New truck
 

Attachment 151691 sorry my new uk ford ranger

Re: New truck
 

You're a lucky bastard. Can you give us American folk a review of it?


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Re: New truck
 

Only had a week gonext for the 2.2 tdci 4x4 same bhp as my 2.5 tdci ..leather heated seats ,,sat navigation phone,, climate controls,, radio ,,cd,, everything really on touch screen,,so smooth to drive on motorway and local roads it is a lot bigger the my 07 plate afraid you lot will have to wait till 2019 for yours lol ....sure you could find more info ..www.ford ranger. Co.Uk. if let me know ... TOM if you read this is will send you brochure if I still have your address ...scoobystew

Re: New truck
 

I'm a Brit who moved to Canada, so I've experienced both.

First thing you need to know is it isn't really a Ford Ranger, it's actually just a rebadged Mazda BT-50. The UK has never experienced the F series or any of it's offshoots. In fact the pickup truck was pretty much just purely a farm vehicle until maybe the last 20 years or so. Then along came the bigger Japanese pickups and suddenly it became a lifestyle vehicle (or "Chelsea Tractor" as some people call them).

The diesel engine in the BT-50 is slow but it pulls well, and it's fuel efficient, so it has that going for it. However if you have a 4.0 V6 Ranger with C code springs you're basically in a class well above any pickup available on the UK market in terms of capability, even in 2017. When you factor for the fact that diesel in the UK costs $1.53 per liter, suddenly any fuel efficiency advantage it has evaporates. It's a vehicle that gets twice the miles per gallon, in a country where diesel costs 3 times more than gas in the US.

The lackluster acceleration is one downside of the BT-50. I would not feel safe pulling out of a side road in busy traffic, or merging onto a highway. That's without even hauling/towing anything. If it was fully laden then I'd be trying to stay away from busy roads as much as possible. The problem is that the way the British road network is laid out, there's rarely more than one way to get to a place. So that leaves you stuck in traffic. A lot. A buddy of mine who owned a Mitsubishi L200 pickup, which is fairly analagous to the BT-50, told me that the he kinda had to just "hope everyone else would get out of my way" since he really had so little control over the situation. In that sense, it's a lot like driving an 18 wheeler.

It also has to be mentioned that the US built Ranger is far superior in terms of build quality. This isn't really meant as a slate against the UK ranger, but when you're comparing the two it is something you can't help but notice. The Ranger is built Ford tough. The BT-50 is built Mazda mediocre. It's something that has let the truck down for years and is the one thing people complain about the most. The great thing about a Ranger is that things rarely break, and when they do, it's usually a cheap fix. The Mazda is quite the opposite - things break a lot, and it's always expensive. This I think is mostly down to the fact that we're comparing a domestic market, domestic built truck against one that has been imported and is a long way from where it was manufactured.

Compared to other trucks on the UK market, I'd say the Nissan Navara (Frontier in North America) is the better machine, just in terms of build quality. The Nissan is more in line with the Toyota, although not quite in line with the Tacoma. Although Mazda is a Japanese brand, it's one whose quality varies widely across it's lineup.

I've probably made the UK Ranger/BT-50 sound like a terrible truck. It's not, it's still far above the usual crap shoeboxes that people drive around. Just not quite on par with the US domestic Ranger.

Re: New truck
 

the bed is sooo small looks like them ford sport trac. i'll just keep mine!

Re: New truck
 

There was an extended cab (or space cab/freestyle cab in their lingo) available:

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...Mazda_Rear.jpg

http://amcdn.co.za/cars/mazda-bt-50-....jpg?width=400

Not much better, but it's a more useful bed at least.

The reg cab (known as a single cab in the UK) had the most space:

https://i.wheelsage.org/pictures/maz...ngle_cab_4.jpg

Re: New truck
 

Wow, that really looks like they were copying the Tacoma, and thanks for the input on the U.K. Ranger. It's always good to get real input as opposed to online reviews


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Re: New truck
 

They were actually copying the fifth and sixth generation of the Toyota Hilux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux and the first generation of the Nissan Navara (frontier) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Navara.

In fact that little cut-out in the rear fender flare for the filler cap is a direct copy of how Nissan solved the exact same problem.

Pretty much all the pickups in the UK at that time looked roughly the same. The Isuzu Rodeo Denver, Ford Ranger/Mazda BT-50, Nissan Navara, Mitsubishi L200, and Toyota Hilux. In 2004 Toyota radically changed the appearance of the Hilux, and the others followed suit with similar looking facelifts in 2005.