New Gen Ranger. First impressions

Magnus Oyke said:

You might have done 45 years of driving, but I'll wager you haven't done 45 minutes cycling and had Captain Roid Rage in his Ford Wife Beater pickup rubbing the back wheel of your bike and beeping his horn at you for having the temerity to turn left on your drive. Mind you, I did meet the fat, ginger, pansy on the tractor when I had the drill on the back, and accidentally forced him into the ditch. Another one of the heros around here was often seen driving his pickup in a manner more suited to a Subaru WRX and funnily enough, it ended up in the ditch with a spectacular amount of damage. I suppose driven hard, it might just be able to keep up with a mid range Fiesta.

These pickups are too fragile to load with a forklift, and too high to load them by hand, and you can only load the from the back, nicely hitting you shin on the tow hitch. Is the load bed much bigger than a 19080's VW Caddy? Probably nothing like as big as a Peugeot 504 pickup. I hear on the radio ads that they can now accomidate a Europallet. Wow, like a Transit Connect. Funnily enough,, on the crew cabs, most of the load bed is to the rear of the back axle, so presumably they offer a set of front weight on the option list, not that many of them actually carry anything other than the drivers attitude problems.

That 3.5 tonne towing capacity, coupled with a throbbing 2 litre engine must make for a formidable haulage vehicle, ideal towing the badly/barely strapped on mini digger of questionable provenance, to the ropey Ifor Williams with a couple of lights working and 2 legal tyres.

Aside from some off road ability, I really can't see that they would off me much if I needed a work truck, a quite large vehicle with a small, awkward, insecure load area. Arm oot.

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Cowabunga said:

Goodbye.

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Magnus Oyke said:

What am I wrong about?

There's a 20 plate Ranger Wildcat parked in the yard next to the guy's 20 or 21 Transit Connect. I'll wager the Connect has considerably more load area.

So you're going to put an IBC in the back of your new Ranger. You can only load it from the back, and if you so much a touch the tail gate with the forklift it will fold up like wet cardboard. You'll have to back out with the forklift and push the IBC on further, then your going to hit the wheel arches, if it's riding above the wheels and there's no wheel arch intrusion, that's going to be a really high centre of gravity. Then when you get home, the chances are you'll unload it with a telehandler and bend the rest of the bed.

So you want to pull a stock trailer with your cattle/sheep on it, your a upland farmer. Does 3.5t really cut it? You've almost certainly got a tractor that will comfortably pull 3 times that with at worst hydraulic brakes. You may even have a 50k tractor with air that can operate the brakes and provide air for the suspension on the trailer. Then they can do this on £0 VED, red diesel, no MOT and a car license with a machine you've already got.

OK, so you have a big forage harvester, pit machine and trailers to fuel up, or combine harvest equiptment. Is 3.5t gross for the trailer enough for the fuel, a compressor, some cans of oil, Adblue tank some tools and spares?

My mate builds sports pitches and goes all over the country. He used to have an L200 with tri axle Ifor to pull his equiptment about. He was always on the limit weight wise then admittedly out grew the pickup, but replaced it with a non LGV 7.5 tonner. The MAN is cheaper on fuel, maintainance, and IIRC tax. He's not got a pickup anymore, if he moves small plant it goes on one of the 7.5 tonners and the guys have a couple of vans to run around in. I even read on a US forum that the best thing one guy did was take to tow hitches off his pickups and use the lorrys.

These things are just posing pouches. Girls have their Fiat 500's and MINI's, that can be ordered in pretty colours because they're cuuuuute, certain men have these pickup, because they're manly and tough. Even you, who are proporting to want a work truck, is more interested in having a USB port by the rear view mirror than that utter pain of getting anything in or out of the load bed on a pickup. I'm younger than you and way fitter, but jumping in and out of the bed of these things to get your socket set/chainsaw/whatever will get old very quickly.

From what I can see, these pickup are physically too big, with a load area that's too small, too high and not secure, too expensive and the towing capacity, while largely limited by regulation doesn't make them worth the bother. For the most part as a farm run about a modern Subaru MV, their little pickup, would be a much better be that the curent crop of pickups.

I'm not sure the "I'll use it as a car" cuts it either. No one would buy a car that drives like a pickup, never mind spend 45 grand on a car that drives like a pickup.

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toquark said:

I'd like a review of the 3l V6 model. The 2.0 twin turbo is a good motor by all accounts, but when faced with the choice between that and a V6, I'd go V6 every time.

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Magnus Oyke said:

What am I wrong about?

There's a 20 plate Ranger Wildcat parked in the yard next to the guy's 20 or 21 Transit Connect. I'll wager the Connect has considerably more load area.

So you're going to put an IBC in the back of your new Ranger. You can only load it from the back, and if you so much a touch the tail gate with the forklift it will fold up like wet cardboard. You'll have to back out with the forklift and push the IBC on further, then your going to hit the wheel arches, if it's riding above the wheels and there's no wheel arch intrusion, that's going to be a really high centre of gravity. Then when you get home, the chances are you'll unload it with a telehandler and bend the rest of the bed.

So you want to pull a stock trailer with your cattle/sheep on it, your a upland farmer. Does 3.5t really cut it? You've almost certainly got a tractor that will comfortably pull 3 times that with at worst hydraulic brakes. You may even have a 50k tractor with air that can operate the brakes and provide air for the suspension on the trailer. Then they can do this on £0 VED, red diesel, no MOT and a car license with a machine you've already got.

OK, so you have a big forage harvester, pit machine and trailers to fuel up, or combine harvest equiptment. Is 3.5t gross for the trailer enough for the fuel, a compressor, some cans of oil, Adblue tank some tools and spares?

My mate builds sports pitches and goes all over the country. He used to have an L200 with tri axle Ifor to pull his equiptment about. He was always on the limit weight wise then admittedly out grew the pickup, but replaced it with a non LGV 7.5 tonner. The MAN is cheaper on fuel, maintainance, and IIRC tax. He's not got a pickup anymore, if he moves small plant it goes on one of the 7.5 tonners and the guys have a couple of vans to run around in. I even read on a US forum that the best thing one guy did was take to tow hitches off his pickups and use the lorrys.

These things are just posing pouches. Girls have their Fiat 500's and MINI's, that can be ordered in pretty colours because they're cuuuuute, certain men have these pickup, because they're manly and tough. Even you, who are proporting to want a work truck, is more interested in having a USB port by the rear view mirror than that utter pain of getting anything in or out of the load bed on a pickup. I'm younger than you and way fitter, but jumping in and out of the bed of these things to get your socket set/chainsaw/whatever will get old very quickly.

From what I can see, these pickup are physically too big, with a load area that's too small, too high and not secure, too expensive and the towing capacity, while largely limited by regulation doesn't make them worth the bother. For the most part as a farm run about a modern Subaru MV, their little pickup, would be a much better be that the curent crop of pickups.

I'm not sure the "I'll use it as a car" cuts it either. No one would buy a car that drives like a pickup, never mind spend 45 grand on a car that drives like a pickup.

Click to expand...

David. said:

I'll never understand why we don't have goose neck trailers and a removable turntable that fits in the loadbed, the weight is then in the right place, instead of yanking the arse off.

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Magnus Oyke said:

You might have done 45 years of driving, but I'll wager you haven't done 45 minutes cycling and had Captain Roid Rage in his Ford Wife Beater pickup rubbing the back wheel of your bike and beeping his horn at you for having the temerity to turn left on your drive. Mind you, I did meet the fat, ginger, pansy on the tractor when I had the drill on the back, and accidentally forced him into the ditch. Another one of the heros around here was often seen driving his pickup in a manner more suited to a Subaru WRX and funnily enough, it ended up in the ditch with a spectacular amount of damage. I suppose driven hard, it might just be able to keep up with a mid range Fiesta.

These pickups are too fragile to load with a forklift, and too high to load them by hand, and you can only load the from the back, nicely hitting you shin on the tow hitch. Is the load bed much bigger than a 19080's VW Caddy? Probably nothing like as big as a Peugeot 504 pickup. I hear on the radio ads that they can now accomidate a Europallet. Wow, like a Transit Connect. Funnily enough,, on the crew cabs, most of the load bed is to the rear of the back axle, so presumably they offer a set of front weight on the option list, not that many of them actually carry anything other than the drivers attitude problems.

That 3.5 tonne towing capacity, coupled with a throbbing 2 litre engine must make for a formidable haulage vehicle, ideal towing the badly/barely strapped on mini digger of questionable provenance, to the ropey Ifor Williams with a couple of lights working and 2 legal tyres.

Aside from some off road ability, I really can't see that they would off me much if I needed a work truck, a quite large vehicle with a small, awkward, insecure load area. Arm oot.

Click to expand...

Spudmaster said:

I’m more than happy to admit that my main motivation for running a pick-up is tax efficiency (it’s a no-brainer financially on many levels), rather than as a ’posing pouch’, (ironically my wife is keen on getting a mini, so as a family we are clearly ticking all of your stereotype boxes!)

As for running instead of a car - I originally planned to keep my car (E400d Merc with air suspension), but after running the truck for first month, decided I didn’t actually need it as the truck does 150% of what the car did, with c. 80% of the refinement - made sense to cash it in whilst used car market so strong.

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Magnus Oyke said:

What am I wrong about?

There's a 20 plate Ranger Wildcat parked in the yard next to the guy's 20 or 21 Transit Connect. I'll wager the Connect has considerably more load area.

So you're going to put an IBC in the back of your new Ranger. You can only load it from the back, and if you so much a touch the tail gate with the forklift it will fold up like wet cardboard. You'll have to back out with the forklift and push the IBC on further, then your going to hit the wheel arches, if it's riding above the wheels and there's no wheel arch intrusion, that's going to be a really high centre of gravity. Then when you get home, the chances are you'll unload it with a telehandler and bend the rest of the bed.

So you want to pull a stock trailer with your cattle/sheep on it, your a upland farmer. Does 3.5t really cut it? You've almost certainly got a tractor that will comfortably pull 3 times that with at worst hydraulic brakes. You may even have a 50k tractor with air that can operate the brakes and provide air for the suspension on the trailer. Then they can do this on £0 VED, red diesel, no MOT and a car license with a machine you've already got.

OK, so you have a big forage harvester, pit machine and trailers to fuel up, or combine harvest equiptment. Is 3.5t gross for the trailer enough for the fuel, a compressor, some cans of oil, Adblue tank some tools and spares?

My mate builds sports pitches and goes all over the country. He used to have an L200 with tri axle Ifor to pull his equiptment about. He was always on the limit weight wise then admittedly out grew the pickup, but replaced it with a non LGV 7.5 tonner. The MAN is cheaper on fuel, maintainance, and IIRC tax. He's not got a pickup anymore, if he moves small plant it goes on one of the 7.5 tonners and the guys have a couple of vans to run around in. I even read on a US forum that the best thing one guy did was take to tow hitches off his pickups and use the lorrys.

These things are just posing pouches. Girls have their Fiat 500's and MINI's, that can be ordered in pretty colours because they're cuuuuute, certain men have these pickup, because they're manly and tough. Even you, who are proporting to want a work truck, is more interested in having a USB port by the rear view mirror than that utter pain of getting anything in or out of the load bed on a pickup. I'm younger than you and way fitter, but jumping in and out of the bed of these things to get your socket set/chainsaw/whatever will get old very quickly.

From what I can see, these pickup are physically too big, with a load area that's too small, too high and not secure, too expensive and the towing capacity, while largely limited by regulation doesn't make them worth the bother. For the most part as a farm run about a modern Subaru MV, their little pickup, would be a much better be that the curent crop of pickups.

I'm not sure the "I'll use it as a car" cuts it either. No one would buy a car that drives like a pickup, never mind spend 45 grand on a car that drives like a pickup.

Click to expand...

ollie989898 said:

There is a big downside of driving a Ford Transit.

Everyone will think you are a cow-boy builder or a freelance scrap metal reclamation operative. I suppose you could even be both.

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Cowabunga said:

After less than 100 miles and only four hours studying and driving...

Fetched my new red Ranger 2.0 Wildtrak today.
Slightly disappointed that it hasn’t got the USB up by the mirror but I knew it didn’t have the wireless charging, inverter, auxiliary switches and surround cameras. These don’t add up to anything like the £750 that the unwanted 20” tyres cost. That is how it was ordered for stock and none of it is a dealbreaker.

Surprised that it does have a heated windscreen, as that is not mentioned in the specifications.

Disappointed slightly that it does not have the adjustable heavy duty side rail tie-down points in the bed like my 2014 Ranger.

Drives very nicely indeed after I figured out the functions available on the electronic gear selector. Nice.

Not so great is that on the way home the tyre pressure monitor system developed a fault and has remained faulty to this evening. Apparently I must refer to a dealer, but this is not a critical function for me and is easily banished from the screen when the banner pops up.

Adaptive cruise control works just as well as on a Volvo, Kia or BMW. The lane keep assist is more subtle than the others but works well, but it doesn’t semi-auto-steer like the others with the package I’ve bought. It’s more than enough though.

Engine lovely and quiet while being more than adequately powerful. It also shows great economy potential, travelling 45 miles on undulating West Wales roads this evening and keeping up with traffic, it already shows 34mpg with less than a total of 100 miles on the clock.

The ride and handling and refinement is great for a pickup and long may it remain so.

There’s no speedometer of the analogue style that I’ve yet found. The digital is fine though and I quite like the uncluttered look that is possible to set.

One rather major item that Ford has disabled is the keyless entry. Apparently the hardware is all there but it was too easy and common for thieves to scan the key remotely from outside the house at night and drive away with the vehicle. Hopefully there will be an update soon that restores that rather nice functionality, because I’m used to it on other cars dating back further than my wife’s 2015 Honda CR-V.

The American ‘receiver’ type tow hitch is a bit of an abomination. The drawbar is a loose fit [it rattles] and only held on by one rather small pin that is only held in place by an R clip. It has advantages I guess, in that it is easily removable and can be replaced by a winch or something. It extends further rearwards than usual, which will give a greater degree of manoeuvrability turning in reverse. I prefer, admittedly with zero actual experience as yet, the really solid heavy duty factory hitch fitted to my 2014 Ranger.

That’s my first day’s impression, having collected it at about 2.30pm.

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ollie989898 said:

Can I take it from all this you aren't really a fan of the 2023 2.0 twin-turbo Ford Ranger?

EDIT: 'Ford wife beater pick up' that is going in my TFF phrasebook, sat here sniggering to myself nearly crying having read that'.

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Johnnyboxer said:

Why do a lot of French farmers drive vans then ?

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ollie989898 said:

There is a big downside of driving a Ford Transit.

Everyone will think you are a cow-boy builder or a freelance scrap metal reclamation operative. I suppose you could even be both.

Click to expand...

Qman said:

He has been quite patient with you so far...don't prod the duck.

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