Cafe standards and cost killed the Ranger... that and Ford really hadn’t done a damned thing to try to update it in over a decade... but when a ranger is clocking in just shy of what a base model full sized 4x2 F150 is at, you are going to have a hard time selling em.
>>Cafe standards and cost killed the Ranger... that and Ford really hadn’t done a damned thing to try to update it in over a decade...
Ford wanted the F-150 to continue to be the Best Selling Truck in America, so they did everything they could to kill the Ranger. They kept performance low, price high, no incentives, no redesign. The Asian Ranger is a great little truck, but Ford doesn’t want it in this country cutting in on the F-150’s sales.
I owned 2 S-10’s and a Colorado from 1996 to 2006 because Chevrolet actually tried to make their small truck worth buying. I would have bought Rangers if Ford had even made an effort to make it as good as the S-10.
I bought my Ranger XLT in 1998. At that time Ford was introducing the new F-Series body styles and greatly discounted the 98 models. I really wanted the F250-350 with the diesel and it was only a few thousand over the Ranger but I lived in Seattle and trying to get around in that size truck was the main reason I didn’t get F-Series.
That little truck proved to be all I needed anyway (except when it came to hauling plywood or sheet rock) and had plenty of power from the 4.6L V6 and was enough to haul a fully loaded largest U-Haul trailer from Seattle to Klamath Falls without any problems and the bed of the truck was loaded too. Handled great in the snow and ice as well.