The Ford Motor Company sold 105,665 units of the Bronco last year in the United States of America, of which 7,527 examples have been hit with a recall. Optioned with hard tops, the suspect vehicles were produced at the Wayne-based Michigan Assembly Plant between November 2023 and December 2023.
On December 4 last year, a brand-new Bronco equipped with a hard top didn't pass the glass cut-out adhesion verification test at the aforementioned production facility. Said incident was brought to the attention of the Critical Concern Review Group, which tasked Ford Research Laboratory to examine suspect rear quarter glass panels. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis determined that the clearcoat primer was – curiously – absent.
The panels are shipped from the glass supplier to the sequencer facility prior to installation at the Michigan Assembly Plant. According to Ford, the sequencer facility had been shut down from September through October 2023. Work resumed in November 2023 with a handful of new operators.
Interviews with the new personnel determined that one of the new operators wasn't using the clearcoat primer during the two-stage primer application process. Without said primer, which promotes adhesion between another layer of primer and the glass, the rear quarter panels may detach while driving. This would create road hazards for other traffic participants. Fortunately, the Ford Motor Company isn't aware of any warranty claims or field reports associated with the described condition.
Dealers have already been instructed to inspect the left and right rear quarter glass. In case of no clearcoat primer, dealers will reinstall the panels at no charge to affected owners. The Ford Motor Company intends to inform affected owners by first-class mail between April 8 and April 12.
Photo: Ford
Four part numbers are listed in the document attached below, split between two rear quarter windows for the four-door Bronco and two for the two-door Bronco. The supplier is Fuyao Glass America Inc. of Moraine, Ohio. In addition to the Ford Motor Company, the supplier also works with GM, BMW, Honda, and Bentley.
46 percent of the recall population is believed to exhibit said condition. That's 3,462 units or just under 3.3 percent of total deliveries for the US market in 2023. Owners can easily determine whether their hard-topped Broncos are affected or not by entering the VIN on Ford's recall portal.
The Bronco entered the 2024 model year in August 2023 with a starting price of $39,130 before destination charge. That's $4,240 more than before, which might seem ludicrous. The truth is, the starting price ballooned this much due to Ford discontinuing the Base trim level. The Big Bend serves as the most spartan spec available for MY24.
Also worthy of note, Ford has made the Bronco a bit pricier by $500 for those in the market for the seven-speed manual. Trim levels that come standard with the crawler-gear manual are the Big Bend, Black Diamond, Badlands, and Heritage Edition. The $500 increase results in starting prices of $39,630 for the Big Bend, $43,330 for the Black Diamond, $48,55 for the Heritage Edition, and $50,095 for the Badlands in two-door flavor. At $90,035 from the outset, the four-door Raptor remains the most expensive grade.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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