2018 Ford Ranger vs Mazda BT-50

What's the difference?

I have to admit I arrived at the Raptor launch really wanting to like it. Despite any flak Ford received from naysayers about putting the 2.0-litre in the Raptor, it seemed like they had all the right ingredients for something that might really shake up the ute scene.

Sure, all the elements are there for a sporty-looking, fast and fun off-roader and Ford has pretty much nailed a lot of what it was aiming to do with this ute, but minus the punchier engine it needs, the Raptor seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. In its current guise, it's damn good, when it could have been great. I'm now looking forward to Raptor 2.0.

Our score is based on a summation of the quality of the car, the robustness of the engineering, where it sits feature-for-feature, and the value in the drive-away pricing. You probably have your own views on the new nose on the updated BT-50; we quite like it. 

At these new prices, the BT-50 demands your attention. The fact that you can comfortably take it to the Cape and back, tackle any four-wheel-drive adventure you’d sensibly dream up, and, at the same time, live happily with it as a big, capable, versatile family car, surely adds to the appeal. 

Mazda, the little company “that can”, has been carving out its place in this market off the back of well-engineered cars right across its product range. There is more than one reason why it’s number two in one of the toughest markets on the planet. 

This great looking ute, with more than just spiritual ties to the USA's Ford F-150 Raptor, has very distinctive eye-catching styling, from its blocky front grille (with all-capped FORD letters in your face), past meaty shoulders, flared wheelarches, beefy diecast magnesium side-steps, and chunky BFG All Terrain tyres, all the way back to the business end.

The Raptor – sitting high and square with 283mm of ground clearance and 150mm wider front and rear track – definitely wears its performance-ute origins on its metal sleeve.

The interior is simple but stylish with plenty of nice touches including Raptor branding throughout, blue stitched surfaces and 'Technical Suede' seats.

The answer here is 'yes'. What is interesting about the new BT-50, and its new nose, is that this car is unique to Australia. 

In fact, it was Mazda Australia who designed the new-look front clip. The project began as something of a skunk-works operation between Mazda Australia and Queensland company EGR, who manufacture and supply the factory-approved canopies across the BT-50 range.

With Australia the BT-50's biggest market, it is perhaps no surprise that the design work done here – done, it has to be said, because Aussie buyers were not crazy about the BT-50’s schnoz – won the approval of Mazda in Japan.

While unique to Australia, the new front has all of the attributes – in terms of engineering, pedestrian protection, and aerodynamic efficiencies – of the nose it replaces. Airflow for cooling, in fact, is slightly improved, and drag, the coefficient of resistance, remains unchanged.

And from front-on, thanks to the new chromed grill and stronger horizontal lower lip, the BT-50 could easily be mistaken for an approaching SUV. Visually, there is certainly more conventional appeal in the new look. 

Inside is roomy but with a welcome snug feel, perhaps a cabin nod to the Raptor's racing origins, and there's a simple all-pervasive, understated, cool vibe inside.

Controls are all easy to locate and operate and clear enough to read, even when fast-blasting along dirt roads with the dappled light of a bush landscape whizzing by at 110km/h in the late-afternoon light.

The front seats are easily comfortable enough to spend long-distance trips in and the back row is right for two adults; three, if there's a jockey in the middle.

There are USB ports and a power socket up front and storage spaces in the usual places.

We only drove the dual-cab GT at launch. And, while the Freestyle cab with its rearward-hinged portal doors and compact cabin is perhaps the more sporting, the dual-cab wins hands-down for practicality. 

There is lots of room in the rear even for adult passengers. And, for children, enough width to go three-abreast. Getting booster seats or capsules in and out is also well served by the square-opening rear doors. And the height is just right for wrangling belts and buckles around junior passengers.

The deep tub out back, while not as cavernous as the Freestyle's, still offers a very useful 1560mm width and 1549mm length. Not even the largest SUVs offer that kind of carrying capacity.

Externally, you’ll pick the dual-cab GT by the standard chromed bars and heavy-duty tub liner in the tray.

Mazda has always been prepared to take the sharp pencil to the pricing of the BT-50 range. And in terms of the quality feel of the product and the space it occupies in the segment, this car is very good buying. 

Look at the one we’re driving, the top-of-the-range BT-50 3.2-litre dual-cab GT 4X4 with a six-speed auto. Its drive-away price is just $51,990. Line it up, feature by feature, with the equivalent Ranger, and you’ll recognise a saving here of the better part of $10k. It is cheaper, even, than the second-tier Ranger XLS. That kind of saving is not to be sneezed at.

Line it up against the equivalent Isuzu D-Max, and, on that drive-away price, you’ll see a saving of thousands of dollars. It is also cheaper than Mitsubishi’s Triton Exceed, which has long been one of the price leaders in the segment.

The BT-50 range begins at $28,990 drive-away for the 2.2-litre 4x2 cab chassis; the 4x4 range starting at $37,990 drive-away.
 
Some in this segment just can’t hide their ‘workboots’ feel. But there are no ratty plastics in this cabin, and few indicators of the BT-50’s built-for-work origins. The sloping soft-touch dash gives an SUV-like feel to the interior, as does the large (7.0-inch or 8.0-inch) screen occupying the centre stack, as well as the solid feel to the doors and passenger-car ambience when on the road.

Start adding in features across the range - like standard reverse camera, power windows and mirrors, air-conditioning, cruise control, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, quality Alpine sound systems, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, rear-view mirror auto dimming, and sat-nav with live traffic updates and off-road maps – and you’ll possibly agree that there is more than a bit of substance packed behind those drive-away prices.

For XTR and GT models, to the list above you can add side steps (tubular, polished), tailgate lock, rain-sensing wipers, and dual-zone climate control. The GT also gets leather trim, an eight-way power front driver’s seat, chrome rear bars and heavy-duty tub-liner. 

The Raptor has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo diesel engine – producing 157kW at 3750rpm and 500Nm from 1750rpm-2000rpm. 

It has a 10-speed automatic transmission – the same auto used in the F-150 Raptor and Mustang. It also has Ford's 'Terrain Management System' with six modes: Normal and Sport (both on-road modes), as well as Grass/Gravel/Snow, Mud/Sand, Rock, and Baja mode (directly inspired by the Raptor's Baja 1000 desert rally roots).

Lift the bonnet and what you are looking at there is grandpa’s axe. The redoubtable five-cylinder, 3.2-litre turbo-diesel, which shares duties under the bonnet of the BT-50 and Ford Ranger (with a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel also available in lower-specced models across both brands), has been around since Adam was a pup. It produces 147kW at 3000rpm and 470Nm at 1750rpm.

It’s essentially the same engine that began life as the Td5 diesel under the bonnets of the Land Rover Defender and Discovery 20-or-so-years back. But it's now vastly more refined, robust, and quiet. And teamed with either a six-speed manual or six-speed auto, it’s as strong as a train.

The Raptor has a claimed 8.2L/100km fuel-consumption figure (combined cycle). It has an 80-litre fuel tank.

This 3.2-litre diesel is not the most abstemious among the new generation of turbo-diesel, twin-cab 4x4s, and is bettered by the latest 3.0-litre Isuzu D-Max (8.1L/100km claimed) and the 2.8-litre Toyota HiLux (8.5L/100km claimed). 

In our hands, on this trip, we recorded 11.2L/100km on the highway and gravel roads approaching the Gawler Ranges (mostly fair secondary roads with patches of damp red bulldust to watch out for). This rose to 13.2L/100km after some heavy going on a long stretch of sandy inclines.

Mazda claims 10L/100km on the combined cycle for the auto, and 9.7L/100km for the manual. But this is a tarmac-based figure, not the kind of driving we were doing, or that you would do on a family beach or bush adventure.

That said, given the willing output of the diesel – if needing a surge of power, it can summon all 470Nm in very quick time – and the weight of the rig (2161kg for the GT auto), plus its effortless towing capability, the figures we recorded on new engines are not bad, and will give a good indication of what you might achieve in similar driving.  

In sand, that muscular torque sitting across a wide band – from 1750 to 2500rpm – is particularly useful. If you’re carrying some weight behind, it won’t run out of shove and leave you stranded when the going gets heavy. 

The BT-50 has an 80-litre fuel tank.

It's a smooth cruiser on open roads, bitumen or loose dirt with that wider wheel track adding to a solid, stable driving feel. 

The much-touted coil springs and Fox Racing suspension set-up work supremely well, soaking up the serious lumps and bumps on back-country tracks, as well as a few severe dips and ruts that we tackled at high speeds in the dust and dirt of the massive Tipperary Station south of Darwin.

There is no doubt about the Raptor's ability to go fast off-road and do it with absolute sure-footedness, which it's been designed and engineered for.

The bad news is that 2.0-litre engine feels underpowered; it's not right for the Raptor, lacking grunt enough to push this ute along when really needed – for instance, from a standing start and also, worryingly, when overtaking. 

It also took energetic footwork to get it moving again after hitting substantial pools of thick speed-sapping dust. Even though Ford officials bristled every time anyone mentioned the word 'engine' in conversation at the launch, and cleverly avoided being drawn out when asked about future Raptor engines, there won't be too many surprised punters when Ford introduces a bigger-block Raptor in the not-too-distant future.

But it's an issue that has to be addressed because, from a standstill, there's noticeable lag from foot down to 'power on' and that 10-speed auto doesn't help matters as it can feel wishy-washy at times. Ford claims the Raptor can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 10.5 seconds.

On the plus side, the steering has that near-perfect Ranger-style weighting but with obvious Raptor liveliness to it.

Also, NVH levels were top notch, even when on patches of rough bitumen, and that's despite the Raptor being shod with those specially developed off-road-friendly BF Goodrich All-Terrain 285/70 R17 KO2 tyres.

Surprisingly quiet on-road, those tyres, with tough sidewalls and offering great grip on every surface we drove on, are unreal performers off of it.

No dual-cab ute will ever be as easy to live with, day to day, as a modern SUV or sedan. There are always compromises with a vehicle of this type in daily driving, especially for city-based families.

That said, it won’t take you long to get used to the more utilitarian feel of the BT-50, nor to the length of the beast (these utes can sometimes feel like aircraft carriers in city carparks). Helping here is the reversing camera (standard across the entire range), the well-weighted power-assisted steering, and the general comfort of the cabin and relatively quiet operation (some diesel noise at lower speeds notwithstanding) of the engine.

Fact is, live with it a while, and you’ll forget about the compromises of its workhorse engineering and learn to love the imperiously high driving position, the ready power, and the convenience of that big tub on the back.

Access in and out is also good, and at a perfect height for strapping the junior members of the tribe into the back seat. And with the icing being a long feature list and a half-decent sound system, it offers the conveniences of any modern sedan or hatchback. You’ll be surprised by its easy driveability, too. 

For all its strengths, however, the weight inherent to a strong ladder chassis, a heavy-duty 4x4 drivetrain, and the other compromises built of necessity into a dual-purpose vehicle, will take a week or so to get used to.

Wheels are 17-inch alloys on 265/65 R17 AT tyres. Brakes are 302mm ventilated discs at the front and drums at the rear. The BT-50's tray is also handy for both real work and house-and-yard duties, measuring 1549mm long, 1560mm wide and 513mm deep.

Where once these twin-cab dual-purpose 4x4s were a tad raw, with juddery suspension, vague steering, indifferent handling and little in the way of creature comforts, many of the new wave of models, such as this BT-50, have comfort levels close to those of the big 4x4 wagons - and even some SUVs.

I’d happily circumnavigate the continent in the BT-50. The seats are good, it’s quiet on-road (with less tyre noise than some passenger wagons), the feel through the steering is good and well-weighted (if a little vague at the dead-ahead), and there is effortless power underfoot.

Like any other modern car, it swallows highway kilometres with just the gruff muted growl of the turbo-diesel for accompaniment. On gravel – such as you’ll find on any long run through the outback – it can be driven surprisingly quickly and comfortably thanks to the long wheelbase, large wheels (with All-Terrain tyres), and that reasonably compliant suspension; independent double wishbone, coil-over dampers at the front, and live-axle leaf-spring at the rear.

The ride in the BT-50, like the Ranger and VW Amarok, is certainly among the better performers in the segment. Corrugations can have the rear moving around a bit, especially when unladen, but it needs one hell of a whack for bumps, ruts or hollows (like an unexpected washout) to unsettle things in the cabin.

For difficult off-road work, this Mazda's figures – 237mm ground clearance (unladen), and approach, departure and ramp-over angles of 28.2, 26.4 and 25 degrees – all check out.

If trailer towing is your thing, the BT-50 has a maximum towing capacity of 3500kg (braked), 750kg (unbraked) and a towball download of 350kg.

The BT-50, of course, has a five-star ANCAP safety rating, with all of the expected safety features that sit behind that rating. Importantly, for family duties, the airbag protection extends from the front to the rear cab, with driver and passenger airbags, both front and side, and curtain airbags front and rear. 

Other features include anti-lock braking (ABS), dynamic stability control (DSC), and emergency stop signal. Assisting off-road is hill descent control (4x4 only), hill launch assist, a locking rear differential (4x4 only), traction control and trailer sway control – the latter a Godsend when towing at highway speeds or when on loose surfaces (there are few things caravaners fear more than finding the caravan dictating terms at speed).

It is covered by Ford's five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty and capped-price servicing is available.

Mazda’s standard two-year warranty has been sweetened, with servicing intervals now extended from 10,000km/12 months to 15,000km/12 months.

On Mazda’s calculations (as supplied), based on a 15,000km/12 month interval, this will save owners more than $850 after five years of servicing. And, for owners clocking up real-world distances of 25,000km per annum, the potential saving is $1920 over the five years.