Wondering what kind of off-road tech is on the new Ford Ranger? Wonder no more! Paul Maric tests out every single 4WD feature in the new Ford Ranger to see if it's any good. We used the 2023 Ford Ranger Sport for this test.
More Ford content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford
More Ford Ranger content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford/ranger
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 0:34
Interior Controls 1:53
Mogul 2WD 4:11
Mogul 4WD 6:16
Hill climb 7:30
Rocks 9:34
Water crossing 10:47
Verdict 12:33
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#ford #ranger #offroad #review
More Ford content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford
More Ford Ranger content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford/ranger
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 0:34
Interior Controls 1:53
Mogul 2WD 4:11
Mogul 4WD 6:16
Hill climb 7:30
Rocks 9:34
Water crossing 10:47
Verdict 12:33
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#ford #ranger #offroad #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. We have done a stack of reviews on the Ford Ranger OnRoad, and if you do want to check those out,
00:06 you can scroll down to the link in the description below.
00:07 But today, it's all about off-road, and I want to run you through all of the off-road features and settings in the new Ford Ranger.
00:14 I'll demo some of it here in our little off-road park, and we'll see exactly how well it works.
00:18 Now, if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this video,
00:20 you can use the time codes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube,
00:23 you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon,
00:28 so that'll notify you every time we do another bit of content on a Ford Ranger or a dual cab ute. But let's get started.
00:34 Now, before we go for a drive, I want to run you through just some of the external features you'll find here on the Ranger.
00:41 So, depending on the spec that you get, you get two different types of all-terrain tires.
00:45 If you don't get the Wildtrak, you can option all-terrain tires,
00:48 and if you do get the Wildtrak, you actually have a pretty decent set of all-terrains. This car has highway terrain,
00:53 so it's going to be a little bit challenging today, but it should be good fun.
00:55 It'll put the traction control systems to their test. Down the bottom here, you've got a set of rated recovery points,
01:01 so if you do get stuck, you can snatch yourself out. The approach angle is 30 degrees.
01:05 That's the angle of the face you can approach at the front here before collecting that front end, and in terms of the departure angle,
01:11 that's 25.6 degrees. Weighting depth, that comes in at 800 millimeters,
01:16 so that is the depth you can wade to before you start
01:18 affecting some of your internal components with water. If you are going to be doing some serious off-road driving,
01:24 you can actually get an accessory snorkel, which I would get fitted to the car, just to give you that extra
01:28 breathing room as well. Outside of that, you don't really have too much to talk about on the exterior of the car.
01:34 These side steps here are made of what looks to just be plastic,
01:38 so if you do collect any rocks and stuff like that, you probably are going to do some damage, and again,
01:42 if you do want to do some serious off-road driving, I'd get rock sliders or something like that just to make your life a little
01:48 bit easier, but let's jump inside the car. I'll run you through some of the little buttons and features on the screen.
01:52 So, welcome to the inside of the Ford Ranger.
01:56 This is kind of mission control, as is this little section down here,
02:00 so I'll run you through this first,
02:02 just because this is where you're going to select your four-wheel drive modes if you don't want the car to do it for you,
02:06 and I think a lot of people who have done four-wheel driving before
02:09 will probably just sort of prefer to do things on their own.
02:11 So this is where you can select your different drive modes. You have two-wheel drive high range, four-wheel drive automatic,
02:17 so that will split torque between the front and rear axle on its own, four-wheel drive high range,
02:21 which splits torque 50/50 between the front and the rear, and four-wheel drive low range,
02:25 which uses a low range transfer case for higher torque.
02:29 Now, you can also run a rear diff lock in both high range and low range, and also in two-wheel drive,
02:37 which is a great feature. Most dual-cab utes in this segment need
02:40 low range active for the rear diff lock to work. This is where you can select your four-wheel drive
02:46 screen that appears here. So that's your standard display that comes up with CarPlay or whatever you have running,
02:52 and then the second you push this, it brings up your four-wheel drive display.
02:56 This is standard on Sport and WildTrack,
02:59 so you can see here it tells you exactly what the car is doing in terms of the four-wheel drive system,
03:04 and when we go for a drive, you'll get a closer look at how that changes when we engage and disengage controls.
03:09 You've got the button there for the diff lock.
03:11 It is a little bit annoying that the button for the diff lock isn't down here.
03:14 You've got to go into this screen to engage it, and this is your hill descent control.
03:17 You can see here this camera is used for cresting terrain.
03:20 We'll test that out shortly, but you can see in essence how it works.
03:24 The steering lines move with the steering wheel, and you can also adjust the angle of that as well,
03:30 and if you are going in reverse, you can also show your rear view there as well, and also a trailer view, and then down here
03:36 you can also do your pitch and roll angles as well if that is useful to you.
03:40 Just give you an idea of where the car is placed and how everything is going there.
03:44 So that's all the basic stuff. Ahead of the driver is where you'll see the changes in drive modes.
03:49 So when you do flick this, it will move between the different drive modes.
03:53 This basically allows you to select all of this stuff automatically, so if you do select mud, for example,
03:59 it will automatically shift into four-wheel drive. If you're in two-wheel drive,
04:01 it will also lock the rear diff and make some of those adjustments for you. So that's the basics of these controls.
04:08 Let's saddle up and test some of this stuff out.
04:10 Okay, so let's kick things off in two-wheel drive. I just want to demo some of the stuff that goes on here.
04:16 So first up,
04:18 killing stop/start. We'll turn our parking sensors off. I'm going to press our off-road button there. It'll bring up our camera.
04:24 You can also see our four-wheel drive settings there.
04:27 I need the camera just to get a better idea of where the car is going to
04:30 trek over our mogul, because it is a little bit vicious here at times.
04:35 So the whole idea of doing this in two-wheel drive first is to test the traction control system,
04:39 so we're going to get it into this situation just here, where one of our rear tyres is off the ground,
04:44 and that's going to force traction control to stop it from spinning and send all torque to that wheel that has traction.
04:49 And this is doing a seriously good job. If I just stay on that throttle,
04:53 it's just edging forward ever so slightly.
04:57 The traction control tune is fantastic. I know some cars, like D-Max for example,
05:02 it just sits there and it bogs down with traction control and you don't actually get anywhere.
05:06 Whereas this has done a really commendable job of just pulling through that in two-wheel drive.
05:10 We'll drop off the end of this, we'll touch that mudguard on the way down.
05:14 There it is, just there. Now, rear diff lock. Why would you need it in two-wheel drive?
05:21 Well, for this exact situation right now, we're kind of
05:24 running the risk of getting completely stuck there.
05:27 So I'm going to put this rear diff lock on and then this should help us ease out of here without just getting bogged.
05:35 Just giving us a little bit of traction.
05:38 Bit by bit, we will edge through, I hope.
05:43 We're kind of crab crawling to the side here.
05:46 There you go, we're finally out of that.
05:49 So that's something that we wouldn't be able to achieve if we didn't have the rear diff lock available to us in
05:55 two-wheel drive. And you've got to remember as well that trying to engage four-wheel drive, diff locks,
05:59 all that sort of stuff when you're stuck already is entirely pointless. It really needs to be activated
06:04 well and truly before you're stuck.
06:06 Righto, up next, let's do our Mogul again this time. I'm going to do it in four-wheel drive high range.
06:11 I'm going to click that button just there. We'll turn our rear diff lock off just for the moment.
06:17 I'll leave traction control on and I'll show you how this works. It is really muddy on the approach to our
06:24 Mogul there, but that's okay.
06:26 Okay, so
06:29 line this up. So now the car is basically
06:31 sending 50% of torque to the front axle and rear axle at the same time.
06:36 When we get it into this situation just here, where we have that wheel off the ground and this one slightly off the ground,
06:44 it's again having to
06:46 figure itself out. Okay, so we're not getting anywhere there.
06:52 Okay, we're getting bogged. So what I'll do is turn the rear diff lock on
06:56 and get a bit more throttle onto it.
06:59 I can feel it slipping off that.
07:02 Oh, we are so close. There it is.
07:06 Awesome, we got off that. So again, rear diff lock comes in to help us
07:11 extricate ourselves from potential disaster.
07:15 So that was four-wheel drive high range.
07:18 So you can see there with traction control on, it was kind of struggling to get over that part where we're getting
07:23 both of those rear tyres off the ground, but locking that rear diff kind of just helps us through that little situation.
07:28 So big tick there.
07:30 Okay, so next up we are going to try four-wheel drive low range and that is with our muddy hill here.
07:37 So what I'm going to do is move this down to
07:40 the mud setting.
07:43 So mud ruts.
07:45 Let's just see what that does there. So that has locked the rear diff, left it in four-wheel drive high range,
07:49 but I'll put it in four-wheel drive low range anyway, so we can have some fun with that. I'm going to shift it to neutral.
07:54 You can hear that shift is complete.
07:57 All right, we're in low range now.
08:02 Let's give this a shot. So yeah, this car's fitted with highway terrain,
08:06 so it is going to struggle a little bit, especially now that they're caked in mud, but we'll see how it goes,
08:12 especially with that diff locked.
08:15 Gee, it's climbing this
08:17 really impressively.
08:20 Yeah, I think that diff lock makes all the difference because in situations where you just cannot,
08:25 you know, get that traction that you need because you've got one tyre slipping,
08:29 this really just gives you that motivation to get it up the hill without any dramas. Got a little mud bath here,
08:34 so we'll send it through this.
08:36 All right, so let's test hill descent control now.
08:41 So you activate it by pushing this button just here. Now with hill descent control in the Ranger,
08:46 you can adjust the speed of the descent using
08:49 these controls just here, so that will adjust how fast it's going up and down.
08:53 I'll also switch this view to our angle view as well, so we can see what kind of
08:59 angles we're getting on that descent as well. So here we go. So I basically just leave my foot off the brake.
09:06 God, you can't see anything over that.
09:10 All right, here we go.
09:11 God, that is doing such a good job.
09:13 That is really impressive.
09:17 I have full control over that and look, generally I wouldn't use a hill descent control if I was driving,
09:22 but the fact that you have full control over the speed means it's something you don't really need to
09:27 spend too much time stressing about, which is good news.
09:30 Got a little mud bath just here to clean our tyres.
09:34 Righto, next up, let's see what it's like over some rocks. I'm going to leave,
09:39 switch hill descent control off, but I'll leave this in low range as we go over the rocks.
09:44 I find with low range, it just gives you a little bit more control over the speed and with rocks as well,
09:50 what I'll typically do is just
09:52 ride the brake and also the throttle at the same time, so we're not getting jolts as it comes in and out of the throttle.
09:58 Yeah, that actually feels really nice and gentle. We're on the highway terrains here.
10:05 So last time we did this, we were on all terrains in, I think it was the Wild Track, and the all terrains were good,
10:11 but you've got to be careful with highway terrains and sharp rocks because
10:14 you can chew right through them if you're not careful. So,
10:17 yeah, 234mm ground clearance is pretty decent here on Ranger,
10:22 and it means that you're going to be able to get over most sort of obstacles and stuff.
10:26 But yeah, if you're going to do any serious off-roading, you really want to have
10:29 a meaty set of tyres and maybe even a lift as well.
10:33 Yeah, this feels
10:35 really, really confident over this.
10:38 Very impressed with that. Nice.
10:40 Awesome. Alright, let's head over to our river crossing where it has been raining and it's nice and deep.
10:45 Now, the river crossing is just under 700mm deep.
10:51 Ranger has a wading depth of 800mm, but with all of these things, you kind of, you know,
10:57 you don't really want to get stuck in the middle of it.
10:59 So, you also don't want to go through too fast either because you can flood the engine and
11:04 you're really not going to help yourself there either. So, I'm in low range.
11:07 I'm going to lock the rear diff as well just to be on the safe side because the climb out of here is quite steep
11:12 and our tyres are kind of just covered in mud at the moment. So, let's drop in and
11:19 see what happens.
11:23 Make sure the windows are closed.
11:25 Okay, here we go.
11:29 Oh, this is nice and slushy and deep today.
11:32 Yeah, I love that you can see out the camera there.
11:35 Now, you've got to be careful as well climbing out of these things. Again, you don't want too much pace,
11:40 but I also want traction.
11:43 There we go.
11:45 Tiny little slip there from the highway terrains, but
11:48 we got there in the end. So,
11:51 alright, that was easy done. I think once you've done it once and you know you can make it through, it's fine.
11:57 Obviously, if you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're driving your Ranger through something like that,
12:02 you do want to check the depth of it. We have obviously a height indicator,
12:05 but if you don't have a height indicator,
12:07 you don't know what the surface is, you need to get out and check that stuff before you actually give it a crack.
12:10 Now, by the way, if you don't know what four-wheel drive low range diff lock, when you should be using that, when you shouldn't be
12:15 using it, we actually shot a video on four-wheel drive controls where we explained exactly why you can and can't use these things in
12:21 certain situations. If you do want to watch that video, you can click up there.
12:24 [Music]
12:26 So, I hope you enjoyed that. I was pretty impressed with this. It does such a good job in terrain like this.
12:39 This is basic off-road terrain, but I think if you have a standard Ranger, especially on highway terrain tyres,
12:44 it's pretty good to see that it can do this type of thing without too many dramas.
12:47 You just press a few buttons and it does everything for you. And it shows you how much effort Ford has put into
12:53 traction control systems and four-wheel drive control systems to support just the average punter.
12:57 I think if you are going to be doing some more serious stuff,
12:59 you'll probably modify your four-wheel drive and this stuff becomes a whole lot more irrelevant.
13:02 But if you are just like me and you want to do some basic stuff, it's all good.
13:06 Now, if you did enjoy this video,
13:07 please make sure you like it and share it with your mates.
13:09 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
13:12 Let me know if there's anything else you want to know about the Ranger and its off-road settings.
13:16 Do you want to see us compare the Ranger to other four-wheel drives in this segment?
13:19 Let me know in the comments section. But until next time, take it easy.
13:23 (upbeat music)