New Ford Bronco

Trailhead condition requests, questions, alerts, etc.
Forum rules
  • This is a mountaineering forum, so please keep your posts on-topic. Posts do not all have to be related to the 14ers but should at least be mountaineering-related.
  • Personal attacks and confrontational behavior will result in removal from the forum at the discretion of the administrators.
  • Do not use this forum to advertise, sell photos or other products or promote a commercial website.
  • Posts will be removed at the discretion of the site administrator or moderator(s), including: Troll posts, posts pushing political views or religious beliefs, and posts with the purpose of instigating conflict within the forum.
For more details, please see the Terms of Use you agreed to when joining the forum.
Post Reply
User avatar
Matt
Posts: 2669
Joined: 7/26/2005
14ers: 58 
13ers: 208
Trip Reports (32)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Matt »

angry wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:53 am
Will_E wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:33 pm I hope/plan to never own an automatic, I’ll be the last holdout.
You aren't the only one. I learned to drive on a stick and every vehicle I've ever owned has been a stick.
I also appreciate the value of it as an anti-theft device, particularly when I lived/worked in Los Angeles, SF Bay area and Miami. The only "problem" I've ever encountered is when I had to valet and none of the valet drivers knew how to park my car. :lol:
I'll be holding out, too.
The anti-theft piece is just icing on the cake.
Someone got into my FJ a few months ago when I left it unlocked overnight in the driveway. I found it parked crooked about five feet downhill from where I left it, seat scooted way back for a tall thief, but still there! An acquaintance with a manual tranny left her keys in an unlocked locker at a Denver rec center. Security cameras captured a woman watch her leave, raid the locker, then go out into the parking lot holding up the key fob, pressing the button until she found the car. She got in and shortly thereafter, got out and threw the keys on the ground in a huff. Ha!
Many basic skills are being lost as people devolve into useless shites and let tech do everything for them.

The valet thing never occurred to me. Damn :lol:
We are all greater artists than we realize -FWN
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. -HDT
Peak List
User avatar
Scott P
Posts: 9438
Joined: 5/4/2005
14ers: 58  16 
13ers: 50 13
Trip Reports (16)
 
Contact:

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Scott P »

I still have my old manual 4x4, but the advantages of a manual have disappeared. Other than push starting and anti-theft device, what advantages do they offer? A few decades ago, manuals used to offer more gears, better gas mileage, and better performance. Now the opposite is true. Automatics offer more gears, better gas mileage, and better performance.
I'm old, slow and fat. Unfortunately, those are my good qualities.
User avatar
mtree
Posts: 1473
Joined: 6/16/2010
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by mtree »

Scott P wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:39 pm I still have my old manual 4x4, but the advantages of a manual have disappeared. Other than push starting and anti-theft device, what advantages do they offer? A few decades ago, manuals used to offer more gears, better gas mileage, and better performance. Now the opposite is true. Automatics offer more gears, better gas mileage, and better performance.
That's mostly true, but not completely. I know the power I can manually generate (or manipulate) on my Jeep is far superior than what I could on the automatic version. The auto version was a dog going up hills. Otherwise, yes, autos these days offer better performance.
- I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was blaming you.
User avatar
angry
Posts: 662
Joined: 10/5/2017
14ers: 58  45 
13ers: 231 8
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by angry »

Scott P wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:39 pm what advantages do they offer?
Fun factor of shifting gears and not getting bored driving.
User avatar
Scott P
Posts: 9438
Joined: 5/4/2005
14ers: 58  16 
13ers: 50 13
Trip Reports (16)
 
Contact:

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Scott P »

mtree wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:44 pm I know the power I can manually generate (or manipulate) on my Jeep is far superior than what I could on the automatic version. The auto version was a dog going up hills. Otherwise, yes, autos these days offer better performance.
What year? The newer Wranglers have an 8-speed auto. Pre-2018 the Wrangeler autos had 3-5 speeds.

On paper at least, a 2018 and newer Wrangler should have lower gears available with the automatic.
I'm old, slow and fat. Unfortunately, those are my good qualities.
User avatar
Conor
Posts: 1112
Joined: 9/2/2014
14ers: 41  6  6 
13ers: 51 1 1
Trip Reports (7)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Conor »

one could easy wire in a kill switch to their fuel pump or starter circuit. It's what I'm doing to my "modded" offroad vehicle. Of course, there's already a series of switches for lights, lockers and the like, so it's easy to have some light switches or a combination thereof to trigger the starting system or fuel pump. A dream of mine is to road the vehicle across the world, so I'm more worried about countries in south america and africa than I am about denver. Dual batteries with a voltage sensing relay that can "self jump" builds in nice redundancy. All this costs money, but it isn't really that expensive. I'll happily trade a few dollars solving problems I don't really have for the convenience of not having to drive a manual transmission. I've never really driven a vehicle that is desirable to thieves I guess. My grand am was worth about $700 when I gave it away.

My high school car was a manual and I had fun driving it. In suburban Phoenix and a 3 mile commute to high school, it was awesome. I took a trip to cali with a couple of girlfriends my senior year and it was "miserable" sitting in traffic working the clutch (one of the girl's car) and I swore I would never again own a manual transmission. Today, my car is still packed with girls but in a very different way and I am happy to have made a promise to myself to not have a manual transmission, especially with all the screaming for blankets, goldfish and juice boxes. Times certainly do change...8)
User avatar
justiner
Posts: 4397
Joined: 8/28/2010
14ers: 58  8 
13ers: 138
Trip Reports (40)
 
Contact:

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by justiner »

TomPierce
Posts: 2735
Joined: 11/21/2007
Trip Reports (2)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by TomPierce »

angry wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:45 pm
Scott P wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:39 pm what advantages do they offer?
Fun factor of shifting gears and not getting bored driving.
You can also start a stick with a dead battery if you have even a moderate downhill slope to get going. "Popping the clutch" is a lost art...along with priming a white gas camp stove, belaying without a GriGri, etc etc etc.

-Tom
User avatar
Will_E
Posts: 411
Joined: 8/13/2018
14ers: 58  58 
13ers: 210 37
Trip Reports (21)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Will_E »

One other notable advantage to a manual is reliability. The most common first major failure point in a modern vehicle is the automatic transmission. And they’re very expensive to replace or repair.
User avatar
nyker
Posts: 3231
Joined: 12/5/2007
14ers: 58 
13ers: 25
Trip Reports (69)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by nyker »

For stick vs auto, depends on the vehicle and how you're using it.

I've always had a manual transmission car for the above reasons people cite. I learned how to drive on a manual Ford Tractor.

When younger, as a father-son hobby we rebuilt 'classic' mustangs (model years 1965-1973), finding dead clunkers and making them live again :-D

In those days of less responsibility, I didn't take road trips or travel anywhere since we couldn't afford to. Over the years used a couple of the faster cars to race and manual trannies ruled (this was because in a manual, better gear ratios were more easily available, they allowed better control of useful torque curve when 'revving' higher better matching it to the engine powerband (when matched to the right rear axle ratio), they were lighter (more valuable in racing), cheaper, easier to work on, less complicated and sheer fun driving).

Growing up driving in New York, I found manual trannies were better with control in the snow-most cars were rear wheel drive back then. Maybe some of the new automatics are better now, don't know. I hear 4Runners have this crawl feature and things like that which could make a stick less advantageous. I drove in a rental 2020 Mustang GT last year which with 460hp even in automatic trim was a rocket off the line and had a long power curve. Also, when i came out in the morning before school and my car was dead, I often could jump in a pop the clutch to get it going, not really possible in an automatic.

With all that said, I haven't actually registered a car to myself in a long time as I've used rentals for work and most travel for in my professional adult life since owning something doesn't make sense currently.

If I were to get a vehicle now, which I actually soon might, I might lean towards an automatic given the longer trips I'd be making and the inevitable traffic which is everywhere now which would make a manual less appealing. I'd also less likely get a car I'd be racing anywhere so those advantages would go away.

The new Bronco would be pretty cool in manual though, unless there some better automatic feature with something like the "his/her" shifter like GM put to add into vintage Musclecars or some 4Runner-like all-terrain drive control features.
User avatar
Conor
Posts: 1112
Joined: 9/2/2014
14ers: 41  6  6 
13ers: 51 1 1
Trip Reports (7)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by Conor »

Will_E wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:19 pm One other notable advantage to a manual is reliability. The most common first major failure point in a modern vehicle is the automatic transmission. And they’re very expensive to replace or repair.
Citation needed. I will mention, my high school car which was brand new (yes, I was a spoiled), had the manual transmission replaced twice. Ironically, I drive older automatic transmissions than my high school vehicle and there isn't even a hint of issue with the auto transmissions. One has 290k miles on it and I am planning an engine rebuild this winter, but I'm not planning to rebuild the tranny.

If you wanted to say simpler, I could buy that. There are no electrical signals (other than maybe speed sensors), shift kits etc on a manual transmission, but simplicity doesn't always equate reliability.
TomPierce wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:10 pm
angry wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:45 pm
Scott P wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:39 pm what advantages do they offer?
Fun factor of shifting gears and not getting bored driving.
You can also start a stick with a dead battery if you have even a moderate downhill slope to get going. "Popping the clutch" is a lost art...along with priming a white gas camp stove, belaying without a GriGri, etc etc etc.

-Tom
What if your battery is dead because your alternator went out? Do you carry around a spare alternator just in case?
User avatar
mtree
Posts: 1473
Joined: 6/16/2010
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: New Ford Bronco

Post by mtree »

Scott P wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:58 pm
mtree wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:44 pm I know the power I can manually generate (or manipulate) on my Jeep is far superior than what I could on the automatic version. The auto version was a dog going up hills. Otherwise, yes, autos these days offer better performance.
What year? The newer Wranglers have an 8-speed auto. Pre-2018 the Wrangeler autos had 3-5 speeds.

On paper at least, a 2018 and newer Wrangler should have lower gears available with the automatic.
One friend had a 2009 Wrangler in auto. Another currently has a 2015/16? Its better and has more hp (bigger engine), but still seemed to lag on hills where I can just downshift and gun it. I'd have to compare the two back-to-back on the same road to be absolutely sure, but the auto definitely couldn't snap my head back. OK. "Snap" might be a slight exaggeration.
- I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was blaming you.
Post Reply