Re: Is Ford Ranger a good Tow vehicle?
I've owned many Ranger trucks, I've had two with 4.0L motors, one older style 4.0L and one SOHC 4.0L, both motors were trouble at low mileage. The 1993 I had had in curable oil leaks, cracked it's cylinder heads twice under warranty and finally had to be replaced at 12,000 miles, then the replacement motor did the same at 31,000. I traded it in. The SOHC motor was worse, it lost its distributor drive or oil pump drive at 3,000 miles, Ford fixed it under warranty, then again in another 2,400 miles it went again. It was replaced 5 times under warranty, and then finally at 31,000 miles, the timing chain snapped smashing all the valves and pistons. All of my trucks are very well maintained being serviced every 3,000 miles. I went back to the 2.3L 4cyl Rangers after those two and have not had any issues since. The only problem I see with these trucks is a weak clutch hydraulic system which seems to fail too often.
The auto trans is a waste, it's a derivative of the C3/A4LD trans and in my opinion is far too light for these trucks.
The best all around motor for towing is the 3.0L , it makes good power and has no known running issues in 20 years or more of production.
They have apparently dropped the 3.0L engine, as well as gone to a Japanese 4 cylinder by Mazda, so in my case, unless I find a clean used truck, the Ranger is no longer an option for me if I'm buying new.
The 4.0L in my eyes is junk, I've been a die hard Ford guy my whole life but that motor should have been scrapped years ago. Even in its former trim as a 2.8L or 2.9L it was plagued with cracked head issues. I've seen dozens of them in my years as an auto tech have issues.
The old 2.3L / 2.5L have been rock solid as has the 3.0L but like anything else that worked they felt they had to change it. None of those motors are still in production.
There's no way I'd buy a Ranger with the 4.0L especially since the mileage is not much better than the F150, but I'm not fond of the current F150 trucks nor their mileage. For me, I'll keep my 2.3L 1994 Ranger and keep rebuilding it as long as I can. It's been great truck for the first 230K. My 1983 went for over 500K on its original motor and trans so maybe this one will too.