It looks like a solid home run to me.

My $0.02 on the Bronco from someone who uses their 4runner for a family of 5 for road trips, camping, and offroading.

I looked at a 4 door rubicon against my 4runner when I bought in 2019.

Reasons I voted down the Rubicon.
- It was $10-$15K more that the 4runner TRD ORP depending on exactly what I added to the jeep such as better bumpers and such. Even without those extras I could not get it within $10K for a Rubi with Nav and leather comparable to the premium package. Granted, the jeep would have had a front locker and sway bar disconnects but to me this additional capability wasn't needed and I'd rather have $10K in my pocket.
From everything I've read the Bronco will be priced similar to the JL and will go even higher when you get into the 35" tires and all the add-ons they offer. I can't see paying $60K for a trial vehicle. For that money I'll keep my $40K 4runner and build a 1st gen 4runner or a Jeep TJ as a trail rig.

- Removable top vehicles are noisy. Obviously an open top has its advantages but for the long distance hauler and family vehicle I leaned more to having a quiet vehicle. Even with the updates to the JL and a hard top with extra sound deadening it was no where near as quiet (especially on the highway) as a 4runner.

Ford has good NVH in their vehicles but it still won't be as quiet as the 4runner

- The 4 door JL is longer in wheelbase than the 4runner. I really want a 2 door but it only seats 4 people. The 2 door is great offroad and is a good bit cheaper (still more than a 4runner though) If they made them like the old LJ with a 3 person back seat it would be perfect.
The Bronco 2 door is roomy as far as cargo but still doesn't seat 5. The 4 door is shorter than the JL but If I'm going to give up on road comfort of the 4runner I'd really want to go all the way to a shorter 2 door and the 4 seat problem kills the deal

- The Jeep doesn't handle as good. The solid axle up front is great for offroad but the tradeoff in handling wasn't worth it, especially having dealt with death wobble on previous jeeps.
The Bronco solves the handling debate with IFS but its yet to be seen how robust it is with a locker and 35s, time will tell. I'm sure its built well and this is definitely a plus of the Bronco over the JL IMO when you need a dual purpose trail and highway vehicle.

- Jeep had no more real power than the 4runner and the 3.6 has had issues. The jeep doesn't have the dead pedal feel of the Toyotas but in the end its not any faster or better on fuel. Toyota reliability for the 4.0 is legendary and the jeep has issues.
I am a fan of Ford, they have come a long way with their powertrains. Their Ecoboost motors are great on paper but they have not addressed the oil and carbon buildup for their direct injection Ecoboost motors. Ford has added port injection to the 3.5 ecoboost to solve this issue but they have not added to the 2.3 4cyl in the ranger nor the 2.7 V6 in the F150 so I assume they haven't added it for 2021 in the Bronco (At least that I have read) Hopefully they do address this, if not its a deal breaker for me. This issue will be made worse for an offroad rig that idles and is run at low rpms and I couldn't see owning one because of this because it will lead to issues.


~Edit, forgot towing~

- JL tops out at 3,500lbs for the 4 door, 2 door is only 1,500. I'm sure this is not from the lack of power but more from a safe handling perspective. This is too low to comfortable tow a small family trailer. The 5,000 lb capacity of the 4runner isn't huge but I can easily town a small family trailer and have leftover capacity for gear.
I'm happy to see Ford says the 2 dr can tow 3500 but I don't understand why hey limit the 4 door to the same. I'm sure it CAN safely haul more but I'm sure they only cared about meeting the Jeeps numbers. Disappointing

So in summary, if I wanted a pure trail rig and didn't mind it only seating 4 and costing a bit more than the 4runner I'd probably get the new Bronco and option it with lockers, the manual , and 35s before I'd get a JL Rubi. For me, for my use, the 4Runner does daily life better than the JL and the Bronco, is better on long road trips, and I have a lot of money left in my pocket. I think a lot of people are drawn in by things like front lockers, swaybar discos, big tires, etc. I think few people have wheeled their 4runner hard, in stock form. The 4runner is very capable. I can keep up with Rubicons on the trail and rarely even need to use the rear locker. My only limiting factor so far on the trails has been scratches and body damage. The JKs and JLs who didn't care about body damage went more places than me. The JKs and JLs who were more careful about getting damaged limited out where my stock 4runner limited out. I look forward to seeing how the Bronco's do, the preorders for the 1st Edition are already sold out. They have addressed a lot of the downsides of the JL and for many it will be a much better option than the Jeep. We'll see how it does with 1st year problems and if they address things like the lack of port injection.

They definitely have outdone Jeep in everything. The only plus to the JL is the solid front axle which 99.9% of owners wouldn't notice the difference because they won't wheel their $60K JL or Bronco hard enough to justify it LOL.

Turbos + direct injection lead to intake fouling. See my post above. Ford has addressed it on the 3.5 ecoboost but has not addressed it in the 2.3 or 2.7 they offer in the Bronco.

Facts. There is a reason why I went with the 4Runner. May not be as "cool" but it will do its job well for a long time. That's more valuable to be me.

I’ll second the ten used 4Runners Over a new ford, EVERYDAY haha.
Wish I had a 4cyl 5 spd 4wd model with good gearing
My 3.4s kinda a hog.

Very nice, my wife will be trading her Wrangler JK for one of these. I think it’s a better idea to wait it out a year or two so they can work out the bugs.

Toyota actually consulted the same design group that did the bronco. Everything on the Bronco was likely suggested to Toyota for the FJ Cruiser and the answer from Toyota corporate was "no" "no" "no" and we ended up with the FJ Cruiser. Very sad that this is what the FJ could have been.

I don't think the 4Runner really competes directly with the wrangler or bronco. It does for a few of us. But IMO there's no reason that a Bronco clone couldn't be side by side in the Toyota lineup with the 4Runner. They're enough different that they'd both have a big audience. I hope at a minimum Toyota is finally forced to make major upgrades to the engine/transmission. That's by far my biggest issue. I just did 1200 miles with my travel trailer last week through Utah/Idaho/Wyoming/Montana. I got home ready to trade for something with more/better power.

And the worst thing is that Toyota has everything in the parts bin to make absolutely fantastic vehicles for us. Much of which is nearly a plug and play swap in. And they just won't do it. The small v8? The turbo 4? The turbo 6? the decades old 8 and 10 speeds? Nope. None of that gets put into the 4Runner - or the Tacoma. The tacoma is the most disappointing. My parents have a 2019 TRD OR Taco. It gets terrible mpg. 16 -17 on the highway. Is gutless wonder with the transmission tuning. It's fine for what they do with it, and so far very reliable and such. But the powertrain is not good at all. I don't why they took a great setup from the Lexus IS/RX (I've had both) and made it so bad for the Tacoma. If you didn't know better you'd think they were just planning to run out the end of the model and discontinue it give how little effort was put into making it efficient or powerful.

I really dig the look of the short wheelbase. This is what the Defender should've looked like.

I agree with what you're saying. The 4Runner is a great vehicle as it sits, and I see ten times more examples on this forum of people going from Jeep to 4Runner than in the other direction.

Right now, I think Toyota has a small problem with model recognition with the 4R, as huge as Toyota is. Here's what I mean: say "Ford Bronco", and virtually everyone knows what you're talking about. Even if they're thinking about a 1970s/80s vehicle, the name recognition is instant - they know it's a big-ish SUV kinda thing. That's due to many things, including OJ, but partly because maybe a billion were sold over the decades. Marketing today could be as simple as, "See the new Bronco at your local Ford dealer today!" They almost don't need to add anything to that. Meanwhile, I still find myself having to explain to the occasional person what exactly my 4Runner is if they're not looking at it.

So what happens is, when the Bronco finally becomes available, everyone will have an idea what it is before they see it. They'll want to mosey down to the Ford dealership, specifically to check out a new Bronco. If a companion to the 4Runner is launched, even if it's more capable and as bad-ass as everyone wants, it now needs to be named and marketed. Nobody is going to mosey to the Toyota dealership to check out the, uh, Toyota Percheron? (big, strong horse). Not an insurmountable problem, but an expensive one from a marketing standpoint.

We all on this forum need absolutely no marketing from Toyota to tell us what's going on with new models, etc. We're pretty savvy. But the general public, to whom Toyota must sell in order to succeed, needs a lot of it to understand. Toyota will probably need to eventually show the NEW 4Runner besting the Bronco in a number of ways, just to make people aware that the 4Runner is a direct competitor. Like most 4R owners, most new Bronco owners won't care one whit about the technical marvels residing under the floorboard, or that it's B-O-F, or how many speeds the tranny has, or electronic locking this and that, etc., etc. Only a small percentage, like this forum, will care about the tech. But call it a Bronco, and oh, brother, bring me one - I don't care what it has!

My point is that Ford will probably recoup their investments in the new Bronco more quickly because the name will sell itself. Toyota launching a companion to the 4Runner will have a much more difficult time getting the awareness out there.

Interesting side note:

Looks like the sway bar disconnect is hydraulic. As per Ford - it's hydraulic and semi-active. Not sure what all it can do. Looks visually very similar to BMW's hydraulic sway bar mechanism. If it does what I think it *could* do - it'll have a great chance at actually performing better than a stock wrangler solid axle in articulation and load distribution in rock crawling. But that's yet to be seen.



Images show no rear sway bar at all. Likely because it has coilovers way out at the corner so it may not need a rear sway bar. And the rear is a 3 link with a panhard bar that rides behind the axle, not over top. So it's exposed to damage - but probably has no interference throughout the travel range. And looks like it could handle a lot of travel range.

I think James Bond would rather drive the Bronco than the Defender for the new movie. It's just not British enough.

The 4Runner has a strong and instantly recognizable name. The only problem is that for the 4th and 5th gen they turned it into a family SUV and have only now tried adapting it to the off-road market in the pathetic TRD Pro iteration. If they want to come with a Bronco fighter it needs to be the 4Runner. I honestly don't think it would be that hard for them to make the 4Runner more appealing. Obviously better powertrain, better gear ratios, and for the love of god give me the ability to run oversized tires without having to hack up the front end. You can't even fit 32.8" tires on the 4Runner without chopping up something. For the same reasons they lost the way with the Land Cruiser 200 series. They turned it into a stealth wealth family hauler that is out of reach for most people at $90k. Toyota needs to re-introduce the LC and 4Runner as more off-road oriented vehicles and leave the Sequoia and LX as the family haulers. I just hope they don't make everything an hour glass or squinty face like they've been doing to all their vehicles.

Not familiar with the EcoBoost but not something a little tuning could help?

No. If you have an EGR and direct injection - you always have carbon buildup due to oil vapors being baked onto the intake valves with fuel (with detergent in it) flowing over the intake valves to clean them. That's why Toyota developed the D4S system. Mostly it's a good way to clean intakes. Performance is a nice side benefit.

EGR delete probably could help fix it. But good luck on modern engines. Usually its internal in the manifolds now. And there's still oil from the valves themselves that will build up on it. Valve seals always leak some oil film.