You know those times when the best day ever suddenly becomes the worst? YouTuber Eville Truck knows all about those days because he’s just had one in his Ford Bronco that could turn out to be rather expensive.
The off-road enthusiast, who has documented his Bronco ownership experience on his channel, was out enjoying some time in the dirt in his lightly modified truck when he got a little carried away, causing some nasty sounding damage to the yellow Ford.
Entering an area covered in pools of mud way too hot, we see the Bronco crash down into one of those pools, but for a moment it looks like he might have got away with it. The Bronco’s a pretty hardy thing, after all.
When he attempts to reverse his way out of the swamp, the four wheel drive system initially appears to be functioning, as we can see both wheels on the passenger side spinning. The Bronco does manage to move forward through the pool towards the hill ahead, but then there’s a bang, a nasty grinding sound, and some godawful clunking noises. As the drivers floors the gas pedal it looks like the Bronco has lost all drive to the front axle.
Related: Ferrari SF90 Stradale Prototype Wrecked In Crash In Germany
There’s no way the Bronco is getting up the hill to the road under its own steam, so it’s on with the winch hook to drag it to the parking area where the damage can be assessed. Even without crawling underneath it’s clear that the initial impact has knocked the driver’s side front wheel badly out of alignment, and presumably caused some damage to the front differential.
Later, at a car wash, the driver reports that the Bronco seems to be driving okay in two-wheel drive mode on level ground, but it’s going to have to go into the dealer for an assessment. Which is when filming your exploits and posting on YouTube might not be the best thing. Big channels might be able to use their clout to pull some strings, but Eville Truck’s 2,870 subscribers probably isn’t enough to persuade a dealer to ignore the publicly available video evidence that the driver was at fault here.
But we’re hoping Ford and/or the dealer comes good on this one, and that if they don’t, that the repair costs aren’t too painful. Well, you can always dream.