Topic: Picking up a new vehicle

[Tr00b]

How much weight do you need to haul? Under 500 lbs is ideal... anything more and you bottom out  The 4 cyl suspension. I broke my shyt clean off.

Rangers beds are Pretty inadequate for 4x8 sheets of anything. If you are bored and want to store it you can build a platform out of 2x4s to clear the wheel wells To haul sheetrock etc.

I would get the manual transmission over the auto. Even in the newer models the auto is not that robust. I had a bad experience, but the fun to drive quotient with a hurst short throw can be quite excellent and the mt helps economy. The trans also remained the same for many years and you can get a 2wd trans with low low miles for 200 bucks at a junkyard. Parts for rangers in general are very reasonable  and widely available. If you were poor like me this didnt help much though.

I just bought a trailer for the jeep...

[stan98tj]

How much weight do you need to haul? Under 500 lbs is ideal... anything more and you bottom out  The 4 cyl suspension. I broke my shyt clean off.

I don't need to haul much. Just weekly garbage to dump and occcasional trips to Home Depot.

[Tr00b]

What did you end up deciding on?

[stan98tj]

Picked up my 2007 Ranger. Contractor/Cable guy White with 90k on it. New motor however, has 13k. Runs smooth and has plenty of pep for highway use. Filled her up (15 gallons) and drove the 108 miles home, barely used 1/8th of a tank. I'm pretty happy I suppose, though I won't be getting any looks or win any cool contests with it...until I paint racing stripes on it that is :)

[Tr00b]

A big improvement for these trucks is a limited slip rear diff and a Bronco II rear swaybar. They have little/no foul weather traction and with no rear sway they don't corner that great, in fact my lifted Jeep seemed to do better than my Ranger. The bronco 2 swaybar is the biggest bar offered on the little body Fords and makes the most difference. If you source a Ranger L/S axle, the B2 sway, the B2 swaybar to axle mounts, and the Ranger swaybar endlinks (which bolt into a predrilled hole in the frame) for about 300-400 bucks you can get a pretty marked performance upgrade. If you like lower, you can use an Explorer axle which is spring under perch which will drop the rear 2". I was cheap and went with a stock Ranger sway (avaliable on uplevel trucks) and I wished I had gone for the B2 sway.

Better than a racing stripe IMO, my fav thing about the white cable guy rangers is the sleeper potential.

How are you liking the truck so far?

[jfrabat]

The problem with the Ranger is that they discontinued it and in later years they were really only sold as fleet trucks.  The last batch were all white and sold to Orkin.  Ford doesn't have a small/medium size truck anymore. 

They do here: they are still selling the Ranger in Latin America (could always send one up north for a small fee, I guess!  LOL).

http://www.centroamerica.ford.com/es/pan/trucks/ranger

Felipe

[Jeffy]

They do here: they are still selling the Ranger in Latin America (could always send one up north for a small fee, I guess!  LOL).

http://www.centroamerica.ford.com/es/pan/trucks/ranger

Felipe

That's actually a completely different truck.  It's bigger then the old Ranger and just a tad smaller then the F-150.  No reason to cut sales on the F150, they're best selling truck.  That truck is build on the old Mazda B series platform.

[stan98tj]

Better than a racing stripe IMO, my fav thing about the white cable guy rangers is the sleeper potential.

How are you liking the truck so far?

My buddy came over the week I got it and after a certain amount of beers, the spray cans were broken out and 2 hrs later the Ranger was transformed into the Race Ranger haha! Somewhere in that time frame it was also deemed a good idea to stick on a "heavy duty" decal on the tailgate and fake chrome "vents" on the side of the engine bay. It gives me a laugh every time I drive it.
The truck is pretty good, though. I've never been much attracted to pick-ups, so the truck is strictly utilitarian and serves to acheive very specific tasks: haul our garbage to the dump, haul occasional large sized purchases for the house, and do all of it without sucking down too much gas. I have to say it meets all the requirements. I think I'm getting somewhere around 25mpgs.

[sharpxmen]

pics ?

[dwtaylorpdx]

The 2.3 will last forever,, just keep the timing belt serviced.

My brother has one with 275K on it.. Oil  changes and a every other year radiator flush.. thats it..

Great little trucks, if you put skinny skinny tires on it,, and run 40 PSi you can push 30MPG out of it..

Cheers
Dave

[Tr00b]

2007's have a timing chain and are DOHC Mazda designed Duratec engines with 2.3 liters of displacement totally a different animal than the old 2.3 that is a punched out pinto 2.0. Older trucks... I believe 2002 and 2003 ish back down to the late 70's... Have timing belt and are SOHC. They are non-interference and if the timing belt breaks, you just retime it and slap a belt on. Its MUCH easier with the belt on because the timing marks on the timing cover are CRAZY wrong!!!

The newer trucks are known to do 30 mpg. The older ones 25-27 is about all you will get out of them. I got 28 once in my 1998... Had a tail wind.

[RNandKT]

Those little rangers are awesome, but there are a lot better options for a Cheap gas mileage vehicle. Personally I used to have a Hyundai Accent. I bought it for like $1500 and it was decent to drive and averaged around 33 MPG (more city than hwy). You can also get a Toyota Echo pretty cheap and they get of 40 MPG. There are others too, like the Geo Metro, Ford Aspire, but honestly they suck to drive and are kinda disposable cars. I mean if you are gunna buy a whole second vehicle you really have to make the gas mileage worth it.

Personaly I always advocate people to buy a motorcyle. You can get a decent bike like a Suzuki Marauder, Or Kawasaki Vulcan, etc etc for $1500 - $2000 and heck of a lot more fun to drive, cost about a quarter as much to insure, and will get close to 50 MPG.

But everything I do is on a budget. And the way I see it if the Ford Ranger got 26 MPG and your Jeep is 16, at $3.50 a gallon (assuming you drive the normal 12,000 miles a year and switched and put 100% on the truck) Means you would spend about $1200 a year less in gas. Of course you will drive you Jeep sometimes, but if you factor in the cost to register the truck and insure it, you will be lucky to save about $700 a year in gas. Pretty much no matter how cheap the truck is it will take you several years before you earn that back ......

Doing the same math with a motorcycle or car that gets 45 MPG means you will spend about $2100 less a year in gas minus registration and insurance, and in that case more like $1600 + a year savings. Meaning if you buy one for around $1500 it will come close to paying for itself in the first year.

Anyway just my 2 cents ... Ford Rangers are great trucks (ran 1 for a while and very useful little truck) but unless you need the truck aspect of it, its not really helping your budget. Plus these trucks tend to be a little more expensive since they are so popular with the work trades that do need the truck aspect.

[RNandKT]

I guess I missed the post where you already bought it. Well have fun with it. Let us know how the mileage works out.