Ford Ranger

I should add that there have been some reports of the torque converters of the 6R80 failing on Rangers, which leads to particulates contaminating the valve body of the trans and stuffing it, but none on Territories that I am aware of. The Ranger and Territory have a different cooling system for the trans. Could this be a factor?

Today we were following a Ranger ute up the Moombie hill out of Tamworth.
In our petrol Hyundai i30, most of the new CR diesel models leave us well behind in a hill climb due to their superior torque available.
Sadly, this particular Ranger had some gremlin on board, clouds of smoke and we simply sailed past on the second hill where we caught up.
To add insult to injury, on the way down south saw a (fairly?) recent Patrol at Willowtree being winched onto a flatbed truck with the van waiting to be hooked for the tow.
A bloke does wonder how many of the new breed are adequately reliable for serious outback work.
mike

I drove the ranger manual and was extremely disappointed in the performance, or lack of it, just felt like nothing there.

Took the colorado for a spin, an auto and they really do fly.

As for reliability of any of them thats another story!

Gazz,
how the hell are you going to get the truth get in the way of a good story. STOP IT.

Rangers and BT590's are a piece of bleep and you know it. Even though most owners are very happy. Silly people. LOL.

Now I will post the early problems that are common.

1. Smart charge. Ford will disable it for free. True.

2. Oil change. No more than 10 mins or you risk the engine not picking up oil. True.

3. Some are blowing charge air hoses and intercoolers. Then again we have the chipped boy racers.

4. Never heard of a head problem. More info would be good I would think. False without more info.

5. Wading depth. True. As morons charge the water and guess what. Bang. Don't get smug Tojo owners as I have seen it in 80 series and patrols.

6.Auto trans. Not many problems showing up with the gearbox. Boy racers probably have them.

7. Auto trans cooler protection cover works loose. Pop rivet fixes it.
and for the old school. The trans has it's own heat exchanger.
Don't believe some of the old school temps for auto trans either.

Full synthetic oil and temps that run normal around a (controlled) 94 to 95 C. at average running.

8. Tub is lightly constructed. Maybe they all are I don't really know.

9. Yes! There is a throttle delay only when taking off. Can be fixed with a throttle booster or in my case a erg blanking plate. BAD BOY.

10. Battery can be sue depending on the year and month.

11.Power. Yes it gets up and boogies. I see earlier in the post something about an I30 Hyundai which I have. Man the Ranger will blow it's doors off at idle.

Yes they will have problems as everything does, Colorado rear main seals leaking and seizing engines.

As Ned said, Such is life

G'day Slow one

I must have a lemon - bloody things done nearly 50,000 k's in 18 months and yes I've had a split turbo hose ( got a feeling it was made in Australia not China ) - no flat battery and what's a smart charge ? - left the filter off for an hour whilst changing the oil and the stupid thing just runs like a Swiss watch, and very cheesed off that towing my 2 tonne trailer daily I don't even get to smell any overheating odours, and with the canopy, roof racks and 200 kilo of equipment on top I'm bitterly dissapointed I don't have cracks in my tub like ALL those other lucky Ranger owners do, and as for throttle delay, could someone teach me to be a bit more impatient as I do apologise because I CAN wait .3 of a second before I take off and do the 1/4 mile in 13.8 seconds - wading depth ?? god help me - I tried to ingest some water and blow the motor up but after crossing a river 30 metres wide at 1100 mm deep with no snorkel the $hit of thing just walked through with the bonnet covered in wet stuff and to my dissmay had to turn the wipers on to see where I was going ! Anyway, on the same trip a mate in a 79 series ( won't mention what brand ) had to attach a snatch strap to the front of his car and the back of mine so he could push me up the steep wet slippery hill so I could be up the top with all the other "non series" cars that made it effortlessly - maybe I should have had muddies on like he did and not my standard road tyres ! Ford Warranty - it sucks, I complained about only getting 860 k's for 76 litres and they just said "suck it up buddy that's just how it comes out of the factory, get used to it "

Well I've sort of had enough of these issues - and to be honest, even the missus has too - she complains about not having to wear sports bras when we go 4wdriving like she had to in one of the "series" vehicles and can hear the stereo with the volume turned up to 3 !

Please Slow one - can you recommend something that would be more suitable for my needs - I'm getting desperate and am happy to pay more than the $48,000 I did for my XLT auto but as long as it gives me trouble !!!

Cheers mate

and hopefully we will meet on the side of the track in the middle of nowhere so you can get me going again.

All the best

Gazz

Gaz,
Yep I have had no problems with mine either and much of that is towing.

The smart charge is where the edu controls the charge rate and only charges the battery just enough, some then get flat batteries if they leave things on. Ford dealers will turn it off if you request it. Most new vehicles are coming out with this feature.

Yes, the oil change thing is true. There is a bulletin out on it and also those who charge water end up forcing it up into the intake. Mate I might see you stuck if you keep crossing that depth of water without a snorkel.

If you pull the inner guard off wish is easy to do, you can then see how high the intake is.

I can recommend something a little more comfortable for you but it is a toss up between three contenders.
Series1 landrover, G60 patrol or 40 series tojo.

Those new push pull snatch straps are the go, great invention. LOL.