TRAVIS LANGNESS: It's our long term
Bronco, the one we bought and did an unboxing video on.
Peeling the screen off here.
Very, very satisfying.
We bought this one for our long term fleet.
And our long term fleet, we drive vehicles for over a year,
put 20,000 miles on them.
It's an excellent way to test a vehicle.
And one of the things we wanted to test with this Bronco
is how hard it is to take the doors off and take the top off.
So today, I'm going to do that.
With all the tools that came with it, hopefully
I don't have to crack into my extra supply of home
personal tools.
And I want to see how difficult it
is compared to a Jeep Wrangler, which
I took the doors and the top off of yesterday.
And I timed myself.
I want to see if there are similar times and difficulty
levels to taking the doors in the top off of a Bronco
as there are to a Wrangler.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right.
So let's walk through what we got here real quick.
Tools, blanket to set the top down, on a scale
to weigh the doors, and then these bags
that came with the Bronco.
So I'm going to start with just the tools that Ford gave me.
And I'm going to go with their order first.
Let's start with the driver's side door.
Now there's something different about this door
than you would expect from a Wrangler, which
is the hinges are on the outside on a Wrangler.
On a Bronco, on the inside.
First step that Ford says is to fold back this front mirror
because it's not connected to the door.
It's not coming with it when you take the door off.
Second step is to get out the little guards
that they provide.
So you get two of them.
And they go in what would be kind of the high contact areas.
There we go.
There's one there.
And then one here.
So that when you lift the door off
it doesn't scratch the front fender
of the truck, which is nice because this thing's brand new.
So that's great.
We use those for each door.
And the second thing you do, take out the wire harness.
So simple little wiring harness there.
That was probably the easiest thing I'll do all day.
And there's a hinge door there so you
don't get water in the female part of that wiring harness.
And this comes off with the door.
Before I put the bag on the door,
I'm going to take out the bolts, the pin bolts, then I'll
slide the bag on, and we'll go from there.
So the first attachment we're going to use
is the 13 millimeter.
And it should be able to come off by hand.
Now one of the things about this that's
different than the Wrangler, the hinges on the outside,
they're easier to get to.
This is pretty difficult to access, even with the door
widest open position.
There's not much area to swing the ratchet around.
You're just dealing with a half inch of travel here.
And that's the first part that's annoying.
And then also, I have kind of large hands here.
So sliding my hands in is difficult.
There's the first bolt. Make sure not to lose that.
And then the second one is upside down here.
At least they don't have a long travel.
That's helpful.
And the second bolt's out.
It's simple enough.
Save those.
And go get the bag for the door.
Now these are all labeled, which is nice.
This is the front driver's side door.
And you see it in the little diagram there.
And I slip it over the door.
So obviously if I drop the door, it'll be in the bag.
It's got a nice lining, soft so it won't scratch the paint.
And it provides handles so you can lift
the door off using the bag.
It's a little bit tight, but you don't want
it to be too loose I guess.
There's also a lift point underneath,
which I'm going to use.
I like that a little bit better than the handle.
And off it goes.
It doesn't want to go all the way in.
The bag is new and not very stretchy.
And now we've got a door in a bag.
Let's go take the other ones off.
Next one is passenger side front.
Obviously, you want to do this with the windows down.
That was a step I should have said right up front.
But these are frameless doors.
So you don't have a frame for the window.
So you want to put the window down.
And obviously they wouldn't fit in the bag with the windows up.
So that's your first step.
So clippies, took them off the rubber things,
took them off the other door, protected from scratches.
I'm sure you could do this with something like painter's tape
as well.
But it's nice that Ford includes these.
First things first, pop off the wiring harness.
That's super easy.
Just clip, out.
A lot easier than the one on the Wrangler.
And we go back to the 13 mil and first bolt out.
Easily done.
Thankfully, the bolt travels not very long.
And once you get it loose with the ratchet,
you can just get it out by hand.
That one's out.
And this door is ready to come out.
Just got to put the bag on it.
Now this time, because I learned from my error
on the other side, I'm going to try and get as much of the bag
over the door as possible before I take it off.
Because handling it while it's off the vehicle is not as easy.
And we'll weigh these so we can see how much lighter or heavier
they are than the Wrangler's doors.
Again, it's a new bag, it's been folded up.
We just took it out of the bag.
So little time in the sun might help stretch it out.
I guess I'd recommend that to anybody
doing this for the first time.
Kind of punch up while the door's on there.
And that'll make it much easier once the door's
off the vehicle.
So two handles, I got one down over here, one up here.
Door comes right off.
Sit that down there.
So now it's time for the rear doors.
And there's nothing for them to hit.
So I don't need to put the rubber up front
to protect them.
Similar strategy back here.
Super easy to pop off.
And it's hinged.
So this door just closes automatically.
Two bolts holding the door on.
Same thing.
Large hands.
Hard to fit in these tight spaces.
But luckily, it's a pretty short bolt from the top.
Long enough, but it only took a couple of turns
to get that out of there.
After two turns, you can get it out by hand pretty
much, which is simple.
Bolt's out.
Then we will get the bag.
So the order of these has to do with what they
want you to take off first so as not to scratch the vehicle,
and how they want them stored in the back.
I haven't stored them in the back
yet because I'm taking the top off.
And they're going to get in the way.
And also, I want to weigh the doors.
Slide it on.
This one's a little bit more difficult with the raised
window there.
I should be able to get it.
This handle here, this one here, or this one here, and this one
here.
You're supposed to do this with a friend.
But it comes off real easy.
This one's super light.
Can't wait to weigh this.
And the great thing about these bags
is you can put them in the back of the Bronco
while you're off roading and your doors will stay clean.
So you can get home with a muddy car and clean doors.
I don't know.
Maybe that's not great.
Maybe it's kind of weird.
Lay this down next to its friends,
and go for the passenger side.
So now we're going to take the bag for the back passenger
door, slide that on.
This is getting easier door by door,
not unsurprisingly as I figure out what I'm doing.
If the bolts are out, up and out.
Real simple.
Compared to the Wrangler, it didn't take me
that much longer.
There was the extra step of putting the bags
over the doors, which I kind of fumbled with.
This one's a little bit more difficult with the--
it doesn't want to go all the way in.
It is not as easy.
But for either vehicle, it's going
to be about 20 minutes per side, or about 40 minutes
for all four doors, which is pretty good.
The hinges are exposed and whatnot.
But that's cool.
It's all part of the experience.
And honestly, how many vehicles can you
buy new today that you can take the doors off of?
It's kind of rad.
I weighed myself.
I just have to subtract the difference here.
And I also weighed the bag.
So I know it weighs 5 pounds.
This is almost a 45 pound door, which is 10 pounds more
than the Wrangler's rear door.
It's pretty significant.
Let's weight the front one.
See how much a front door weighs.
That's 55 pounds.
So 5 pounds more than a Wrangler's front door.
So even without the window framing,
the Broncos doors weigh more.
So while it's not a big difference,
it's worth noting that the Broncos doors are heavier.
It's some extra weight to carry around
if you're lifting the doors on and off by yourself.
Next thing is the top.
This has got to be one of the easiest things to do.
So the first step is you unbolt that, turn this L
bracket, this other one, this other one, and all of a sudden
you're running with the top off.
There's also a bag for this.
But this is really light.
It's maybe 5, 10 pounds tops.
So the next step is to take off this middle section.
And you can't do this on the Wrangler,
but you can on the Bronco.
And it's similar to the front.
There are just a couple of snaps here.
Click, click, click.
And this whole thing comes off as one piece.
But I'm going to need a guy on the other side of the vehicle
to help me move it.
So the next step now that I'm a completely open air
vehicle, at least in the front, is to take off the rear.
And for that, we're going to need the handy dandy tool
kit again.
We're going to take the ratchet out and use
the T50 I believe it is.
And we're going to take off these two bolts.
And there's four on each side in the back.
And then we'll lift it off and have everything
off this vehicle.
It'll be super lightweight.
Well those bolts took a while.
It comes out by hand now.
Save that.
Move onto this side That one's out.
Now to the back.
Got to open the tailgate all the way and open the glass.
And you want to leave the glass open when you take the top off
because you don't want this bottom part hitting the ground.
And they're basically a series of bolts
along here and along the other side, four of them,
that you take out.
And then this whole thing will lift right off.
So beginner's mistake.
I almost forgot, but luckily saw it right here in front of me,
to take out the wiring harness and the hose
for the rear wiper and washer.
Those come out and then they go into a secondary slot over here
for storage.
So I'm going to take those out now.
Just a simple pull down clip, real easy,
store that right here.
And this one, real simple, little drip of water,
store that right there.
And then you can safely take off the top.
Excuse me while I climb in the back here.
This is another kind of tight space.
I guess, yeah, if I go around that side, much better.
The roof bar here, kind of need it
for safety and vehicle structural integrity.
But it does get in the way.
There's one bolt. That's all four on this side.
I'll move to the other side now.
The final step to taking off all of the top pieces is the back.
I want to get my tools out of the way here.
Haven't had to use any of these.
Just a scale for weighing the doors.
And you want to set down something's soft.
So I got a nice moving blanket so we don't scratch the top
as we take it off.
All the bolts are out.
You just lift up and move it.
We want to leave the glass off, kind of move
the tailgate out of the way.
And then you want to do it with a friend,
you lift from both sides.
1, 2, 3.
Set it down nice and easy.
And you're done.
Looks pretty cool.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We got the doors and the top off.
And with the exception of the second and third row
of the top, I can pretty much do all that by myself.
Now most people might want to have a friend with them
for the first time they do it.
That was pretty simple and you can get it done in probably
under an hour.
But now, we'll do the fun part, and take it out
for a drive with no doors.
This feels so weird.
What's it like to drive the Bronco with the doors off?
Well it's certainly windier in here.
Luckily, we're in southern California
and it's not too cold out.
But if you live somewhere where the weather is good
and you can leave the doors off for summer,
it could be kind of fun.
Now I wouldn't want to drive like this in traffic.
It feels a little naked like I'm riding a motorcycle
without a helmet.
A little bit less safe is what it feels like.
But it's still a pretty cool feeling.
And the fact that I can take the doors on and off
in such a short amount of time, that's pretty cool too.
Also, there's no center cross beam up here.
This is like having a full on convertible experience.
Boy oh boy do you hear those 35 inch
tires howling on the ground.
Either way, it's a really fun experience
to drive without the doors on.
Before where we wrap everything up,
I wanted to show you a couple of cool things
I found when I was taking off the top.
The first is this giant Bronco logo
that no one's ever going to see if they
leave the top on their Bronco all the time.
And the second is a set of coordinates
near the top of the B pillar, which
leads to the king of the hammers race.
It's a cool little touch, right?
So what was it like taking the doors off?
And how difficult was it compared to, say, a Wrangler?
Honestly, it's about the same.
The procedures are a little bit different, but not by much.
You just take some bolts out, and voila, you
can lift the doors off.
They are a little bit heavier on the Bronco,
but not so much that it makes a huge difference.
Taking the top, and the doors, and the center top,
and the front top off made me think, where am I
going to store all this stuff?
I don't live in a house with a garage.
So I'd have to just leave it in my apartment?
That wouldn't make a lot of sense.
It's nice that Ford includes the bags for the doors,
less likely to get them scratched.
But I'm not going to store them in the back
if I'm doing an off road trip.
I'm going to need space for my cooler, and my tent,
and whatever else I'm going to use while I'm doing an off road
trip.
I have a difficult time thinking of a scenario where
I'd store the doors in the back, go for a drive,
and then put them back on before I go home.
Either way, it's a fun experience.
It's nice to know that it's this easy.
And maybe we'll see how many adventures
we can go on without the doors.
What else should we do next in our long term Bronco?
Let us know in the comments below.
And for a cash offer on your car today,
go to edmunds.com/sellmycar.
Really.
We want to buy your car.
Now, it's time to put it all back together.
So cue the funny montage music.
[MUSIC PLAYING]