2023 Hard Top Improvements?

Dblue351

Reading this tread I also have a leaking 23 badlands too. I had it in and ford replaced the seal and called it good. As someone else mentioned I park on a driveway facing up a bit. Either way I plan to take it back again. Good thing it fits in the garage.

As Ford says quality job one. It is funny just like our politicians. Say what people want to hear. Good luck with your Bronco.

Bronco 202?

As Ford says quality job one. It is funny just like our politicians. Say what people want to hear. Good luck with your Bronco.

They are coming to pick it up right now. So at least I don’t have to deal with getting it there.

FORD: There should be no problems with the hardtop 2.0. (If we say that, then we don't have to try a redesign it so it actually works.)

Bronco HT Owners: Why is there water dripping down my back? Ford says there are no problems with the hardtop 2.0 design, right?

Took a look at a 2023 last week and the seals were noticeably more rigid and larger than the previous gens. Even had horizontal ribbing.

Eninty

I think the design works very well. It's more of an issue with production and assembly line process.

In general I agree with this. You could make an argument that production tolerances could be better accounted for in the design. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SCBronco1

FORD: There should be no problems with the hardtop 2.0. (If we say that, then we don't have to try a redesign it so it actually works.)

Bronco HT Owners: Why is there water dripping down my back? Ford says there are no problems with the hardtop 2.0 design, right?

Don’t expect the truth, then you won’t be disappointed . integrity within a business seems to be something that was in the past.

Eninty

No, that's a good point. I was going to caveat my statement suchly, but didn't want to write an internet thesis paper.

Considering some tops have no issues means when all the plastics Gods align (i.e. the tolerance stack is good), the tops come out of the Easy Bake oven to spec. I think the issue is the design is hard to hold in high rate production. That means the production speed limits product quantity, so a capacity increase (at slower speed) is necessary. I think COVID didn’t let Ford and Webasto finish the production engineering to get high rate production out of the process.

But my (2-door) top is well made. The front panels do what Ford intended; lightweight and easy to remove. You just need Kevlar butcher gloves - lol.

Perhaps most of the leak issues is with the 4-door mid section. If I designed it, I would have used structural foam verses the honeycomb inside.

The center panel is a pretty poor design IMO. That is the weak link IMO. The seals at the C pillar don’t overlap, leaving a gap and room for noise / intrusion no matter how you adjust it. The geometry of the panel also depends heavily on the front panels adding pressure; the seals lift in front and don’t make contact with the frame well unless the front panels are on. Have seen this on several copies. I’ve adjusted pins and stops on mine, but there’s only so much you can do.

The seals themselves shrink up in the cold here. It was a wind tunnel when it got -20 but even at 20, there’s a lot of wind noise that shouldn’t be there. I think next time I pull off the top, I’m going to put down a line of friction tape across the sides where the seal meets the frame. That should help ensure good contact. As it is, I’ve already had to push the seals down by adding material underneath them. I am debating just paying to replace all the seals with 2023 MY.

The manufacturing of the window seals is another problem that’s sometimes confused with hard top noise. Having Ford replace my window seals solved a whole lot of issues.


But other than that, they’re designed really well 🤣

Well Ford is ordering me a new roof. So we shall see. Bronco is back home until the roof comes in.