Jeep Wrangler VS. Ford Bronco
Jeep Wrangler VS. Ford Bronco. When it comes to off-road vehicles, the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco are two names that stand tall. Both are legendary in their own right, but which one is the better choice for you? In this post, we’ll compare these two icons across various aspects to help you make an informed decision.
Pricing and Features
Both the Bronco and Wrangler are sold in two forms, compact two-door SUVs and the more popular mid-size four-door versions. The Jeeps have lower starting prices, $31,995 for a two-door Wrangler and $36,495 for a four-door. The Broncos, by contrast, start at $39,130 and $39,870, respectively.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the Bronco necessarily costs so much more than the Wrangler. Ford eliminated last year’s base-model Bronco to start with the better equipped Big Bend. An entry level Wrangler Sport has crank windows and manual door locks, which are standard on the Bronco Big Bend. It’s equipped more comparably to the Wrangler Sport S, which comes to $36,995 for two doors and $39,990 for four. Slightly more money than the Ford. Note that both SUVs’ prices can rise fast as you add equipment like power adjustable seats, a new Wrangler option this year to match the Bronco, an automatic transmission, heated leather seats, and heavier duty off-road features. The bigger factor for many buyers will be choosing your optional add-ons with care, whichever SUV you pick.
Model Range
Both the Wrangler and Bronco are available in an unusually broad array of configurations. In addition to two-door and four-door models and soft-top or hardtop convertibles, there’s a choice of engines and transmissions, three Bronco engines, four Wrangler engines, and each model pairing one engine with a manual stick shift. And options for heavier-duty off-road models including the Wrangler Rubicon line, the Bronco Badlands and Raptor.
Still, the Wrangler has one thing that the Bronco doesn’t: One of its available powertrains is a gas-electric hybrid. The Wrangler 4xe is a plug-in hybrid, which means you can charge up its battery using electricity from the grid to get some all-electric range. The Wrangler PHEV has become one of America’s best-selling plug-in vehicles.
Exterior Design
The Wrangler is familiar and unmistakable. Its boxy body, round headlights, vertical grille slats, and separate fenders astride a narrow hood, go back all the way to World War II. As we mentioned, most Wranglers have four doors, but that change arrived 17 years ago. The 2024 model year brought a revised front end for all but the base Sport and Sport S trim levels, a smaller, more playful take on the classic seven-slot grille, which becomes black and chrome instead of body-colored. But it will take a Jeep expert to notice the difference between a 2007 Wrangler and a 2024.
The Bronco was reintroduced in 2021 as a retro throwback to the ’60s and ’70s. There’s no relation to the big, comfortable Broncos of the 1980s and ’90s. The Bronco Heritage Limited Edition plays up its original roots with white on the roof, grille, and wheels. The other difference from the Wrangler is that the Bronco is a simple box with conventional fenders.
Interior Design
The Bronco’s dashboard was designed with confident simplicity, with straight lines and large areas of trim, minimizing the number of little seams where different small panels fit together. Its materials strike an excellent balance between appropriately rich for an expensive SUV and suitably rugged for an off roader. Its controls were also super-easy, the big 12-inch touchscreen looks right at home in the center of the dashboard, the infotainment system proved simple to use, and physical controls cluster below the screen for quick access to common functions.
The Wrangler’s interior has gotten richer, too. This is no leftover piece of military equipment. Jeep retrofitted the Wrangler with a new 12.3-inch touchscreen to edge out the Ford’s system, but even such a big screen has some little spots that you have to tap just right – including the fussy seat-heater controls, which Ford lets you use through a physical button. The bigger screen also leaves the Wrangler’s interior less visually balanced to our eyes than either the Bronco or last year’s Wrangler; you can tell the Ford was designed from the start to handle 12 inches of screen. The Wrangler’s interior feels more basic than the Bronco’s, a problem that grows more pronounced as prices top $50,000, $60,000, or even $80,000.
Passenger and Cargo Accommodations
The Bronco is also roomier than the Wrangler. Both SUVs can fit adults easily in the front and rear seats, but we thought the Ford’s seats were more comfortable.
Seat shape can come down to a matter of taste, but the Bronco has one unambiguous advantage: cargo-carrying. First, the Bronco has more cargo room: 38 cubic feet behind the rear seat and 83 cubic feet with the rear seat folded, versus the Wrangler’s 32 and 72 cubic feet, respectively. Secondly, you need to uninstall the rear windshield of Soft-Top Wranglers to load bulky items into the cargo hold. Ford reduces this issue on soft-top Broncos via an easy access feature that lets you pivot and prop the windshield partly out of the way. On each SUV with a removable hardtop, the rear windshield simply flips up after you open the swing-out cargo door. But we’d have loved having the Ford’s system on our soft-top Wrangler test vehicle.
On-Road Driving
Driving the Wrangler is unlike driving nearly any other modern passenger vehicle. Even keeping it pointed straight commands your full attention, and you won’t feel the slightest impulse to hustle it around curves. It no longer accelerates slowly no matter which of its four powertrains you pick – and two of them, the 4xe’s plug-in hybrid and the 392 model’s 470-horsepower V8 – are wildly quick. And the ride isn’t as rough or noisy as past Wranglers. For loyal Jeep buyers, this crude flavor is part of the experience. For other people, it’s a potential turnoff.
The Bronco is a more familiar SUV. Its ride jiggles around a bit especially with our test vehicle’s off-road Sasquatch package. And there’s a lot of wind noise, especially on the highway. But the Ford’s steering and handling feel far more natural than the Jeep’s, and Bronco cruised effortlessly over speed humps.
Off-Road Driving
The Wrangler has always been legendary for its off-road capabilities, and that continues to the present day. The Bronco, meanwhile, was built to match the mighty Jeep.
In the absence of a resounding advantage to either extremely capable vehicle, we believe the true difference in these SUVs’ capabilities will come down to aftermarket modifications to their suspensions and tires. As many hardcore off-roaders will make. Whichever one you buy; you’ll be able to tackle challenging conditions.
Fuel Economy
The Bronco and Wrangler are two powerful, boxy, off-road-focused SUVs. Fuel economy isn’t their strong suit. In EPA testing, both average 20 mpg in mixed driving with their respective four-cylinder and V6 engines in most trim levels, and a couple mpg less in off-road form or with a manual transmission. We matched the EPA-estimated 17 mpg in our tested V6 Bronco with the Sasquatch off-road package.
But as we noted before, many Wranglers are now sold with the 4xe plug-in hybrid powertrain. The Wrangler PHEV can travel an EPA-estimated 21 miles per electric charge without needing the engine, then averages 20 mpg after. That means many would be able to commute or run errands in the Wrangler without burning any gasoline while retaining the flexibility to refuel its 17.2-gallon gas tank as needed. If you’re driving farther between charges, you can also tell the Wrangler to save its electric range for city driving or even for near-silent off-roading. The Wrangler 4xe typically costs about $10,000 more than a non-hybrid counterpart, starting at $49,995, partially offset by a $3,750 federal tax credit.
