The Best Not-So-Small Truck | Ford Ranger

[Music] in this video i'm going to be talking about the 2020 and 2021 ford ranger why you might want one why you might not want one how it tows i have 5 000 pounds connected to the back of this ranger right here and why small pickup trucks aren't really that small i'm going to apologize in advance if at any point in this video i accidentally call the ranger a wrangler because in my head these two words sound strangely similar so apologies for that in advance why don't we have more small tracks in america is a question i get asked all the time the first thing to know about small trucks in america are that they're really not that small the ranger the gladiator the tacoma the colorado the canyon and even the honda ridgeline are not really that much smaller than the smallest of the full-size trucks the biggest dimensional difference between the ranger and the f-150 is the width this is about six inches narrower than an f-150 excluding the mirrors so if you're planning on trying to put your pickup truck into a tight garage space or you have a lot of really narrow parking spaces wherever you live then the ranger is going to be easier to integrate into your life another point of differentiation is the styling the ranger is sold around the world not just in north america whereas the f-150 was really designed for north america primarily and therefore it has a very different styling mission this looks a little bit more like ford's passenger car family on the outside definitely with this grille styling and the headlamp design over here whereas the f-150 is definitely very different from something like a ford fusion in terms of its design how is it possible to have a half-ton truck that gets better fuel economy than the ranger with a smaller frontal area or really most of the mid-size trucks in the united states a lot of that has to do with just the extra gadgets and extra fuel saving technology that we find on half-ton trucks for instance active aero treatments like active grill shutters or active air dams that sort of thing we also have cylinder deactivation systems available in those half-ton trucks that we don't typically find in mid-sized trucks honda ridgeline accepted this one doesn't have cylinder deactivation we don't have any active grill shutters or any active aero treatments up front it's important to remember that half-ton pickup trucks vastly outsell mid-sized pickup trucks in the united states ford's f-150 outsells this by at least five to one and therefore there's simply more money available on that design the model we're looking at today has radar adaptive cruise control so we have a radar sensor right there well integrated parking sensors up front and then a combination plastic and metal bumper arrangement this upper red section is plastic we then have a metal portion that wraps completely around the front then a black plastic insert at the bottom and then large tow hooks at this point many of you are no doubt thinking hang on a minute he just said that the ranger wasn't smaller than an f-150 and then he said that it was narrower than an f-150 well what i'm talking about is the length at over 210 inches long this is a little bit longer than the f-150 and pretty much all of the competition's smallest half-ton pickup trucks short bed and of course the two-door cab that's because there is no two-door version of the ranger in america and that's not unique just to the ranger that's pretty much the story for every mid-sized truck in america the tacoma the ridgeline the colorado the canyon the gladiator etc they're all going to be a little bit longer than the smallest half-ton trucks that are out there the reason for that is all about corporate average fuel economy standards in the united states honestly government legislation is the reason that we don't have teeny tiny t-100 sized pickup trucks in america anymore the corporate average fuel economy standards or cafe in the united states has a really interesting impact on vehicle design it tends to de-incentivize large sedans but incentivize trucks getting bigger quite simply until there's either enough customer demand or the cafe regulations change it's unlikely that we're going to see any teeny tiny pickup trucks in the united states anytime soon and that's why even though the ranger is available with two different size cabs and two different length beds all rangers are going to be the same length on the outside so if you get the bigger cab you're always going to get the shorter bed if you get the shorter bed you're always going to get the bigger cab i've recently had a number of people ask me specifically about the ranger and its wheel gap why is it that there's a bigger gap back here in the rear than we find up front when the vehicle is completely unladen this has to do with payload and towing ability and it's something that's not particularly unique to the ranger although for some reason the general design of the ranger makes it seem like this gap is a little bit bigger than you might think payload for the ranger comes in between fifteen hundred sixty pounds and eighteen hundred sixty pounds depending on the version that you get that includes all the cargo back here in the bed and of course passengers on the inside the range is also designed to support 750 pounds of tongue weight in order to enable 7 500 pounds of towing ability and that means that the rear suspension has to be firmer than some of the competition that doesn't have those same higher payload abilities or those same high tongue weight abilities generally speaking this is exactly why we see the same sort of wheel gaps going on in three quarter ton and one ton trucks this is just a scaled down version of that exact same reason compared to something like a honda ridgeline you'll notice that that suspension is far more level but that's primarily because it doesn't have the same kind of tongue weight ability or same kind of towing ability that we find in the ranger rear end styling is pretty typical pickup truck logically the tail lamps are just on the body right here we have amber turn signals which is certainly my preference and the taillight modules integrate the blind spot monitoring system in this vehicle as well because we have metal bumpers at the bottom if you plan on towing with your ranger you'll be happy to know that this blind spot warning system is trailer aware so when you plug in your trailer the vehicle will ask you how long the trailer is you tell it how long it is and then it will tell you whether something's in the blind spot of not just the ranger but also the trailer as well one reason to look at something like a honda ridgeline or honestly full-size pickup trucks is the fact that we don't really have anything interesting going on here with the tailgate this is a pretty typical metal tailgate it's not damped we don't have any integrated steps in it it doesn't swing to the side it doesn't barn door open it doesn't have that multi-pro thing that we see in the chevy and gmc trucks either on the other hand aside from the honda you'll also find a plain old tailgate in the rest of the smaller competition at the moment there are tons of rumors swirling that the next generation ranger might get a twin turbo v6 under the hood or perhaps an optional turbo diesel as well but for the moment in the united states there's just one engine it's a 2.3 liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine producing 270 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque this is basically the same 2.3 liter engine that we find in the ford explorer and of course the ford mustang but this has been tweaked for truck duty the biggest change is an engine driven fan up front to improve cooling especially when towing sending power to the ground is a standard 10-speed automatic transmission that wins the award for the most gears in this segment and fuel economy will range between 22 and 23 miles per gallon depending on whether you choose two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive counter-intuitively one of the reasons to buy a half-ton truck over a mid-sized truck like this ranger is gonna be fuel economy ranging between 22 and 23 miles per gallon depending whether you choose rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive there are going to be a reasonable number of half-ton options that are more efficient than this whether you want to get a v6 ram 1500 or a ford f-150 with their excellent 2.7 liter twin turbo v6 or if you prefer a larger four-cylinder turbocharged engine like we find under the hood of the sierra and the silverado when it comes to towing they're two different ratings for the ranger 3 500 pounds if you plan on bumper pulling your trailer 7 500 pounds if you get the factory tow hitch which is what this model has on it however no version of the ranger comes from the factory with an integrated trailer brake controller there is a ford accessory that the dealer can install for you but you're pretty much on your own one won't come from the factory so it's not as well integrated as what we find in the f-150 and the tow ratings are certainly below what we find in the f-150 which gets absolutely insane for the brand new f-150 that's going to be launching here in a few months 7 500 pounds is essentially identical to the jeep gladiator jeep claims an extra 150 pounds over this particular ranger honestly you're not going to notice the difference there but you will notice the difference between this and something like a tacoma which is rated for 6 800 pounds doesn't have as many gears or as much torque as we find in the ranger or of course something like the honda ridgeline which is the lowest in the segment at 5 000 pounds at the moment i think the ridgeline wins the award for front seat comfort but i think the ranger comes in a close second we have two-way adjustable lumbar support for the front seat and a partial power design the recline is a manual lever right there we also have a manual tilt telescopic steering column with a decent range of motion i find these seats to be significantly more comfortable than the seats that we find in the toyota tacoma in the tacoma it feels sort of like you're sitting on the floor with your arms and legs stretched out in front of you and at least for my body shape i find it pretty uncomfortable as you might expect the back seat in the ranger is roomier than a standard cab half ton truck because of course it wouldn't have a back seat but logically half ton trucks with the four door cabs they're going to be roomier on the inside especially in width if i scoot over here to the middle you'll notice that this feels a little bit more like a ford edge or perhaps a ford escape in terms of the interior dimensions that's again because the body of the ranger is an important six inches narrower and a lot of that difference comes right here in the middle the seats are very similar sized up front to what we find in the ford f-150 but the center console and of course the rear bench are certainly going to be narrower the bottom of the rear bench seat flips up to give you access to some small storage compartments below and the rear seat back folds forward although it does not fold completely flat on the inside of the ranger the general styling is a little bit more similar to ford's passenger car lineup again that seems to have to do with the general positioning of the ranger as a world vehicle so this is not an f-150 mini-me we have high adjustable shoulder belts and four-way adjustable headrests for the driver and front passenger the model that we're looking at has leather upholstery but these seats are not terribly aggressively bolstered so larger folks shouldn't have any problem sitting in them as we move from the doors on over to the dashboard you'll really notice the difference in styling again this looks a little bit more like the rest of ford's passenger car lineup with the way that these air vents and the infotainment system and the buttons and switch gear that we find down lower on the center console this all looks very much like the rest of the passenger car lineup in the ford product line this model has dual zone automatic climate control this is also where we find the heated seat controls two usb inputs there for the infotainment system some 12 volt power ports auxiliary buttons down here at the bottom these relate primarily to truck centric features like tow haul mode hill descent control stability control button there a button for the parking sensor enable disable auto start stop and then the locking rear differential if your model has that the profiles include normal gravel grass and snow we also have a mud and ruts mode and then a sand mode as well the infotainment system itself runs the same software that we see in the rest of the ford lineup at the moment but of course the new f-150 is going to be getting ford's latest infotainment system this supports apple carplay and android auto integration both between the front seats we have a pretty typical console shifter right there two large cup holders and then a small center console you really notice the difference in width between this and a half ton truck we take a look at the center console this opens to reveal a fairly small storage compartment not one that's designed for those large hanging folders like we find in large half ton trucks and then we have a pretty typical hand brake right here something that we also don't see anymore in full size trucks the instrument cluster reminds me a great deal of the ford fusion we have a physical speedometer in the middle and then two just about four inch displays on each side they're controlled via different modules on the steering wheel the one on the right side controls the right display and the one on the left side controls the other the display on the right is used for phone navigation and entertainment only the one on the left is a little bit more configurable you can see that right now we have a digital gauge for the engine temperature fuel level some active safety information right there and a tachometer you can also get an off-road display a digital speedometer tire pressure readouts average speed right there distance to empty you can cycle through those things you can also see trip computer one or two in there your fuel economy you can adjust driver assistance features so there's some number of settings that are configured right here within this system rather than the infotainment system but you'll notice that none of these displays are quite as trucky as we find in the f-150 so you'll never get things like oil pressure displays transmission temperature oil temperature etc that you would find in your average half-ton truck the steering wheel is a four-spoked leather wrapped wheel in the model that we're driving today the design is somewhat stuck between worlds looking a little bit like the passenger car lineup and a little bit like the truck lineup as well those are the button modules i showed you earlier right there on the right and on the left side of the steering wheel we find infotainment buttons over here on the right volume up down track forward backward along with some phone hang up and pick up buttons and then on the left side of the steering wheel we have the controls for the radar adaptive cruise control thanks to the turbocharged engine in the ranger 0-60 happened in a fairly quick 6.4 seconds although clearly not with the trailer connected that i have on the truck right now at the moment the curb weight on this trailer is 5 000 pounds it has a little bit over half a pallet of 80 pound concrete bags inside it in addition to all the other stuff that's usually roaming around in my trailer 5000 pounds is a pretty decent weight for comparing trucks in this segment because you might want to be putting a little bit more weight on the tongue of your truck like this tongue weight tops out at 750 pounds in this model i have about 600 pounds 650 pounds or so on the tongue at the moment it seems that most folks that are towing 6 000 to 6 500 pounds or more are really looking at half ton trucks whether they need it or not but the ranger does really well with loads around this five to six thousand pound range it feels pretty peppy thanks to the large amount of torque that we have out of this 2.3 liter turbo we get significantly more torque out of this gasoline engine than we find in any of the gasoline competition there are of course some diesel options in this segment that are going to give you more torque but they're also going to be a lot more expensive than the ranger and this engine is standard in this model if you were to compare that to a number of the competitors that have standard four-cylinder engines they're not turbo engines so they're not going to give you the same kind of trailer pulling ability or 0-60 acceleration that we find base in the ranger if you plan on regularly towing five to six thousand pounds and you live in a hilly area this is exactly the option i would get because of that extra torque now some people may be concerned about the longevity of a 2.3 liter turbo that's producing this kind of power but ford's 2.3 has been pretty reliable long-term now that said logically a naturally aspirated v6 engine may have a longer lifetime but the fact of the matter is that few people are going to have a trailer attached to their truck all the time i am one of the relatively few people that has a tow vehicle and it spends 90 percent of its life with a trailer attached to it but even so i only drive that about 5 000 miles a year so not too many miles because it always has the trailer and it is the thing that pulls the trailer for most folks that are buying this that are going to be daily commuting in it and then towing on the weekends the vast majority of your miles are going to be without a trailer on it so you don't really have those same kind of longevity or dependability concerns and the 2.3 liter turbo has an awful lot of benefit to it in my six to zero braking test it took this model 135 feet to stop from 60 miles an hour to zero that's a little bit shorter than the last ranger that i tested but right in line with most of the competition when it comes to handling this feels very much like the mainline competition the tacoma the colorado and the canyon we're going to be getting a new nissan frontier here very soon that's probably going to feel very similar to this out on the road because these are the body on frame trucks in this segment then we have the jeep gladiator which is a little bit different because it's kind of a weird hybrid between a jeep wrangler and a ram 1500. it has design components of both of those vehicles but it looks very much like a jeep wrangler that's been pickupified the goal with the gladiator was to make the most off-road focused pickup truck in this segment and they certainly achieved that even the upcoming tremor package of the ranger is not going to be the same sort of thing that we see in the gladiator but logically they're going to be a few on-road compromises as a result that's much more of an off-road focus truck than an on-road focus truck the gladiator certainly leans towards greater off-road ability whereas the ranger the colorado and the canyon etc are a bit more of a blend and then of course there's the honda ridgeline which is certainly much more focused on on-road ability than off-road ability the ridgeline is unusual in this segment because it's the only unibody pickup truck here it really is a pickup version of the honda pilot and it drives very much like a pilot out on the road when it comes to handling i'm going to give this model an a minus this receives basically the same score as most of the pickup truck competition if you want an excellent on-road handling compact or mid-sized truck whatever you want to call it that's going to be the honda ridgeline that's because the ridgeline is not like the other things in this group it really is a pickup version of a honda pilot and it uses acura's super handling all-wheel drive system although honda calls it ivtm4 it's basically the same system it can send up to 70 of engine power to the rear under certain limited conditions and it also has a torque vectoring rear axle it's the only entry in this segment that does the honda all-wheel drive system is not going to be as rugged or as robust as the part-time four-wheel drive systems that we find in the ranger or in the colorado canyon all the other options in this particular segment but it certainly has much more of an on-road focus a lot of people don't realize this but with part-time four-wheel drive systems like this because the front differential and the rear differential cannot spin at different speeds they're locked together you should never operate in four high or on four low on a road surface like this even if this surface was wet or it was snowy you really shouldn't be using four wheel drive unless you need to get out of a sticky situation the reason for that is it will actually decrease your handling ability because those two differentials can't rotate at different speeds things are of course very different than the ridgeline it's designed for constant on-road use but it's not going to be as rugged as this for off-road use so if you live on a ranch and you're worried about traction or if you want to go rock crawling in your compact or mid-sized pickup truck you're going to want a part-time system like the one the ranger has going down the slope i have to say i was pretty impressed with the engine braking ability of this 2.3 liter turbo it's definitely better than i had expected it to be you can thank the 10-speed automatic transmission for that because there are a ton of gear ratios to choose from this isn't like smaller displacement engines back when we had four or five speed automatic transmissions where you never really seemed to have a gear ratio that was capable of slowing the load behind you even in some of the steeper sections of this roadway i had no problem keeping the speed of this trailer under control without touching the brakes the best way to describe the ride quality in the ranger especially when unladen is bouncy the suspension is definitely firmer and we have a bit more suspension travel we have those firmer leaf springs in the back with a lot more distance between the tire and the opening of the wheel well because of the payload and towing abilities that we find in this if you're looking for an option in this segment that has more of an on-road tune to it that's going to be the honda ridgeline the reason i keep commenting about the ridgeline in this video is that it is the entry that is so different than the others really you could insert any of the competition the gladiator the colorado the canyon the tacoma into the same conversation and the answer would always be but the other option is the ridgeline because it's going to be more car-like and it's going to be more car-like in pretty much every aspect of driving for some folks that's going to be a really strong selling point but for others it may not at 50 miles an hour i measured 73 decibels in this cabin which makes it pretty similar to most mid-sized pickup trucks out there again if you want a quieter truck that's going to be the unusual one that's going to be the honda ridgeline when it comes to fuel economy i'm as impressed this time at the ranger as i was last time i've been averaging 23 and a half miles per gallon over a week of mixed driving that's definitely above the epa score this is the four wheel drive version so theoretically i should be getting about 22 miles per gallon combined now clearly that combined score wasn't achieved when i had a 5 000 pound trailer attached to it although logically a 2.3 liter turbocharged engine is going to be a little bit more efficient when towing than a larger displacement engine generally speaking you're not going to notice the difference because it's going to require a certain amount of power or a certain amount of torque to get this load up the hill and that's why over the same driving cycle with this trailer attached to the ranger i've been averaging about 15 miles per gallon this is going to have a similar drop to pretty much all of the competitions options out there so the fuel economy benefit that we see in regular daily driving is not necessarily going to be there when towing bottom lining the ranger out on the road i think is pretty easy if you're looking for the best tow vehicle in this segment i would certainly get the ranger true the gladiator can tow a little bit more it's rated for theoretically 150 pounds more but i prefer the way the ranger feels and drives out on the road with the trailer connected to it and if we're talking about the 3.6 liter v6 engine in the gladiator i much prefer this 2.3 liter turbo thanks to a pretty aggressive starting ratio first gear plus the final drive in this particular model is about 18 to 1 or so and the fact that we have over 300 pound-feet of torque this really helps get the trailer up and going when you're on a steeper grade and i think in this segment ford's 10-speed automatic transmission is my absolute favorite i do like zf's 8-speed automatic and performance vehicles or luxury cars i also like it in the ram 1500 but this ford 10-speed automatic has some really great ratios when using a turbocharged engine like this so if i were to stop on this slope no one's behind me there and i just floor it obviously the torque converter is going to be working there at the beginning but once we get a little bit of movement and the engine can get the rpms up and the turbo can start spooling we get a lot of torque and that really helps get the trailer moving you'll really feel that when passing or accelerating up mountain passes like this the ratios and the turbocharged engine just work really really well together on the other hand if i was never going to tow with my truck i might get a honda ridgeline because it's going to be much better on-road and of course if i was looking for an off-road truck then i'd get the jeep gladiator if you didn't already know it alex nautos has a new merch store aoa merch.com you can get shirts right like this trunk comfort index t-shirt that i'm wearing right here there are also some slightly more discreet t-shirts if you'd prefer one with a simple logo and there are a number of new designs dropping between now and the end of the year be sure and stay tuned for the shirt with a poodle on the front you can find all those details over at aoamirch.com with that out of the way let's dive into pricing and the first thing here is talk about the rangers pricing in general it's going to start at 24 410 for the base model that's going to get you the super cab with the six foot bed that's the smaller cab still has a back seat and then twenty six thousand eight hundred ten dollars is going to get you the cab and bed format that i was driving today that's the super crew cab with the five foot bed if you want four wheel drive it's a pretty expensive option it adds 4 100 approximately to your price tag definitely keep that in mind if that's something that you're looking for the 10 speed automatic transmission and the 2.3 liter turbo are however standard giving this one of the best performance figures as far as the standard pickup truck in the segment goes and the automatic transmission being standard is definitely a handy feature before i dive into the competition let's talk about the towing and payload comparison so let's go ahead and pop that chart up on your screen you'll notice that the ranger does pretty well here most of the competition starts out at 3 500 pounds of standard towing ability mostly because of the standard engine and that would be the 2.7 liter engine in the tacoma the two and a half liter engine in the colorado the gladiator starts a little bit higher but if you add the tow package most of those gladiator variants will come up to about seven thousand to seventy six hundred fifty pounds depending on the options that you get the rangers towing ability is third in this segment but the top three are really close together ranger comes in at 7 500 pounds and you can get that towing ability in the base model with the towing package if you want to get the maximum towing ability in something like the tacoma or the colorado it's going to cost you significantly more than the base ranger with the towing package add-on definitely keep that in mind the other thing you'll notice here is the payload ability it's especially low in the gladiator and in the total tacoma the gladiator's low payload numbers are due mainly to the off-road mission of most of the trims of gladiator generally speaking the gladiator is going to be on the low end of this segment most models are going to be around 12 to 1 300 pounds of payload the ranger is generally going to be higher but none of these are going to have the payload capability that you'll find in a half-ton truck with that out of the way let's dive into the comparisons obviously the first competitor here has to be the toyota tacoma it's the best-selling mid-sized pickup truck in america but it's going to be a lot more expensive than the ranger it starts at thousand one hundred fifty dollars and there aren't as many deals available on the dealer lot that base model is also gonna get you a much less powerful engine the standard 2.7 liter four-cylinder engine and the standard six-speed automatic transmission if you want the 3.5 liter v6 that's going to be at least an extra 2300 in general terms comparably equipping your tacoma to the base model ford ranger is gonna set you back at least four to five thousand dollars extra and of course that v6 is still going to be saddled with one of toyota's older transmissions it's a six-speed automatic transmission design aftermarket add-ons are definitely a solid reason to buy the tacoma the library of available options is absolutely huge now part of that is because the tacoma is the best seller and part of that is because the tacoma hasn't really changed substantively in quite some time there are definitely pros and cons to that obviously reliability and the availability of all those aftermarket bits for it are definitely a pro but on the con side it definitely feels old and i'm being generous there it definitely can feel ancient in some areas especially the seating position i find the tacoma the least comfortable compact pickup truck because of the seating position it's almost like you're sitting on the floor with your legs and your arms stretched right out in front of you i just don't find that terribly comfortable next up we have the chevy colorado which was one of my favorite small pickup trucks in america until we got the new ford ranger the colorado's a little bit more expensive as well 26 395 starting but you will find huge deals available on the dealer lot actually generally speaking a little bit more of a deal than we find on the ford ranger so the real out the door price could be pretty similar base model to base model but you're not going to get that 2.3 liter turbo in the base model colorado instead we get a naturally aspirated two and a half liter four-cylinder engine now fuel economy is definitely good with that engine but it's bundled with an older six-speed automatic like we find in the toyota coma if you want the v6 it's not a terribly expensive upgrade much less than we find in the toyota it's 1400 to get the optional 3.6 liter v6 and it comes with a newer 8-speed automatic transmission if you're looking for an inexpensive tow vehicle in this segment and you don't like the turbocharged engine that we find in the ranger the colorado and the canyon are going to be excellent options they're likely going to be much less expensive than a tacoma v6 we also get the more modern eight-speed automatic transmission and i think they just feel better when towing as well of course if you wanted to tow even more the colorado and canyon do have the highest towing figures in this segment but only if you choose the optional diesel engine that's the 2.8 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine on the downside the interior of the colorado and the canyon are feeling pretty dated at this point in time just about as dated as the tacoma i do think that the ford ranger even though it's not exactly fresh feels fresher than what we see in the gmc and in the chevy next up we have the newest entry in this segment and that is the jeep gladiator i know some of you are thinking what about the nissan frontier well i'm not talking about the frontier in this video because the new frontier is not out just yet i think it's a little bit unfair to talk about the absolutely positively ancient frontier that is currently on sale right now so stay tuned for that just as soon as i get my hands on the new frontier back to the gladiator here the gladiator is a lot more expensive than every other entry in this group it starts at 33 545 and you aren't going to get the same kind of base equipment in the gladiator that we do find in the ford ranger the big reason for that is the gladiator's mission it's definitely designed to be a very off-road focused pickup truck the gladiator may look like it's a wrangler with a pickup truck bed glued to the back but in reality it's a bit of a hybrid between the ram 1500 pickup truck and a jeep wrangler that sounds like a really strange combination but it seems to work for the gladiator the gladiator was really focused on off-road ability when the design team was creating it that's important to keep in mind so it does give up some on-road functionality for that off-road ability but it does look extremely good the problem with the gladiator is that it is strangely expensive because of its off-road mission the gladiator is not going to be assorted on-road and the payload ends up being much lower than most of the competition down to 1105 pounds even lower than something like the honda ridgeline speaking of the ridgeline it's the next competitor here starting at 33 900 the ridgeline is very different than any other pickup truck available in america it's the only front-wheel drive pickup truck it's the only unibody pickup truck and it really is the pragmatist truck but there's a problem with that because the ridgeline does 98 to 99 of what most shoppers actually need but it doesn't come across as rugged or overtly sexy or desirable like the jeep gladiator towing ability comes in between 3 500 and 5 000 pounds but not that many people are towing on a regular basis with their mid-sized pickup truck it seems that a lot of folks that want to tow over 5 000 pounds are graduating up to a half ton truck so not too many truck shoppers out there are really taxing the top end towing ability of their mid-size truck however i will say that when i was last tow vehicle shopping i would have bought something along the lines of a ridgeline if it could have towed seven thousand pounds perhaps because i certainly have towing needs over 5000 pounds also on the downside for the ridgeline the 9-speed automatic transmission it's the same 9-speed automatic that we find in a variety of fca vehicles like the jeep compass the jeep cherokee etc they use that same 9-speed automatic transmission but on the other side it does use basically acura's super handling all-wheel drive system so it's the only vehicle in this segment with a full-time all-wheel drive system with a torque vectoring rear axle if you're simply looking for a small pickup truck that's practical convenient decent on fuel and fun to drive out on your favorite winding mountain road the ridgeline certainly qualifies the torque vectoring rear axle really makes it much more nimble in daily driving than any of the other trucks in this segment there are also a lot of really convenient features we have that in bed trunk we have the door that swings to the side rather than just folding down like a tailgate but on the downside you'll notice that price tag i mentioned earlier thirty three thousand nine hundred dollars starting bottom lining the ranger i think is pretty easy if you're looking for one of the best all-around pickup trucks in the segment the ranger certainly qualifies and if you're looking for one of the best deals the ranger is also an excellent excellent buy because we get that standard 2.3 liter turbo the standard 10-speed automatic transmission you don't have to work your way up the trim ladder now if you're starting to take a look at fully loaded trucks then it becomes a little bit less of a value the price tag is an awful lot closer to some of the other alternatives but if you're simply looking for a great small truck that's good for towing hauling whatever you want to do with it definitely put the ford ranger on your shopping list if my own money were on the line i would buy the ranger over all of the options that i've already discussed here except if i was absolutely flush with cash then maybe i'd get the gladiator or if you really wanted to take your truck more rugged off-roading then the gladiator rubicon would be an excellent option however that gladiator rubicon will cost you about the same as two rangers in the base format so definitely keep that in mind let me know what you think about all that down there in the comment section be sure and head over to facebook.com alexando's over to aoa merch.com so you can buy shirts right like this one here you can also find me over at twitter all those other social places and i'll see all of you next week you

Channel: Alex on Autos

Views: 138,153

Rating: 4.8847675 out of 5

Keywords: Alex On Autos, Alex Dykes, Review, Detailed Review, Road Test, Driven, Drive Review, car, cars, auto

Id: _iVNZtRWcoU

Length: 30min 22sec (1822 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020