Ford Ranger Problems

The original vane-type oil pump fitted to the 2.2 and 3.2-litre PX Ranger engines was a source of great misery for some owners with failures and a peculiar oil-changing regime forced upon owners. If the gear-driven style pump you've replaced it with is a good quality item, it should last the remainder of the vehicle's service life.

Ford's popular PX Ranger (sold from 2011 until its replacement in 2022) marked a distinct move away from timing belt technology, but prior to that, the Mazda-sourced engine in your vehicle uses a rubber toothed timing belt. As such, this belt and its tensioners and idlers require replacement at regular intervals.

The recommended belt-change interval for this engine is 120,000km or six years, whichever comes first.

This is a strange one. If you had a post-2015 Ranger, the suspicion would be that the electric power-steering was playing silly games and turning the wheel to the left randomly. (Electric power-steering with the ability to move the wheel without driver input is the technology that has made driver aids such as lane-keeping assistance and self-parking possible.) If there’s a fault with the electric motor, the computer that controls it or the sensors that tell the system what’s what, then you can have a problem like this occur.

But Rangers built prior to this date had conventional hydraulic power-steering which, without driver input, should not be able to turn the steering at all. Except yours does.

Probably the most important piece of advice is not to drive the vehicle any farther until the problem is fixed. Obviously, having a steering system with a mind of its own is a potential source of disaster.

The actual problem could be do with the valving that controls the steering rack (and its power assistance) and a pressure imbalance between the right-hand and left-hand side of the steering rack could potentially cause this sort of problem. The valve that controls the speed-sensitive aspect of the steering is a likely culprit here as a faulty one can lead to uneven pressures within the steering rack.

If you want to be proactive, check that the power-steering fluid in the pump (under the bonnet) is at the correct level. Then, start the car with the transmission in Park and turn the steering wheel from full right to full left lock a couple of time. This should purge any air from the hydraulic fluid and restore balance to the system. But really, this is a potentially very serious problem and needs to be checked by a specialist.

This could be caused by a range of things, but it’s also worth noting that this model was subject to a recall back in 2017 for a problem very, very similar to the one you’re experiencing. The recall involved Rangers built between June 5 2015 to February 12, 2016, so a check of the build date on your vehicle is the first step. A Ford dealer will also be able to tell from the VIN number whether the car was affected by the recall and if it’s been fixed as a result.

The problem involved a retaining clip that held the gear-shift cables. In some Rangers, this clip or clamp was not tightened sufficiently, and could allow the cables to make contact with the vehicle’s driveshaft. Over time, this contact could damage the gear-shift cables as well as the actual driveshaft. Difficulty in changing gears was one of the tell-tale symptoms.

Beyond that possibility, you need to check the shifter mechanism (including the cables) and maybe even dig into the transmission itself if nothing is wrong externally.

There's been plenty of talk in recent years about the future of diesel engines in vehicles like the Ranger and Everest. And while there's a school of thought that suggests that they'll switch to petrol and petrol-electric hybrid drivelines, that hardly makes a diesel-engined version a dinosaur overnight. Take the Toyota Corolla, for instance: While the latest Corolla is available with a hybrid powertrain (and it's a very popular format) there are still plenty of people happily driving around in their 20-year-old Corollas with conventional drivelines.

The point being that progress is a fact of life. Every time a new piece of tech arrives that is seen as an improvement, car-makers will adopt it. Which means the previous technology is out of date, but not necessarily beyond its useful life.

If you think a plug-in hybrid Ranger or Everest would suit you, then by all means wait until 2024 (the rumoured launch date). But bear in mind that, by then, there may be talk of the next big thing in Rangers and Everests; an advance that could make even the plug-in hybrid look a bit yesterday.

Unfortunately, because your car was delivered before May 1 2018, it's only covered by Ford's three-year warranty, which, of course, has expired. New Fords delivered after that 2018 cut-off were covered by an longer, five-year warranty, but that's not much use to you.

The best thing you can do is tackle Ford Australia's customer service department to see if they're open to covering part of the cost of repairs on a pro-rata basis. This is a sometimes a possibility if the vehicle is only just out of warranty or has covered very low kilometres with a full service history. But in your case, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

It’s very likely that the two lights remaining on inside the car are enough to drain the battery over time. The real question is why a couple of random lights would stay on even when the vehicle is locked up overnight. Initial suspicions would involve the car’s body computer which controls many functions, including interior lighting.

An auto electrician is probably your best bet at this stage. But in the meantime, you can perform an electronic reset by disconnecting the car’s battery overnight. Sometimes this is enough to give the body computer a reality check and will return things to normal. But if it has happened once, it can happen again.

Good news. Instead of a rubber toother timing belt, the engine in your Ranger has a timing chain. While the rubber belt type generally requires periodic replacement, the timing chain in your car should last the life of the engine.

By connecting the Ranger to a diagnostic computer, you should be able to work out what's constricting the engine power. Modern engines constantly monitor everything from boost pressure to fuel pressure, and transmission temperature to alternator output. Somewhere in those hundreds of parameters will be the problem and it should be fairly obvious to somebody who knows how to interpret the codes the car's computer will spit out.

Meantime, it could be that the engine's installation skipped hooking up a sensor or piece of wiring and that has caused the engine to go into limp-home mode which limits the power the car will produce in the interests of self preservation. On a really simple level, have you checked that all the turbocharger's plumbing is intact and the joints are tight post engine installation? Loose plumbing joints and cracked or split plastic tubing are a common way to lose turbo-boost pressure.

A modern car like the Ranger has a heap of sensors that warn the on-board computer of something that’s getting too hot, causing the car to enter limp home mode to avoid further damaging itself. That means you could be looking at a problem as varied as the condition of the radiator and its plumbing, the intercooler, coolant pump, the EGR valve and more. Perhaps it’s a simple case of low coolant triggering the limp home. Certainly, these engines can lose coolant if the EGR valve is damaged or leaking.

But then you can also move along to the driveline, because a too-hot transmission will also trigger a limp-home situation. Is the transmission cooler working properly? Does the transmission have the correct quantity of fluid in it?

Start with the basics and don’t be afraid to give the car an electronic scan as the fault codes it has logged could be a big clue in what component is causing the grief.