More Bronco hear say.

[Dirtman]

Wait... what the hell is wrong with eating crayons? How else am I suppose to feel colorful inside?

 

[Jim Oaks]

Ford will never build a truck exactly like we want. And you couldn't either. Sure, you could take the new Ranger and modify it or make suggestions, but could you design it from the ground up on a blank piece of paper or CAD screen? It would probably look like Tesla's truck. Actually, you guys could do way better than Tesla.

The problem is that we don't have that many engineers here in the U.S. Some of our greatest minds aren't working for Ford, Jeep, Dodge, or Chevy. They're building off-road desert trucks.

Did you know the engineering of the Jeep Gladiator was overseen by a woman?

'Amazing': Meet the woman behind Jeep's rugged, boulder-climbing new pickup truck, the Gladiator

Elizabeth Krear oversaw the engineering team behind the new pickup truck.

abcnews.go.com

Nothing against women. There are great female engineers out there.

I think the best race cars are designed by racers, and the best off-road trucks are designed by offroaders.

How do you recruit an engineering graduate to build an offroad truck when they drive a Prius and have no experience offroading? How do you design anything when you don't really understand how it will be used? Not well. When do you think the last time the engineers at Ford went offroading? And I mean true offroading. Not like the offroad course at the Ranger Media Drive in California (2018) that I could have done in 2WD.

The automotive industry, including Jeep, believes that only a small percentage of people actually take their vehicle offroad. And they're right. You know they're right. We've all seen those trucks, Jeeps, and SUV's with tires and lift kits that we know don't actually go offroad.

The new Bronco will be comfortable, ride nice, have electric lockers, terrain management, and stupid breadcrumbs to find your way home, but it's never going to be the old Bronco. It's never going to have the wheel travel potential to keep the tires on the ground. It will instead rely on an electric locker to turn the wheel that is actually touching the ground. When I take the new Ranger offroad, its lack of wheel travel makes it look like a dog taking a piss.

Would I like to have a new Bronco, probably. Do I expect it to be the perfect offroad vehicle off the dealer lot? No. Adventure vehicle maybe, off-roader...no.

I think Built will always outperform Bought.

Built not Bought.

We've been using that term for...what...decades now?

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Nu-uh. Dirtman's trucks won't be comfortable on road.

Who cares? If they want on road comfort they can buy an edge or a IFS equipped 2wd. Do you think ford thought about road comfort in 1959 when they introduced the first factory 4wd? Doubtful.

Oh come on, all anyone around here would do is scrap all current vehicle production and focus on building a solid front axle ranger with a coyote engine and manual transmission. Which will somehow be carbureted because @rusty ol ranger will throw a tantrum during a board meeting if it isnt. Then most of us would get drunk and go play with the robots on the assembly line and @sheep herder would inevitably try to have sex with one of them.

Screw the coyote. If im on the board that SOB is getting a Carburated godzilla, backed by a ZF6 and a 4.30 rear.

Besides, buying up all of the shares was my idea. *I*'m the CEO.

Armwrestle ya for the CEO position.

 

[sheep herder]

Oh come on, all anyone around here would do is scrap all current vehicle production and focus on building a solid front axle ranger with a coyote engine and manual transmission. Which will somehow be carbureted because @rusty ol ranger will throw a tantrum during a board meeting if it isnt. Then most of us would get drunk and go play with the robots on the assembly line and @sheep herder would inevitably try to have sex with one of them.

 

[OldMan2]

Maybe Dirtman in charge of trucks and you in charge of cars? I like his ideas for the Ranger... Then Jim as the fearless leader can try to keep the two of you from fighting and eating crayons all day.

Put Dirtman in charge of design and oversight of the "Limited CHOWDA Edition."

 

[Grumpaw]

Put Dirtman in charge of design and oversight of the "Limited CHOWDA Edition."

Have it equipped with a small furnace in the bed and equip the engine to run on poop fumes !!!
Grumpaw

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Ford will never build a truck exactly like we want. And you couldn't either. Sure, you could take the new Ranger and modify it or make suggestions, but could you design it from the ground up on a blank piece of paper or CAD screen? It would probably look like Tesla's truck. Actually, you guys could do way better than Tesla.

The problem is that we don't have that many engineers here in the U.S. Some of our greatest minds aren't working for Ford, Jeep, Dodge, or Chevy. They're building off-road desert trucks.

Did you know the engineering of the Jeep Gladiator was overseen by a woman?

'Amazing': Meet the woman behind Jeep's rugged, boulder-climbing new pickup truck, the Gladiator

Elizabeth Krear oversaw the engineering team behind the new pickup truck.

abcnews.go.com

Nothing against women. There are great female engineers out there.

I think the best race cars are designed by racers, and the best off-road trucks are designed by offroaders.

How do you recruit an engineering graduate to build an offroad truck when they drive a Prius and have no experience offroading? How do you design anything when you don't really understand how it will be used? Not well. When do you think the last time the engineers at Ford went offroading? And I mean true offroading. Not like the offroad course at the Ranger Media Drive in California (2018) that I could have done in 2WD.

The automotive industry, including Jeep, believes that only a small percentage of people actually take their vehicle offroad. And they're right. You know they're right. We've all seen those trucks, Jeeps, and SUV's with tires and lift kits that we know don't actually go offroad.

The new Bronco will be comfortable, ride nice, have electric lockers, terrain management, and stupid breadcrumbs to find your way home, but it's never going to be the old Bronco. It's never going to have the wheel travel potential to keep the tires on the ground. It will instead rely on an electric locker to turn the wheel that is actually touching the ground. When I take the new Ranger offroad, its lack of wheel travel makes it look like a dog taking a piss.

Would I like to have a new Bronco, probably. Do I expect it to be the perfect offroad vehicle off the dealer lot? No. Adventure vehicle maybe, off-roader...no.

I think Built will always outperform Bought.

Built not Bought.

We've been using that term for...what...decades now?

On the flipside the 19+ Ranger is probably the best offroad Ranger built off the showroom floor. AT tires sadly set it above most Rangers (mine shipped on all season 205/75-15's) let alone the factory elocker. Front flex is sad but it always has been out of the box.

Engineers don't really "design" the vehicle. It isn't like sitting in the garage and deciding "I am going to do it this way" and you do it that way and all is right with the world. Generally they are told something like "we want it to do this and look like that and of course as cheap as possible, make it work" If you don't play by their rules they find someone that will. Its amazing we get as good of product as we do and not a bunch of camels (it is said a camel is a horse designed by a committee)

When I was in college my big dream was to design for Ford.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Maybe not...but i highly doubt a new 19 would outwheel an 83-97 STX/offroad package truck. Maybe in the desert or something...but the 19 is wider, less flexy, and probably doesnt have the ground clearence of the early ones.

 

[fastpakr]

From memory it has quite a bit more ground clearance (primarily due to the space for fitting larger tires out of the box).

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Maybe not...but i highly doubt a new 19 would outwheel an 83-97 STX/offroad package truck. Maybe in the desert or something...but the 19 is wider, less flexy, and probably doesnt have the ground clearence of the early ones.

Just a 2" lift the same springs as everyone else with the same crappy donut tires and stiff front springs... no answer for the e-locker or AT tires (as mediocre as they are).

Stock front suspension supporting a V8, look at all that flex:



It is stuffing the rear that hard and it had Explorer springs in the back... we won't even talk about how the pinstripes are nowhere close to lining up...

STX was just an appearance package, they spacered the factory suspension lower and added a bunch of visual do-dads (grille guards, tube bumpers, rollbars etc) Lift and front driveshaft (fixed output at t-case) it didn't have much over a generic truck.

 

[91stranger]

Hard to have facts when you don't work at ford or when the damn thing isn't even out of production yet.... until ford builds something that makes me say "wow" then its just the same ol stuff with a different name on it. I'd like to see a head to head competition between the new bronco, jeep wrangler, gladiator, Tacoma, and the Colorado.

After seeing Jims picture of his truck barely flexing it reminded me of the new ranger vs Tacoma where the Tacomas wheels were all on the ground when the rangers back tire was about 5 inches in the air. They say the tacomas have a fully boxed frame up to the bed and then it turns into just a c-channel frame which allows more articulation than the ranger. Wheels won't grab when they are in the air lol. Not sure how the frame is on the new ranger, is it fully boxed?

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

After seeing Jims picture of his truck barely flexing it reminded me of the new ranger vs Tacoma where the Tacomas wheels were all on the ground when the rangers back tire was about 5 inches in the air. They say the tacomas have a fully boxed frame up to the bed and then it turns into just a c-channel frame which allows more articulation than the ranger. Wheels won't grab when they are in the air lol. Not sure how the frame is on the new ranger, is it fully boxed?

Ranger is fully boxed which is better. Stronger, more rigid, more predictable... whatever you want to call it. Fullsize trucks have been going to it since 2004. Most of Toyota's more durable vehicles (like Land Cruisers) have had a boxed frame longer than that.

The 1910's tech C channel frame for more "articulation" is Toyota's excuse for falling behind the times due to lack of competition over the last couple years. They make the same kind of sad story for still running drum brakes (they supposedly don't get as much debris in them, they just thought of everything ) in the back of the Taco too. But again, Land Cruisers (which are kind of a Chuck Norris of 4wd's) get disk brakes to go with their boxed frame.

But hey, they finally put power seats in the Taco last year... that is some cutting edge stuff there.

 

[Dirtman]

You people are nuts. Half of time you're complaining there's too much technology then 5 minutes later your complaining there's not enough technology.

Everyone go stand in the corner until you make up your mind! Rusty is exempted from this punishment since he has always been adamantly clear on his opinion.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

You people are nuts. Half of time you're complaining there's too much technology then 5 minutes later your complaining there's not enough technology.

Everyone go stand in the corner until you make up your mind! Rusty is exempted from this punishment since he has always been adamantly clear on his opinion.

Can't have both?

I have 4 wheel disk brakes in my '85... I can't do much about the flexi flier frame though.

Given the option I would like a solid front axle though. I would be a fickle customer to please...

 

[91stranger]

I wouldn't say its an excuse on Toyota's part. It honestly sounds like they are keeping shit simple compared to everyone else which is a point everyone seems to make. Dirtman nailed it on the head honestly. Everyone cries that theres too much tech and then get mad they didn't have power seats. Oh and they have a manual transmission available too. Go to 7:12 minutes and they show the articulation difference. Its pretty substantial when talking about rock crawling or trail riding.