2022 Ford Bronco - Brake issues

Maintenance/Repairs
,
1

Bronco Sport brake failure… has anyone else experienced brake issues with their Bronco Sport? I had a 2022 and when pulling into a parking space, the car lurched over the cement block. I checked to make sure I was braking (which I was) when the car lurched forward again-- within seconds and the back tires went over the cement block. Then reved and lurched again. Took me about 40-50 feet in seconds. Bronco crashed into glass doors of a cement bulding-- and started reving again, getting ready to lurch forward again. Luckily, I had a seconds to realize this really happening while it was lodged in the doors of the building. I hit the button to turn off the engine. Turned it back on to back up so I could get out of the car. It lurched in backup mode. Another lady came over and tried to move it also-- to get it out for the tow truck. The same thing happened to her with the lurching. Then, the tow driver tried, and had the same issue so he decided to tow it from the grass.

Had the car lurched again, I would have smashed into a concrete wall and died. I broke my right foot. It cracked off all 5 bones connecting my toes to my feet. It happened from putting my left foot over my right on the brake pedal and standing on it trying to get the car to brake.

Ford had the car for over 5 months. Had an inspector-- and said they found NOTHING. Are they required to provide me with their inspections?

I know what happened. I am not a distracted driver. And even if I was stupid-- it isn’t possible for someone to be stupid enough to mix up pedals and not only have the first set of tires go over a giant cement block and continue pressing the same pedal until the back ones go over-- and then continue pressing the wrong pedal as they crash into a cement building. So don’t try and tell me it was a mix up of pedals.

2

Sorry that happened to you. it has happened to at least one other person that I have found…

September 15, 2023 NHTSA ID NUMBER: 11544687
Components: VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL

NHTSA ID Number: 11544687

Incident Date September 14, 2023

Consumer Location FORT MYERS, FL

Vehicle Identification Number 3FMCR9C61NR****

Summary of Complaint

CRASHYes

FIRENo

INJURIES1

DEATHS0

The contact owns a 2022 Ford Bronco. The contact stated that while his daughter was attempting to park, the vehicle suddenly accelerated forward and crashed into the door of a building. While reversing from the building, the vehicle accelerated. The driver sustained injuries to her foot and was sent to the hospital where medical attention was provided. There were no warning lights illuminated. A police report was filed. There was no airbag deployment or fire. The vehicle was towed to the local dealer but was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 5, 000.

1 Affected Product

Vehicle

MAKE MODEL YEAR
FORD BRONCO SPORT 2022

Request Research (Services fees apply)

There is a recall for the brakes…

November 23, 2021 NHTSA CAMPAIGN NUMBER: 21V922000
Reduced Braking Performance/FMVSS 135
During certain situations, the driver may have to apply more brake pedal force, and the distance required to stop the vehicle may be extended, increasing the risk of a crash.

NHTSA Campaign Number: 21V922000

Manufacturer Ford Motor Company

Components SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC

Potential Number of Units Affected 114,666

Summary

Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2021-2022 Bronco Sport and Escape vehicles. The rear brake linings may have been manufactured incorrectly, which can affect braking performance. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 135, “Light Vehicle Brake Systems.”

Remedy

Dealers will replace the front brake pads, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed August 17, 2022. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford’s number for this recall is 21C31.

Notes

Owners may also contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or go to www.nhtsa.gov.

4 Affected Products

Vehicles

MAKE MODEL YEAR
FORD BRONCO SPORT 2021-2022
FORD ESCAPE 2021-2022

20 Associated Documents

1 Like
3

The notice your post above @weekend-warrior seems to be nearly identical to the OP’s post above. I’m guessing it is the same person…

As far as any claims the OP panicked and didn’t press the correct pedals, that explanation seems very unlikely b/c other folks assisting, including the tow truck driver, are said to have experienced the same problems.

There does seem to be a brake recall, at least on the smaller turbo-engine engine model. Seems to be related to the brake booster and brake pads. One of the downsides of a turbo engine is there may be little to no vacuum in the intake manifold to power the brake booster. This complicates the brake system design. My guess, one of these design complications failed, leaving you with a non-functional brake booster. The symptom is similar to trying to apply the brakes with the engine off, considerably more pedal force required. If I had to make a completely uneducated guess, mine would be the brake booster lost its vacuum source for some reason. One idea, ask the shop to connect a vacuum gauge from the booster to the passenger compartment so they can monitor the vacuum level as they drive. Done only as a test with the shop-tech doing the driving. .

Sorry this occurred to you OP. Wishing you a speedy recovery. We seem to get only a few complaints here about the new Bronco. You are welcome to try the forum search feature for past posts about the Bronco, link upper right this page.

4

This SUV has an electric/hydraulic brake booster, not a vacuum booster.

image
image960×720 89.1 KB

5

Any ideas how its operation can be experimentally verified? At this point OP seems to not know what caused he problem, frustrating situation.

Another related question: Is more pedal force required w/this sort of brake booster, when it fails?

6

A field technician inspected the vehicle, I don’t think the vehicle owner can diagnose the problem via internet assistance.

Drivers should become familiar with the engine kill switch before the potential crash.

7

Just happened to someone I know in a Ford last week. I think it’s an Escape from around 2016. It suddenly lurched forward about half way in the garage and it took out part of the back wall of the garage. “Brakes did not work”. Driver had the vehicle towed and did not attempt to drive it after that.

Apparently it’s not only Toyota that is having problems with their throttle by wire system. With traditional engine vaccum power brakes, when the throttle is open, even if the car is in neutral or shut off, even applying half of full brake power takes a significant amount of force. Power brake assist is 4:1 or possibly more.

Based on what I read here and my story, it seems like there is a fault in the electronic throttle system on Fords. The fault is detected and whatever safety system there is corrects the problem, but there is a small delay of up to about one second before that activates.

It seems that the problem keeps happening, so that makes it a lot easier to diagnose. Jack up the drive wheels and play with it. It might be a hardware electrical problem such as shorting wires or a failing throttle pedal position sensor. With Toyota it was mostly software and the problem would occur very rarely so it was almost impossible to reproduce. Shorted wires going to the throttle pedal could also cause it on Toyotas.

If you’re going to get a Ford with an electronic throttle (throttle by wire), make sure it has a manual transmission. Neutral is one pedal press away.

8

Hi Jeddy. Fellow Bronco Sport owner here (BL '23). I have copied this post to the Bronco Sport club on Facebook.There are 20,000 owner/fans in the club. Sorry to hear this. Hope you make a full recovery.

9

When they inspected the vehicle, they probably looked at the info in the event data recorder to see what the conditions were during the accident, and that’s why they probably said they found nothing.

Tester

10

Inspecting the event recorder data seems like a good idea. I wonder if it got erased somehow? It seems like the driver should be able to press a button when something like that happens to record the critical sensor data from 15 minutes ago, to 15 minutes after the button is pressed, and stores it under an electronic lock and key, impossible to erase.

11

The title of this does not match the description. It is an uncommanded acceleration issue with possible reduce brake effectiveness along with it.

It would have to hit something hard for the airbag controller event data recorder to register something. It doesn’t record every pot hole or ditch that you drive though.

12

I may have miss read and miss understood what the OP was explaining, but from what I understood, the OP DID NOT have a braking issue, it was an unwanted acceleration issue…
A vehicle at idle is not gonna drive over a parking block twice and then through a window, that takes acceleration, not an engine idle issue where the brakes failed…

If you give most any standard vehicle enough fuel (gas/diesel), meaning putting the gas pedal to the floor, it will overcome the brakes no matter how hard you are applying them (unless it is greatly underpowered)… That is basically how you check the stall speed of a torque converter without getting all technical about it… And if I read it right, the Bronco Sport AWD is standard making it easier to overcome the brakes… The vehicle may also have a braking issue that added to the malfunction that happened, but I still see this as an unwanted acceleration problem…
Again, I say all this as I understood the OP’s post…

Sorry the OP experienced this, as it is a bad situation no matter then cause of it…

13

I was plowing once with large boots on and had a frightening experience with unintentionally pressing the gas pedal and brake when trying to stop. It was very confusing situation for my brain to comprehend. The harder I pressed, the worse the situation became. I fully understand the confusion people feel when that happens to them because of that event.

I’m not saying that happened to the OP but pointing it out to rebut this statement:

Apparently you haven’t watched any videos of people doing exactly that. Driving not just over concrete stops but continuing into the store front and beyond. Sometimes with the tires still squealing. There a lots of them to watch if you are so inclined. It’s not stupidity, it’s complete confusion. Like crossing your arms to ride a bike, your brain has trouble processing what’s happening compared to what is expected. The worse the situation gets the more confused they get and the harder the operator presses on the pedal to get the desired result.

In my estimation, this doesn’t help your case. It makes your account appear hysterical and calls into question anything else you’re saying about it.

Hopefully some viable electro-mechanical fault is found to validate your account. I don’t believe the manufacturer has to voluntarily divulge any test plans or results but likely subject to discovery if there is any follow on litigation.

3 Likes
14

+1
The most recent incident had to do with a car driving quite far into the ER of a Texas hospital. In addition to the incredible damage caused by this accidental entry, smoke filled the air for an extended period of time because the tires continued to spin.

15

Tragic. That car had a pretty good head of steam going in. Surprised not to see some sort of bollards protecting the front of that building. I think these will continue to become more popular. Have you seen the automatic ones?

16

[quote=“Jeddy, post:1, topic:194413”]
Another lady came over and tried to move it also-- to get it out for the tow truck. The same thing happened to her with the lurching. Then, the tow driver tried, and had the same issue so he decided to tow it from the grass”

So two other people experienced the lurching (or unintended) acceleration .

17

I read that part.

Nowhere in my post did I question the events as stated by the OP. I only addressed her comment regarding stupidity playing a role in events where pedals are mixed up.

1 Like
18

Yup!
In 2008, I was a passenger in my friend’s 2005 Accord sedan. As we were rolling toward the exit of a Shell station after gassing-up, we were T-boned by a woman driving a Lexus RX SUV, whose vehicle jumped the curb on busy US-1, careened onto the gas station property, and then hit us.

I overheard one of the responding cops questioning her, and she said, “The harder I pushed on the brake, the faster it went”. As he jotted-down her response, the cop softly muttered, Yeah that’s what happens when you floor the gas pedal.

Operator error seems to be much more frequent with elderly drivers, but the woman who T-boned us was probably in her early 40s.

1 Like
19

Your senses can fool you when they provide conflicting information. I was backing into a perpendicular spot recently I had stopped with my foot fully in the brake pedal when the car next to me started to drive slowly out of his spot. I was staring at him and it gave me the feeling that I was drifting. I pushed harder on the brake pedal to confirm I was stopped and then realized he was moving and not me.

2 Likes
20

I don’t know if this fits the ole cat in a box issue, but both things can be true. The wrong pedal can be pushed and also there can be unintended acceleration. This has been discussed before at length. One store downtown has gotten hit twice and the Chinese restaurant. Quite sure this was bad driving.

I have absolute proof that the pedals can get mixed up, particularly when the driver panics. I also believe whether due to a computer glitch or whatever, that a car can hyper accelerate on its own, and the cause will never be discovered. Bruce Williams lawsuit, the chip driver, and others point to the possibility.

I had a stuck fast idle on my 59, and also bad iac on my riv causing high revs. Brakes were less than helpful especially on ice but neutral still worked. Just sayin I think both need to be considered but up to the owner to sort out what happened.

Of course I think mixing pedals up is less likely for two foot drivers especially when wearing street shoes. If I have snow boots on, that can be an issue in both feel and pedal selection.