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Ford Bronco vs. Jeep Wrangler 4xe: Head-to-Head Comparison

Mar 18, 2024
TRAVIS LANGNESS: The Jeep Wrangler has been the king of off-roading for a long time, and for good reason. He can go places other vehicles can't even dream of, and he does so in a relentless quest to be really good off-road while sacrificing some comfort on the road, no matter what Jeep Wrangler owners tell you. Uncomfortable, noisy? I'll show you how uncomfortable and loud it is. I will remove the doors and throw them into the river forever. (SLOW MOTION) In a river forever. But no reign as off-road king can last forever, and that's where the Ford Bronco comes into play.
ford bronco vs jeep wrangler 4xe head to head comparison
This goes straight to the heart of the Jeep Wrangler. It comes in 2- and 4-door configurations like the Wrangler, soft-top and hardtop configurations like the Wrangler. These two compete to see which is the best SUV for you and which will take all your off-road money. Speaking of cash, if you want a cash offer on your car today, visit edmunds.com/sellmycar. King of transition. I bet you didn't see that coming. Aside from trophy trucks, things like the RAM TRX and the Ford F-150 Raptor, the Bronco, and the Wrangler are the best off-roaders you can buy today.
ford bronco vs jeep wrangler 4xe head to head comparison

More Interesting Facts About,

ford bronco vs jeep wrangler 4xe head to head comparison...

And because? Well, just like pickup trucks, they are built with body on frame. They have four-wheel drive, knobby tires, excellent approach and departure angles, locking differentials, and tons of articulation. The list goes on and on. But these things will go places where nothing else will go. f And more than just getting to those difficult places or climbing steep rocky hills, we want to know what they are like on their way there. They are comfortable? Do they absorb shocks? But then what are they like when they get there? What is the joint like? How easy is it to go from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive?
ford bronco vs jeep wrangler 4xe head to head comparison
Etcetera etcetera. And we have tests for all of those things, including magnification factor. These SUVs are not cheap. Sure, the Bronco and Wrangler start at under $30,000, or at least that's what the brochures tell you, but that's before you include destination, which is part of the vehicles' price, and before you choose them as an option for be able to take on any off-road obstacle you encounter. The Bronco we present is our first long-term edition. We keep it in our fleet for a year and test it. If you haven't seen our video on that, go a

head

and click the link to watch it, but it's basically the most expensive Bronco you can get right now, aside from the Raptor, which isn't available yet.
ford bronco vs jeep wrangler 4xe head to head comparison
So to compete with it, we had to get a pretty well-equipped Wrangler, which is what we have. We have the Wrangler Rubicon 4XE, which is the Rubicon version. That's basically the most af

ford

able version of the Wrangler, and the 4XE means it's a plug-in hybrid. Now, we could have released the Extreme Recon with the 3.92 V8, but we thought that was overkill. Plus, if you consider that the price of this particular Wrangler is around $68,000 with the one-touch convertible top, take away that $4,000 option, you have a $64,000 truck, much closer to what the First Edition Bronco It is showing off with its Price of $62,000.
Therefore, the first of the off-road tests of these vehicles is the world famous ziggurat of integrity. We'll take these two trucks to the ziggurat and see how far they go before we lift a tire. Basically, it's an articulation test and I'll give you the best chance you get. I'm going to disengage the sway bars, engage the lockouts, 4WD low, see how high it can go before the rear tire leaves the ground. And it may not leave the ground at all. And in that case, it would be a success for both the Wrangler and the Bronco. But Wrangler first.
Alright, sway bar disengaged, front and rear lockers engaged, low four, up, easy. Alright, now we see the 5 foot 8 man get out of the car that is 12 feet off the ground. Oh, that was fun. So, as expected, Wrangler went all the way. The rear wheel is still on the ground. That's a victory over the ziggurat. You can see all the fun hardware underneath here, the body-on-frame construction we talked about, the lockers. There is not much difference with the 4XE below. And that's what makes it great: It's a plug-in hybrid that's also still a Wrangler. Now I have to go back in, which is going to suck.
Does anyone have a stool, guys? No? This is where you need flexibility. The technique is, please don't die. Alright, now let's get to the Bronco. I have the front and rear locks activated, the stabilizer bar disconnected, four lows, the same possibilities as the Wrangler. Look how well he does it. I feel the rear wheel lift up. I will take a look. So we have found a weak point for the Bronco. And when I get out of there, you see even more that the rear wheel is not touching the ground, which means you're going to lose traction.
So that's a point in the Wrangler's favor because it will maintain traction longer. Now this is bigger, wider. It has taller tires so I thought it would work better. In this case, I would make a significant mistake if I went off the road. At 35, it improves comfort and improves traction a little. But I'm actually pretty surprised the Bronco didn't get there without keeping all four wheels on the ground. And yes, I can see all the air below. Now, I could go there, but the point I'm trying to make here is which one has better articulation. And in this case, it's clearly the Wrangler.
Now we are going to do the climb up the hill "less famous than the ziggurat but still world famous". This one really caught out a couple of vehicles in the past where it was very centered and we couldn't make it all the way to the end. But I don't think the Wrangler and Bronco are going to have any problems with that. I'm going to start at four high. I'm not going to open the lockers and see how far I can go uphill. If there's a problem, if I lose traction, if I can't make a joint movement, then I'll start changing the settings.
Okay, pretty simple. Here we go. Hill climb. Now, I try to pick the same line every time, roughly in the center, trying my best not to get stuck. I don't want to give myself a problem that I have to solve later. I'm still in four high, still in four high, and the electric motor on this thing is really good at just pulling things. I don't think I'll even need to take four casualties. Hey, here we go. Big, big ditch. Still at four high, though I'll make it. My center high a little bit, oh, a little bit of slide, slide.
It stayed four high. I definitely spit up some dirt, but I made it to the top. Well that was fun. I had to send it a little bit. It got a little dirty inside the cabin because the window was open, but I had a good time. It was relatively easy and I stayed on four the entire time. Let's try it with the Bronco. Very good, let's go along the same line. In fact, I can see where the Wrangler's tire tracks were just now. I'm still four high in the Bronco. I want to treat it the same way, see if you can recover it without help from the systems.
The stabilizer bars are still attached. Oh, four tall doesn't want to do it in the Bronco. I may have to switch to four basses. Oh, I don't want to stay stuck. Okay, so I'm going to go into low four. I have to go into neutral for that. Well, we've changed to four basses. That's really interesting. I didn't want to go four high. I wonder if... Well, no, now I'm going to dig a hole, so I have to get out of there, give it a little better chance. I think what I'm going to do is activate the front locker.
It looks like the left side of that one is... remember, this is the same line as the Wrangler. Maybe it also has to do with the 35. Well, lockers, lockers, that was enough. The front locker did. He got me out of that mess. But now I'm in a line that I don't like. I dove into a hole. This isn't as easy for the Bronco as it was for the Wrangler. The Wrangler just rode these things. So I'll do the back lockers as well. Four low lockers, front and rear, hooked, exactly in the same line as the Wrangler.
Now it feels a little easier. That was too much for the Bronco without the lockers, which means, man, you think you know a truck and you take it on some tough stuff. Now, I probably could have left it in the upper room and then just opened the lockers. But try one thing. Then try the next one. And you're uphill. That wasn't as easy as I expected. It was much more difficult. I had to shoot four bass, which didn't work. I then had to activate the front locker, which led me to pass one of the sets of hills, and then I had to activate the back locker to pass another of the sets of hills.
And finding the buttons was easy on the dash, but it's much easier to do so in the Wrangler than in a Bronco. Alright, then let's do a round trip on land. It's essentially a little course that we've designed here with some cones, and we've done it before with the Ford Raptor. The best time I could get was about 30 seconds. Oh boy. Come on, Raptor. Do not disappoint me. 37s. Oops. Now I'm going to do it in the Wrangler, four high, to see how fast I can do it. And I hope it goes well for me. Count on me.
JUAN: 3, 2, 1, come on. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Oh, wow. I don't want to get too dirty. Ah, there we go. Now this is much stricter. I thought I wasn't going to... oh, can I do it? No, I have to go back. Oh, that's going to take a long time. Well, the Bronco has turn assist on trails, so it will do better there. Wow, this thing bounces. Okay, okay, okay, there's too much bounce there. Too much bounce. Oh boy. A little faster and on the other side of the line. Wow, that's fun. Increase your heart rate quite a bit. What was my time, John?
JOHN: 30.56 seconds. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Oh, man. That's about a second off the Raptor's pace. That's really good. Alright, now we're at the Bronco. We set a time of about 31 seconds with the Wrangler and I'm going to try to do better with the Bronco. It was much better than two of the other Fords we tested. This one, however, has a trick up its sleeve that I can use on the other end and I'm very excited about it. Four up, get it going. Come on. JOHN: Okay, enter 3, 2, 1, go a

head

. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Would it be... would it be... a little loss of traction?
This thing is so powerful. Very good, and trail turn assist. Keep that inside wheel going and I won't have the 3 point turn. That's a big difference. That'll probably save me about three seconds. Man, this part gets really tricky, and then I speed up at the end, cross the line. That trail turning assist is really cool. The inner wheel breaks and I can make a very tight U-turn. And it does it at a pretty good speed. He's doing it again. That's funny. What time was it, Juan? JOHN: 25:32. TRAVIS LANGNESS: Wow, wow. The fact that you don't have to do a 3 point turn really cuts down on time.
Let's talk about the interior of the Jeep versus the interior of the Bronco, and we'll go with the Jeep first, obviously, because that's the one I'm sitting in. Now, this screen, I think it's about 8.4 inches. , screen, was one of our favorites when it debuted and honestly, it's still one of my favorites. I really enjoy the user functionality of this, how quickly it responds to input and it's a really attractive display. Plus, the forward-facing camera gives you a great view, straight ahead if you're traversing difficult rocky areas. Then there's the button layout, pretty good except for the fact that the AUX controls, for example if you connect a winch or exterior lights, are buried behind it, the gear selector.
The cupholder is a reasonable size and a large center console that has two separate openings, one for smaller items on top. Not very good in terms of interior storage. The doors have nets because, well, they're designed to come off, so why design them with cup holders? And they want to give it more interior space. The Jeep is actually quite narrow compared to the Bronco, so there isn't much room. You are quite close to the person next to you when you are sitting in front. Otherwise, there's not much to explore here. It's a reasonably nice interior. It's not what you'd expect from a standard SUV in the $60,000 to $70,000 price range, but I like it.
So now let's take a look inside the Bronco and comparatively, the first thing that stands out about the Wrangler is this huge 12-inch screen. And this may be here thanks to the way Ford has organized the buttons. These are obviously much smaller buttons than the ones you get on the Wrangler, so depending on your preferences, you may like one or the other. I don't think they are too small to operate. There's a good duplication of functions here on the buttons and touchscreen. And then some of the off-road controls, for example the locking front rear differentials, are up here.
And while the Wrangler has the gear selector right in front of the AUX controls, Ford has decided to place the AUX controlshere. You have the Upfitter switches and it's like being on a plane. That's so cool. I much prefer that. It just makes me a little nervous. And then you also get additional space in the center console. So in the Wrangler, there's some kind of weird slot under the controls that isn't locked on either side, so if you put your smartphone in there, it'll just slide to one side or the other. Here, you get wireless smartphone charging, USB ports in the front, space for similarly sized cupholders, and a similarly sized center console.
So, a big, deep center console, a lot of water bottles fit in there. Another benefit you get in the Bronco is the wider seats. Because there is a larger interior, you can fit larger seats here, and I, as a larger human being, like these seats better for road trips. Now, there is a drawback inside the Bronco. Like the Wrangler, it has nets on the doors instead of actual physical supports because they know you're going to open and close the doors or at least they think you could, and that's why they put nets. But on the Bronco, the nets only reach half the distance from the door.
In the Wrangler, they go the full distance, so you get less net bang for your buck. Oh, and one last thing: the Ford's cameras are excellent. The 360-degree camera is super high resolution, and when it's backed by such a large screen, when you have the camera facing forward and rearward, which you also have in the Jeep, but when you have them here in such a Big screen, it's easier to see. Plus, you can put this in Low mode and go full speed ahead with a working front camera. It's a pretty cool feature. The Rubicon, the four-door one there, has 31 cubes of cargo space behind the rear seats and 72 cubes when they're folded down.
The Bronco, respectively, has 35 and 83 cubes, so it has more cargo space than you'd expect from a slightly larger vehicle. And I'd love to show you that cargo space, but it's broken. This is our long-term Bronco. We keep it in our fleet for a year and test it. We bought this for testing and sometimes that includes when something breaks. Honestly, we've tried everything. We're taking it to a Ford dealership to get it fixed next week, but trust me on this one. It has more cargo space. We know what they are both off-road, but let's talk about them on the road just for a brief moment.
We've already delved into both cars and how these trucks should be driven. So if you want to check them out, check out the links in the description below. But briefly, I'll talk about how this vehicle, the Bronco, has rack and pinion steering and the Wrangler has recirculating ball steering, which means the steering is very light, very vague, and when you're on Highway 65, A 112 kilometers per hour moves a lot. If you have a large load in the back or are towing something, the situation gets exponentially worse. The only thing I can compare a modern Wrangler to in terms of driving dynamics is my old heavy duty van.
It feels like its nose is pointed in the air and the tires are barely touching the ground. Honestly, the Bronco just wins outright. So if you want one that's better for everyday driving, go for the Ford. So which of these SUVs wins? Well, the Wrangler is a little easier to drive off-road. At least when it came to our hill climb test and our articulation test, the Wrangler won handily. But the Bronco did win when it came to the test. And the Wrangler comes with several different powertrains, the V8, the V6, the turbo four or the plug-in hybrid, where the Bronco only has two engine options.
But the Bronco wins in almost every other category. It is more comfortable. It has better technology, a better interior, more space and it doesn't resist you when you try to drive it on the highway. As a result, it wins in the Edmunds rating categories and overall scores a victory against the Wrangler. But which one would you choose? Which one would you drive daily? Which one would you like to make an all-terrain vehicle with? Let us know in the comments below. Like and subscribe, and tell us what you want the Bronco and Wrangler to go up against next.

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