Ford Bronco 2021 Interior: If you were an automaker designing, envisioning, and manufacturing a competitor to the venerable Jeep Wrangler, you might believe that improving the cabin would be an easy win. After all, a Jeep Wrangler was made to be washed down with a garden hose.
Functional? Absolutely. But pleasant? Perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when compared to other auto interiors, the Jeep’s leaves a lot to be desired. So, does the all-new 2021 Ford Bronco 4×4 S.U.V. simply have a nicer cabin than its major competitor?
Not quite, as some aspects of the new Bronco’s interior are excellent, while others want improvement, as one tries to make a round thing into a rectangle. Continue reading to learn what we discovered inside a four-door Outer Banks model.
The Positive ford bronco 2021 interior
The new Bronco’s cabin is designed around Ford’s latest Sync-powered 12.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system, which is available as an option. The screen is wide, legible, responsive, and even well-organized.
Although the F-150 has a similar screen, we prefer the way the Bronco’s is programmed. The right third of the dashboard shows drivetrain information, whereas the pickup has a lot of white space. Perhaps most importantly,
Apple CarPlay works flawlessly. We’ll assume (and accept all the risks it involves) that Android Auto works similarly. We also appreciate Ford’s decision to leave the touchscreen music and climate setting off. Ford recognizes that primary controls should not be digital.
The G.O.A.T. Modes control knob is a nice touch as well. It’s big and thick, and it fits perfectly inside the Bronco. In addition to Mud/Ruts, Sand, and Rock, the G.O.A.T. Modes—which stands for Go Over Any Terrain—controller also engages Sport and Eco, though it’s unlikely you’ll use the latter. The off-road cruise control button and the buttons for 2-HI, 4-HI, and 4-LO are located in the center of the knob.
The Bronco does employ electronics to engage the low gears, which isn’t as gratifying or reassuring as the Jeep Wrangler’s lever. Ford’s method, on the other hand, has packing advantages. For example, by placing the transfer case controls on the mode knob, the Bronco may offer a wireless phone charger, something the Wrangler does not have. The attractive blue trim pieces atop the dash, around the waistrails, and on the seats are another feature we enjoy about the Outer Banks cabin. It appears to be well-made.
The Bed ford bronco 2021 interior
We weren’t expecting to detect a sense of cost-cutting within the Bronco’s cabin. When you open the door, you get a cheap sense. Even a fairly hard pull causes the window glass to wiggle back and force because Ford decided to go with frameless doors. Only a boing boing boing sound effect is missing. It’s extremely unsettling.
Poking around after you’re seated reveals that the grained and gloss components aren’t even close to matching, meaning that one area of the interior is shiny and smooth, while the other is coarse and drab. Examine the intersection of the black plastic part that houses the cup holders and the transmission tunnel. The rent is quite affordable. Also, for a Built Ford Tough S.U.V., the top and bottom dash components appear to be somewhat weak.
There are also grab handles to consider. All three wiggle a little, and two of them are in rather strange places, but the one near the passenger’s left knee can be moved quite a bit in each way with just one finger. The big grab handle that spans across and over the glovebox is so securely fastened within the Jeep Wrangler that it feels like you could use it to pull another Wrangler. Then there’s the Bronco’s hardtop roof, which can be removed.
We know the Bronco was delayed due to roof supplier concerns and is still being delayed for certain consumers who put money down on reservations. (Even after receiving their Broncos, some customers are reporting issues.) We’d keep the delay in place if we were in charge of the Bronco.
The cabin becomes noisy at 50 mph, as a lot of road noise suddenly intrudes. There’s so much wind noise in the cabin at 70 mph that it sounds like the roof is coming apart. Do you want to make a phone call at 80 miles per hour? Unless you enjoy shrieking “Wait, what?” every third phrase, this isn’t going to happen. And our Bronco came with the Sound Deadening Headliner as an option. We can’t imagine how loud and borderline awful things would be without it.
The You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me
You can get used to most of the above, but we think we’d still despise the primary display after years of ownership. We found the tachometer to be particularly irritating at first appearance and an object of ridicule after a week in the S.U.V., To begin with, around, the analog tach is perfectly acceptable. Nothing! It’s what we call established technology.
There’s no need to recreate the wheel. Second, the tachometer on the Bronco resembles the fuel gauge, which is perplexing. Redline is tough to determine; we’re still unsure even after a few hundred miles. Maybe 5,100 revolutions per minute? What are the chances? How would they be able to tell? Let’s hope this is one of the first things to alter when the midcycle update happens.
The Rest ford bronco 2021 interior
The rear seat is largely comfy, which is unusual for a car of this type. Do you think a 6-foot-tall adult would wish to travel 1,000 miles back in time? No, but a hundred-mile round journey appears to be feasible. Ford made a big thing about how much more open the Bronco feels with the roof panels gone, especially for back seat occupants who won’t have to look at a bar that runs from B-pillar to B-pillar like on the Wrangler.
Perhaps, but if you’re in the back of a Bronco with a roof rack, the cross bar is exactly where the Halo view is blocked, basically cancelling it out. However, that last component is unlikely to be an issue because the roof rack prevents the rear roof panels from being removed. Strange, but real!
The load area is spacious and, more importantly, greater than that of the Jeep Wrangler. On paper, at least. The Bronco, on the other hand, has wide plastic sidewalls on both sides of the cargo space, something the Wrangler lacks. That means you can cram irregularly shaped and lightly packed objects into crannies in the Jeep’s back that aren’t available in the Ford. Furthermore, Ford elected to cover the tie-downs of the Bronco with a rubber mat. Why not cut holes in the rubber carpet-protecting mat to allow you to fasten cargo? I have no idea.
So, the new Bronco does some things well and does some things poorly, and there’s clearly space for development. What’s worth noting is that Ford’s Wrangler fighter did a remarkably competent job right out of the gate. The good news is that competition only improves vehicles, and we expect Ford and Jeep will compete to improve their tough off-roaders even further. The future appears to be promising!
Also Read:
