Reintroduced for the 2019 model year, the all-new Ranger SuperCrew 4×4 pickup has become the new entry point for a Ford pickup. Even so, it just might be all the truck one needs to get through a New England Winter.
Smaller than its F-Series brethren but staged on a fully boxed steel frame, the Ranger sacrifices none of the automaker’s “Built Tough” truck heritage. In our seven days with this FX4 off road package equipped XLT edition, the suspension – short and long arm front / leaf spring rear – provided a ride that’s stable and without uncomfortable roughness.
No worries here if you’re going to load up some firewood. Those rear leaf springs are good up to just over 16 hundred pounds.
One could argue that Ford was long overdue for a smaller truck in the lineup. The Ranger had been gone for eight years while pickup trucks of all sizes surged in the American marketplace. Expanding the bottom end of the roster at this time could be a sound financial move.
But ultimately what’s more appealing to us at RPM News Weekly is whether this pickup is a good fit for the many consumers who might have felt priced out of the new vehicle market. The good news is that there’s not much fault to find with the 2019 Ford Ranger SuperCrew XLT 4×4.
Over the course of our week with the vehicle, we came to fully appreciate the convenience of its intuitive connectivity options. Right from startup, Apple Carplay functioned flawlessly whether finding music or setting a destination. Meanwhile, getting the 17.5-foot long truck turned around and down our tight, long driveway without nicking the garage or one of several trees was made enormously easier thanks to the intervention of the Forward and Reverse Sensing system.
And, when the temperature plunged, we thoroughly enjoyed the winter-ready comfort of its heated cloth seats which got blazing hot before we even reached the end of the driveway.
If there are any important complaints to make about the Ranger, it would be the hole it leaves in the wallet at the gasoline pump. We would’ve thought the 2.3L turbocharged EcoBoost engine would bring us better fuel economy than a 19.5 mpg average. Well, getting 270 horsepower is fine and even dandy sometimes, but green is definitely not this truck’s favorite color unless you’re talking the 8-thousand-plus dollars you’ll save by stepping back from considering its F-150 SuperCrew XLT 4×4 bigger brother.
Ultimately, if it looks like getting a nicely equipped, family-sized 5-passenger pickup is in your future and heavy-duty towing or hauling is not what you plan to do, the 2019 Ford Ranger could be the pickup truck you see out there on your event horizon.
