Thread: Ranger Super Duty review.

I watched a YouTube of it being tested and compared it to a standard Ranger. The journalist was quite Ford biased. The SD struggled and went into limp modeon a long, steep uphill section of Bells Line of Road, overheated. Later the alternator failed and as th battery lost charge, without driver input applied the park brake and tried to select park. The alternator failure is a common and well known issue that had supposedly been addressed in this model.
It was tilt trayed back to Ford.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

I watched a YouTube of it being tested and compared it to a standard Ranger. The journalist was quite Ford biased. The SD struggled and went into limp modeon a long, steep uphill section of Bells Line of Road, overheated. Later the alternator failed and as th battery lost charge, without driver input applied the park brake and tried to select park. The alternator failure is a common and well known issue that had supposedly been addressed in this model.
It was tilt trayed back to Ford.

I had watched this also Ian. I think Ford only runs thermo fans and no clutch fan. I am not a fan of that (although I recognise some people like them) as the main cooling fan(s) in offroad vehicles. The attempt to select park while moving is a special feature. If I am not buyng LR (with all the benefits but with the question of preventative maintaince to deal with) and am buying a Thai made ute, I want it to be reliable and to my mind Ford is on the bottom of the list of reliability for Thai made utes, and it would be a big ask to buy one when they are also the most expensive of those utes. To me Ford seems to appeal to young trades as a big part of its market - plenty of grunt, biggest motors, biggest screens, nicest seats and those buyers usually trade the vehicle for a new one at the end of the warranty period, so getting 300k, 400k etc out of them with little or no reliability issues is not an issue.

Cheers

[QUOTE=scarry;3259629]This is from a Company that does vehicle mods.

Like every other Ranger it is softly sprung,so it rides well for the jurnos,and those that don't load them up,but loaded,it needs spring up grades and maybe more.
So off the showroom floor,it cannot do the job it is advertised to do.]



Yes, well I did the deed, ordered and bought a Super Dyooty Ranger to carry my slide-on camper. This camper we originally had on an early Amarok which handled it well, but the poor little 2 litre engine struggled, and we were continually playing tunes of the gear stick.

But... this "££"*&%%$&*(* huge, wonderful, heavy duty Ranger doesn't. It rides like a billy cart, and with the camper on at 700 kilos below GVM there is only 34 mills to the bump stops. It is incredibly uncomfortable, even driving on the Snowy Mountains Highway, a road we travel regularly in all sorts of vehicles. I thought it was a smooth road, but not in the Ranger.

By comparison......my 25 year old 130 Defender has 1,300 kilograms of water on board and a heavy diesel fire fighting pump. It is a fraction over GVM. There is about 80mm to the bump stop and it drives perfectly comfortably. I am currently arguing with Ford - I want my money back, this is not fit for purpose. I will buy some old banger to carry the fire fighter around our property and put the camper on the Defender.