford thinks they're worth pricing like a luxury brand, that's also factor too. Ironic, with a Jeep in the stable (glitch free 18 months in).

I had always had good experience with Ford trucks, less so with their cars. I do think the F-150 at least was a good truck, but the newer fuel standards and the pandemic especially really has Ford hitting the crapper quick. A lot of other car makers are having a time too, but Ford is still out front in the disaster column.

 

[freebob]

I glade ford paid you for the damage you caused! Must be nice to blame other for your mistakes and make them pay you!!

 

[Ninjak]

I have no dog in this fight, but I've been driving manuals long enough to know that when you start free-rolling, especially backward, you pop the clutch and get to the emergency brake. With the vehicle off, your brakes are not worth squat.

It does seem you panic, got stuck on restarting the vehicle, and just kept rolling. These other errors, with the electronics, well Ford need to say why they did what they did, but in the future, stop trying to restart and just worry about stopping.

 

[FloridaBurgBronco]

I have no dog in this fight, but I've been driving manuals long enough to know that when you start free-rolling, especially backward, you pop the clutch and get to the emergency brake. With the vehicle off, your brakes are not worth squat.

It does seem you panic, got stuck on restarting the vehicle, and just kept rolling. These other errors, with the electronics, well Ford need to say why they did what they did, but in the future, stop trying to restart and just worry about stopping.

In hindsight, you're not wrong, but I will point out that the malfunction already happened. So yes, my response to the malfunction could have been different. Not sure that brake would have helped much maybe, who knows, but dumping the clutch should have stopped or slowed me quite a bit. I have run through all these What If's. Would I have had Ford check it out after that or shrugged it off. Would it have failed another time at a less than forgiving situation, I don't know.

 

[11811]

In hindsight, you're not wrong, but I will point out that the malfunction already happened. So yes, my response to the malfunction could have been different. Not sure that brake would have helped much maybe, who knows, but dumping the clutch should have stopped or slowed me quite a bit. I have run through all these What If's. Would I have had Ford check it out after that or shrugged it off. Would it have failed another time at a less than forgiving situation, I don't know.

With all the electronic safeguards in cars today, will the Bronco let one restart an engine while the vehicle is in motion? Has anyone ever restarted one while coasting? Honestly don't know...still have a key ignition in my clunker.

 

[FloridaBurgBronco]

With all the electronic safeguards in cars today, will the Bronco let one restart an engine while the vehicle is in motion? Has anyone ever restarted one while coasting? Honestly don't know...still have a key ignition in my clunker.

I don't know for sure and of course now can't check. I believe it could, or it could be that I was always stopped when I did. Several people have said you could not pop the clutch and start it, not sure if that is because of no real key or not. Someone else will have to comment.

 

[Nc211]

Scary and glad nobody got hurt! That's the most important part!

I'm a little confused on one thing though, were you in neutral while trying to get it to restart with the clutch feature, or were you in gear? Could you have put it in gear to help slow the roll? Or are you saying you were in gear and it still didn't matter in slowing down the car?

Also curious, when you settled with Ford, did you not have to consent to a non-disclosure agreement about the incident? Would seem to me that if Ford was willing to pay you for a disputable series of events like this that could ultimately suggest Ford quality issues, they would want to make sure that if you take their money, you keep silent and not blast the internet via YouTube about it. If someone doing research on buying a Bronco for the first time saw your video, it could sway them away from the purchase, costing Ford even more money in potential sale losses. I'm a little surprised you're able to post that video to YouTube to be honest without some degree of backlash from Ford.

Have you shared this with the NTSB too? If it it truly a design flaw that could be fatal to not only the occupants of the vehicle but to innocent bystanders, then that would be right up NTSB's alley to investigate and make sure a government mandated recall isn't needed.

Granted, it's been a long time since I've owned a stick, but I never had a situation where I stalled one out on a hill where I also lost the brakes too. Seems idiotic to have a car do that, where if you stall on a hill, you have no reasonable options to prevent you from free-wheeling into whatever is behind you. How can that possibly be legal? Granted, my days for manual were long before all of these electronic "assists" and drive by wire craziness.

 

[2023bronco]

There are apparently 2 ways to stop a manual Bronco that has stalled from rolling backward: (1) restart it to get power to brakes, or (2) dump the clutch while in a forward gear and pull the e-brake. Only asshats throw shit at a guy in a panic situation from choosing 1 over 2. Y'all have zero experience knowing what YOU would have actually done had it happened to you, because it DIDN'T happen to you.

And on top of that, the Ford engineers plan for this kind of thing. Because...liability. Hell, they built this thing with a hill hold. What other vehicle has that?

So, something is off here. I too would have wanted to know from Ford what exactly prevented the vehicle from restarting in this situation. If there was a specific reason why (car was in gear, rolling backward, whatever) owners should know.

 

[Nc211]

I don't disagree, and certainly not playing Monday morning quarterback either. Anyone who knows how to drive a manual, likely has developed the natural reflexes in general to stop a free wheel roll when a stall happens, which happens to ALL manual drivers at some point or another, just par for the course of driving a "stick". If you give me 20 minutes in nearly any manual car, I'll find how to drive it far smoother than any automatic ever could, and I too can stall one out here and there by mistake.

I do believe the OP that something was wrong there with his Bronco to do that. That thing was 100% free-wheel rolling backwards. Something broke or failed to perform as it should've. That's my opinion anyways.

I made the point of legality / NDA to hopefully make the OP double check that he can post that video without backlash from Ford tied to their settlement agreement. Don't want him to get into trouble in that regards if he didn't notice an NDA clause that may be in there.

 

[Hkak45]

Before my Bronco, I had a 22 Sierra 5.3. I had a lifter tick and it was 3 pages of user error, bad gas, wrong oil, blah blah. Even though it's a serious problem with GMC/Chevy V8s. People are so brand and model loyal that nothing can be wrong/.

My Corvette had more issues than any other car I've owned and Chevy the entire time said it's always the customers fault. Wire harness on floor would throw codes for air bag and some people had airbag deploy randomly from it. Happened since 2004 model up until C8.... Yet customers fault. Don't get me started on keychain fiasco. All brands suck in my opinion and are only there to make money not loyal customers

 

[Valhalla]

I've watched two people roll off road panick stabbing clutch offroad. It looksike inexperienced wheeling to me / mistake. I wasn't driving so I'll never know. I'm pretty low on trust online though.
Could it be a bad vehicle, hell yeah, it's mass produced. I'm glad the OP was okay.

 

[FloridaBurgBronco]

I've watched two people roll off road panick stabbing clutch offroad. It looksike inexperienced wheeling to me / mistake. I wasn't driving so I'll never know. I'm pretty low on trust online though.
Could it be a bad vehicle, hell yeah, it's mass produced. I'm glad the OP was okay.

My reaction could have arguably been better or different, but the initial issue was the malfunction that caused the chain of events. But I get it, I'm the same way, skeptical of much of what I see online, so I can't fault you for your opinion.

 

[Valhalla]

Did Ford pull any data, or did the dealer just deny?

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