Thread: Ford ranger 2 litre bi turbo

Be interested to hear from anyone who has one of these and your thought on them ?
What are they like for towing small boats and light horse floats and the odd heavy load ?
Appreciate any feedback
Cheers

Feedback from staff in PX3 2.0 biturbo found them a bit gutless towing. This was towing 2.5T scissorlift though.
Around town etc carrying maybe 0.5T tools all good.
Not sure of the new PX4 as I got the 3.0 V6.

Originally Posted by kiwijames

Feedback from staff in PX3 2.0 biturbo found them a bit gutless towing. This was towing 2.5T scissorlift though.
Around town etc carrying maybe 0.5T tools all good.
Not sure of the new PX4 as I got the 3.0 V6.

How do you find the V6

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

How do you find the V6

mine is epic, pulls hard with or with out a load. use mine for towing stockcar and flatmates showcar around.

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

How do you find the V6

Very good. More than enough power and torque.

Can't beat Cubes, 2lt be fine n dandy in a sports hatch but not a big arsed 4wd

Originally Posted by Philipo

Can't beat Cubes, 2lt be fine n dandy in a sports hatch but not a big arsed 4wd

having driven a whole range of 4x4 for work over 35 years and some rough off road a 2 litre even bi turbo dragging around a ute that big just does not add up at all to me - 4 litre straight six non turbo diesel yes sir have I driven one no and likely wont

2L goes OK towing but drinks - you gotta be a bit ruthless with the right boot to get it to go OK with a load on but they will pull. Where I don't like them is if you have a heavy trailer - my driving feeling is virtually no engine braking assist and you gotta be rather conservative in the hilly stuff. The upsey-downsey rule is in force and if you don't follow it you can get a bit of a fright if you have to drag the thing to a complete stop or control the speed on a long roll downhill.

The other thing I found with them is with a long heavy trailer and connecting up at anything other than straight, they suck at getting it moving especially if you are trying to back up a rise around a corner from dead stop. The engine and gearbox just don't allow the revs to get up and the little sewing machine struggles for grunt at low RPM. But, to be fair - I have found the same issue with auto boxes behind anything in the same scenario as you don't have the third peddle to punish to make it easier for the turning bits up front to get everything moving.

have a look on YT, There is an Aussie comparison video between a 3ltr and the 2ltr Bi, They towed a 2.5 - 3 ton caravan around a 110 km circuit, The 2ltr bet the 3ltr in just about all the tests that they done around the circuit, ie, fuel economy, crossing a bridge at the bottom of a big hill doing 30km? then pedal to the floor and comparing speed at top of hill, as well as other tests(watched about 5 months ago, so can't remember what else)
At the end the test driver did say that if he had to choose one for his own personal use, then he would still go for the 3ltr as they are a more proven motor, as the 2ltr were still too new and needed another 4-5 years under their belt to get their reliability badge as a towing vehicle.

I saw that a while back, I agreed with most of it but have no idea how the 2L bet the 3.2 T6 version on fuel consumption that doesn't tally with my experience locally with a heavy trailer on. Empty, yes the 2L seems to burn less than the bigger engine but with a trailer on I found the opposite. I note the braking test they did on the review vid was fairly vanilla as well, not really relevant to some of NZ's roads where we have Km's of downhill running and much heavier brake applications.

Here is the video

https://youtu.be/9KVNaci9CEs?si=eUBSAY1c8NlvOM6B

Originally Posted by stug

Here is the video

https://youtu.be/9KVNaci9CEs?si=eUBSAY1c8NlvOM6B

The one i seen was 2 utes.

Towed my 1.5T caravan all around the South Island with my PX2 manual 3.2L ranger for 3 months seriously would not have wanted to do it with a sewing machine even with two hairdryers attached to it.

Just my personal opinion though. I mean saw plenty of people towing with the Pimp model ranger (Wildtrax)

Use one at work, currently at around 130,000, has had 3.5T on the back everyday, all around the NI

Maybe 10,000 without the trailer or loaded balls to the wall.

Perfectly adequate for the job, although can be gutless under certain conditions.

It is always serviced by ford and receives the full Monty each time, on time.

Most people slagging them, you’ll soon find have never actually owned or used one for an extended period of time.

To be clear, I hate it, and prefer my 2011 PK ranger, but that is no fault of the driveline, I just don’t like all the tech and driver assist features. But it is a good, reliable ute that has done above and beyond what was expected of it.

If you were to get one as a personal use/non towing operation, I’d say it will do most people just fine.

@BRADS, go onto the Facebook Ford Ranger owners. Read it and weep. I have stop reading it as it’s very depressing, my 3.2 just flicked 271k, I’ve had a great run. I guess on numbers sold in NZ compared with any other Ute, it just looks worse.
If I was buying new again, I’d buy another 3.2 Ranger auto.
If you get a turbo’d 2litre, make sure it has COSWORTH on the head