Ford Ranger Problems

Prices of second-hand vehicles like the Ranger are high right now, mainly because there are such long waiting lists for new vehicles. When that happens, people who want their car now start looking at the second-hand market. At which point, simple supply and demand mechanics dictate that prices rise.

Even though the Ranger isn’t as badly affected as some makes and models, there’s still an average waiting time of two or three months for a brand-new Ranger (depending on specification). Which is why there’s a strong market for a second-hand example like yours that has been looked after and serviced properly. The low kilometres showing also puts a vehicle like yours on to the short-list of a brand-new buyer being forced to look for a second-hand car.

Prices right now for a vehicle matching yours seem to be anywhere from a low of $48,000 up to about $60,000, although whether the selling asking the higher figure will achieve that is another matter. Either way, though, you’d probably start the bidding at around the low-$50s for a quick sale. As an aside, while the accessories, mileage and service history all play well for your car, the extended warranty (protection plan as it was sold to you) probably won’t add a single cent. That’s because these dealer-supplied extended warranties are rubbish (rarely covering anything meaningful) and often are not even transferable to the next owner anyway.

Transmission problems are not unheard of in the Ranger and problems usually stem from either the oil-pump gears wearing or problems with the valve body. If caught early enough, sometimes these problems can be fixed without changing the entire transmission, but in your case, it sounds like the wear or damage was terminal.

If the transmission was to fail again in another 120,000km, would you spend another $6000 on a vehicle with 240,000km on its odometer? That’s the real question here, and given the price of second-hand dual-cab utes, maybe you would. The option would be to sell the vehicle now, using the brand-new transmission as a major selling point. If the thought of another transmission failure is keeping you awake at night, then that’s one option.

Also, talk to the workshop that fitted the new transmission and ask if the replacement unit was fitted with updated mechanical parts that are likely to reduce the chances of the same problem happening again. Often, the industry develops these improved bits and pieces as a reaction to common failures and faults. If the replacement unit is better than the original, maybe it’s worth persisting with.

The C-TEK brand has a huge reputation for performance and safety. I've personally had such a charger for more than 20 years which has been in use almost every single day of that time and still works perfectly. They're more expensive than some chargers, but the inbuilt protections against incorrect connection and overheating are worth the price, not to mention that longevity.

Some mechanics recommend connecting the two leads from the charger directly to the battery terminals, but conventional wisdom says that connecting the red cable to the positive terminal first and then the black cable to an earth somewhere in the engine bay is a better idea. This method means less chance of a spark igniting gasses emitted by the battery as it charges and discharges.

The indicator lights on the C-TEK unit will tell you when you've achieved a good connection. Using a metal part of the car for the negative attachment point works because the whole car is essentially one big negative terminal. Just make sure your attachment point isn't painted or coated with a chemical that prevents the flow of current. Or that it's not a plastic part (increasingly common these days). Many cars have a dedicated post or connection point within the engine bay.

That model Ranger does, indeed, have what’s called a variable-voltage or `smart’ alternator. The idea is that when the car’s main battery is fully charged, the alternator reduces its workload to save fuel. But the reality is that the system doesn’t always recognise that accessories (like a second battery) have been fitted to the car. If that happens, the alternator doesn’t always make enough power to keep accessories like that second battery system fully charged. Which means that suddenly, your car-fridge won’t run overnight.

The good news is that this smart function is purely electronically controlled, and a Ford dealer can disable it for you, returning the alternator to conventional operation.

This sounds very much like a fuelling problem. Since a diesel engine has no ignition system (beyond its own compression) any fall off in performance can often be traced back to the fuel system.

The best bet is to take the vehicle to a diesel specialist that knows this make and model and will have either seen this exact set of symptoms before or will be able to make a logical diagnosis rather than just changing random parts that may or may not be the cause of the problem. Things that are likely causes, however, are the fuel filtering system, fuel pump and injectors. But don’t rule out something simple like a bad batch of fuel that is playing havoc with the entire system.

In very early-build examples of the Ranger (from 2011 and 2012) there was a problem with the gearbox output-shaft speed sensor that could cause the transmission to shift back to first gear with a distinct clunk. While it’s generally accepted that this was fixed as time passed, it sounds too much like the same problem to ignore a check of this sensor as part of any investigation.

And guess what? The sensor fault was found to be an intermittent one, just like your experience suggests. I’d have the sensor checked and work from there.

There’s a school of thought out there that says you shouldn’t tow anything heavy in an overdrive gear (such as fifth gear in your Ranger). That’s because the extra load of the trailer places huge stresses on the transmission via the gearing of that overdriven gear.

In the real world, the best advice is to avoid going uphill or into a headwind in overdrive, saving that fifth gear for downhill or flat running where you’re not loading the gearbox too much. You also need to be travelling at a speed where the vehicle is comfortable in fifth, not lugging along at low revs. This applies also to a four-speed automatic with an overdriven fourth gear, not just manual transmissions. Use the overdrive lock-out button to force the transmission back to third gear where it will be happier and less likely to be damaged. Be aware, too, that modern transmissions with six (or more gears) often have both fifth and sixth gear overdriven, not just the top ratio.

Ford’s popular PX Ranger (sold from 2011 to its replacement in 2022) marked a distinct move away from timing belt technology to drive the engine's inlet and exhaust cam. So, regardless of what engine your PX Ranger has fitted to it, the Ford Ranger timing belt or chain question is answered with a simple response: It’s a timing chain.

That means the timing chain should be good for the life of the vehicle and will not require replacement at regular intervals, unlike engines with a rubber drive belt belt, provided oil changes and other maintenance has been carried out properly. This gets around the rubber drive belt problems of periodical replacement and the associated cost.

This advice covers every PX Ranger engine, including the 3.2-litre five-cylinder diesel, the 2.2-litre four-cylinder diesel, the two-litre twin-turbo diesel and even the short-lived (2011 to 2015) 2.5-litre petrol engine.

Your mechanic is switched on, and is right about some Rangers (both 2.2 and 3.2-litre variants) experiencing oil pump failures. It seems the variable displacement, vane-style pumps aren’t lasting as long as some owners are expecting them to, and there’s actually an aftermarket pump that reverts to the gear-style mechanism that some Ranger owners are retro-fitting. I’m not sure that it's at the stage where you’d call the fault commonplace, but it is not unknown. And, of course, if the pump does fail, you’ve only got a few seconds to switch the engine off before major internal damage ensues.

The bigger complaint among Ranger owners is that the standard vane-style pump allows only a ten-minute window in which to drain the oil out during a service and get the new oil in. If the mechanic takes longer than those ten minutes, the oil will drain out of the pump and, because of the design, the pump won’t self-prime when the engine is restarted, leading to it running without oil pressure. Again, that’s enough to cause terminal engine damage.

This gets a bit political, because Rangers delivered after May 1, 2018 carried a five-year factory warranty, but cars sold before that date had just three years of factory cover. Which means that if your car was sold new before May 1 2018, it will now be out of warranty and, if it was sold later than that, the problem is still Ford’s as the warranty should still apply. Even so, it would seem fair that Ford should offer some pro-rata cover for a car that was built in early 2018 and missed out on the five-year warranty by a quirk of the calendar. But don’t count on it.

As for the actual problem, have you noticed any warning lights on the dashboard? If so, that could be a clue to what’s going on. But unfortunately, there are many, many things that could be making a modern turbo-diesel engine run poorly. Rough running or stuttering, for instance, could be caused by anything from a blocked fuel filter, worn fuel pump, faulty fuel-injectors or a DPF system that is blocked. Or any of literally hundreds of other things.

The best advice is to have the car electronically scanned to see if the on-board computer throws up a fault code. From there, you can home in on the actual problem without a hit-and-miss approach. That said, I would have expected a Ford dealer to have tried this already, so maybe it’s time to try another dealer. And don’t forget to press them on the warranty situation.