2022 Ford Bronco Everglades Review: 4 Cool Features and 2 That Are Not

Ford has an amazingly wide array of Broncos in its lineup. New entries are added this year including the 2022 Ford Bronco Everglades.

After launching with six different trim grades, all with serious differences in off-road hardware, Ford wasted almost no time in dropping more. New this year are both the Raptor, which is covered over here, and the vehicle we are discussing now, the 2022 Ford Bronco Everglades.

That’s not forever, but it should be more than enough time for you to get the 100-feet of Warn Spydura synthetic rope pulled out and wrapped around something strong enough to winch you out of the water. It’ll pull the rope back in at 33-feet (10-metres) a minute 27 percent faster than Warn’s standard-duty winches.

The best part? Forget the usual three-year 36 k mile (60,000 km) warranty. Warn covers the Zeon 10-S with a lifetime warranty on parts and a seven-year warranty on the electrical bits. So go ahead and get it wet and dirty, this winch will get you out. Ford has done durability testing beyond what Warn would normally do. It’s been through most of the same punishment as any other part of the Bronco, including crash testing. Yes, it has a revised airbag sensor to make sure that even with the winch on board it meets all necessary safety specs.

This is the first time Ford has ever sent a vehicle from the factory with a snorkel system on the intake. It’s actually the only factory-installed snorkel on any vehicle on sale today, period. Toyota’s snorkel on various TRD models is really a “desert air intake” and the Chevy Colorado Bison’s is “an available third-party accessory snorkel for ZR2 Bison from AEV, ideal for air filtration while driving on dusty trails.”

The snorkel is designed to work with dusty conditions, rain and snow, and deep water. A plate on one side and a mesh grate on the other are interchangeable. Face the grille forward to sit above dust and dirt in the desert. Face it rearward to keep out water if you’re doing big splashes or in case of heavy rain or snow.

On its own, the snorkel is useless. There are other things that can’t get wet. So Ford fixed those too, raising the vent tubes for the axles, transfer case, and transmission to let the Bronco ford up to 36.4-inches (925 mm) of water.

On the other hand, the Everglades can handle 36.4-inches, but the Raptor has an intake on the top of the radiator support and can do 37. What was the point of this snorkel again? It’s the vent tubes we mentioned above. They’re higher, but they can only be raised so much before it becomes a bigger issue.

If you’re driving through deep mud, the raison d’etre for the Everglades, you’re going to end up with mud inside. From the open windows, to the removable doors, or just from your boots and clothes. Especially if you actually have to use the winch.

Everglades has marine-grade vinyl seats so you can just wipe the mud off. And the mud won’t get into the foam and make your seats smell like they’re still at the bottom of the swamp. The floors are rubberized and can be washed out. Don’t hesitate to take the hose to the cabin when it’s time to return the mud to the great outdoors. The strange side effect of rubber floors? You can hear all of that water flowing a lot more easily than you would with some carpet.

What do you do with all of that water? Ford has installed drain plugs at the lowest points in the footwells. Pop the rubber plug and all of that water rolls back out the bottom. Everglades has floor mats that dampen some of the sound that the rubber floors allow in, but the Bronco will never exactly be quiet.

Make sure you remember to put the plugs back in, though. Leave any one of them out and you’re going to end up with wet feet when you’re not expecting them. Or a geyser when the water and mud from a splash spray up through the floor.

How is Ford using the four-cylinder instead of the V6 a cool feature? The point of the Everglades is to be the basis for an overlanding rig, so total payload is important. The truck already gets the extra weight of that winch hanging off the nose (and the modular bumper), and Ford needed to balance it out. Literally. The four-pot, crucially, puts less weight on the nose of the Bronco. The extra two cylinders and everything that goes with them add around 150 pounds to the Bronco, so the four-cylinder savings is nearly double the 80 lb weight of the winch.

What does balance have to do with overlanding? Nothing. But the lighter weight of the EcoBoost four helps maximize vehicle payload. Everglades can handle up to 1,196 lbs (543 kg) of gear and passengers with enough left for the tongue weight of a compact off-road camper if a roof tent isn’t for you or if you have a bigger crew with you.

The four hash-marks on the fender graphic look like they’re a great way to let you know when the water is too deep. Ford wishes that’s what they were for too. The graphics came purely from the art and styling departments, with engineering not in the loop. So the lines don’t mean anything at all. Maybe for next year? If you want to know the real high water mark, watch the tires. The Everglades has the Sasquatch Package and the included 35-inch tires. With sidewall compression, that gives you two or three inches of water above the tire before you’re in too deep. So if you can’t see your tire, you’re about to get stuck.

You might wonder how Ford got its front-facing cameras and radar sensors to “see” around the big winch. It didn’t, as it turns out.

No front camera means no surround-view camera, and you can’t take advantage of the front-facing camera to see over the top of hills on the trail. The 2022 Ford Bronco Everglades doesn’t get adaptive cruise control either, which is hard to ignore on a vehicle at this price point. On the other hand, fancy cruise control is completely useless if you can’t get over that next rock or you’re bogged down in nearly three feet of mud (about a meter). Everything in life is a trade-off.