J.D. Power’s own vehicle ratings put the 2023 Ford Bronco’s quality-and-reliability score at 75 out of 100, the lowest of any mainstream off-road SUV the firm tracks, while the Toyota 4Runner scores 86 and was named an outright 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study award winner. That’s an 11-point gap between two vehicles built for the same buyer and the same trails, and it comes straight from J.D. Power’s own scoring, not aggregated owner complaints or forum chatter.
Ford Bronco: 75/100, the Weakest of the Group
J.D. Power’s rating page for the 2023 Ford Bronco scores its Quality & Reliability component at 75 out of 100, labeled “Average,” built from verified owner survey responses covering defects, malfunctions, and design flaws across the whole vehicle. Owners flagged fuel economy, driving range, and cabin noise as recurring complaints. Combined with an overall vehicle score of 78/100, the Bronco sits at the bottom of this off-road comparison on J.D. Power’s own scale.
Land Rover Defender: 79/100, Still Below the Segment’s Best
The Land Rover Defender scores only marginally better. J.D. Power’s rating for the 2023 Defender puts Quality & Reliability at 79/100, again labeled “Average,” with an overall score of 76/100 that ranks it sixth among midsize premium SUVs. Owners’ top complaints — overall fuel economy and range, plus difficulty getting in and out of the rear seats — mirror the Bronco’s pattern of livability gripes layered on top of average mechanical scores.
Jeep Wrangler: 84/100, a Real Step Up
The Jeep Wrangler, a vehicle with a reputation built partly on ruggedness and partly on complexity, actually scores well above both. J.D. Power rates the 2023 Wrangler’s Quality & Reliability at 84/100, labeled “Great,” with an overall score of 84/100 that ties it for third among compact SUVs. That score coexists with Resale Value rated 96/100 — “Best” — meaning the Wrangler holds both its mechanical dependability rating and its market value better than most of the segment it’s compared against here.
Toyota 4Runner: 86/100 and an Actual VDS Award
The 4Runner tops this group on every J.D. Power metric available. Its Quality & Reliability score sits at 86/100, “Great,” and Toyota’s press materials confirm the 4Runner as one of eight Toyota Motor Corporation nameplates that earned a model-level award in the 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power’s flagship three-year ownership study. Owners’ complaints skew toward fuel economy and infotainment screen appeal rather than actual defects — a very different complaint profile than the Bronco or Defender.
Powertrain Complexity Is Doing Real Work Here Too
Both of the lower-scoring vehicles also carry more powertrain complexity than the segment leaders. The Defender is sold with a plug-in hybrid variant and the Bronco can be optioned with twin-turbo four- and six-cylinder engines paired to 10-speed automatics, while the 4Runner’s outgoing generation kept a comparatively simple V6-and-five-speed-automatic layout that J.D. Power’s own 2026 study found relevant industry-wide: PHEVs averaged 281 PP100 and BEVs 237, both well above the 198 PP100 posted by conventional gas vehicles. More systems generally means more places for something to go wrong by year three, and that trend tracks cleanly with where the Bronco and Defender land relative to the Wrangler and 4Runner.
The Real Split Isn’t “Off-Roaders Are Unreliable” — It’s Which Ones
Zoom out to J.D. Power’s brand-level data and the pattern holds: the 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study found the industry averaged 204 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), up from prior years, with premium brands underperforming mass-market brands by roughly 17 PP100 on average, driven heavily by infotainment issues at 56.7 PP100 industry-wide. That broader software-and-electronics problem shows up unevenly. It hits the Bronco’s and Defender’s more technology-dense cabins harder than the mechanically simpler, more iterative Wrangler and 4Runner platforms, which is very likely why the same study era that used Toyota’s 4Runner as an award winner also left the Bronco and Defender scoring at the bottom of their class.
Line these four up and the story isn’t that off-road SUVs as a category can’t be trusted — it’s that two of the newest, most feature-loaded ones are still working out the kinks that two much older, simpler platforms solved years ago, and J.D. Power’s own numbers are tracking that gap in real time.