Ford Bronco

Published · Researched 2026-09-21

Ford Bronco review

Nobody buys a Bronco by accident. The 93,000-member Bronco6x Facebook group is less an owners' forum than a lifestyle feed — paint-matched flares, 33-inch Toyos, roof racks still in boxes, delivery-day photos from Arizona dealers. These people didn't shop for transportation; they joined a thing. And honestly? The thing is good. The sixth-gen Bronco is a legitimate Wrangler rival with real hardware: body-on-frame, removable doors and roof, Sasquatch package, lockers, sway-bar disconnect. A 4.51/5 owner rating across all years, resale that holds, and an aftermarket that rivals Jeep's. But — and it's a big but — you need to know exactly which year you're buying, because the 2021 will try to kill your wallet in ways the brochures never mentioned.

The 2021 launch year is one of the roughest debuts in modern memory, and even the fandom doesn't defend it. The 2.7L V6's intake valves — made brittle by a supplier's bad grinding process — could fracture and fall into the combustion chamber, destroying the engine. Ford found 251 warranty instances on Broncos alone; the September 2024 recall covered 90,736 vehicles, and the fix for affected trucks is a whole new engine. The hardtop delaminated — supplier Webasto's molded-in-color panels cracked, and a 2026 recall of 16,200 2021–2022 Broncos warns that "sections of the outer roof panel [can] separate and detach from the vehicle." Pieces of roof, leaving the car, at speed. Then the fuel pump (stalling, no-restart; an 850,000-vehicle recall), the rear shock reservoirs that could detach (~149,000 Broncos), and tie rods that give up under hard off-roading with big tires. Jalopnik counts roughly 20 recalls on the 2021. Twenty.

Here's the good news: 2023 and later are a different truck. The valve material was fixed for builds after October 31, 2021; the roof supplier issues were sorted; and 2023s earn some of the highest expert ratings in the lineup. Owners of later cars report the expected Bronco compromises — road noise, thirst, a ride that's honest about its solid axles — and love them anyway. The 2.3L four (300 hp) is the smart-money engine: plenty for the truck, cheaper to run, and it dodges the valve saga entirely. The 2.7 is the one you want if you tow or just like torque, but only from 2023 up.

What's wrong even on the good years: it's loud on the highway (MotorTrend reported trouble holding a conversation), it's thirsty, and advanced safety kit wasn't standard on early trims. Ford led the industry in recalls in 2025 and 2026 is worse — the Bronco keeps catching strays (seat bolts, backup cameras). And buy used with your eyes open: these trucks get used hard. Check for off-road abuse, oversized tires stressing the tie rods, and flood-mud in the frame.

Value call: the sweet spot is the 2023 — past the valve and roof problems, top expert ratings, averaging around $41,800 used, roughly $6k under a 2025 for the same essential truck. The 2024 and 2025 are fine if the price is right, but you're paying for a bigger screen and cleaner CarFax lines. Skip the 2021 unless the valve recall remedy (engine replacement or the cycle-test pass) and the roof recall are both verified complete by VIN — and price it like the risk it is, not like the lifestyle. Same VIN check for early-build 2022s. Against the Wrangler: the Bronco rides better, the aftermarket is nearly as deep, and the 2.3L is the more pleasant daily engine; the Jeep holds value slightly better and has the longer legend. The Bronco's also the rare Ford ICE vehicle with a real China presence (Jiangling-Ford builds it there) — though Europe never got it.

The honest tradeoff: the most fun you can have with the roof off, provided you buy the years where the roof stays on.