15th Jun 2010, 07:18

To say "in my repair shop all the time" sounds like rubbish to me. If you look for Rangers for sale, they usually have well over 120k on the original engine and trans. It's also not unlikely to find quite a few with over 200k on the engine and trans. Also, if you look through all of these comments, many people mention that very little went wrong. My guess would be that someone needing a trans rebuild twice in 60k miles was very hard on their transmission.

People that call these trucks junk probably don't even own one.

16th Dec 2010, 11:12

I have had very few problems with my 03 Ranger XLT. I did have to replace the ball joints two separate times, once in 07 and once last week.

I bought it new and have maintained it well, and have 125 k on it so far, so I am quite pleased with it. The tranny seems smooth to me, and I grew up in an all Chevy household. I got a lot of crap for buying this, but zero percent financing was too good to pass up.

Oh, I did also have a hole in a vacuum hose once, but that was a $40 repair.

17th Dec 2010, 17:41

"Oh, I did also have a hole in a vacuum hose once, but that was a $40 repair."

Vacuum hose is 50 cents a FOOT at my local auto parts store. Either you bought 80 feet or paid a HUGE labor charge for someone to slip a piece of rubber tuning on (about a 10 second repair). A repair manual might be a good purchase.

21st Jan 2011, 16:30

I had a 2003 Fx4. 5 Spd auto. Only problem I had was the tranny didn't want to shift when it was REALLY cold out.

Tires, ball joints, brakes, etc are common maintenance, and you would be replacing them anyways.

I personally would never buy the 2.3 or the 3.0, just because from experience, the 4.0 seems like a lot better built and more reliable engine.

Bottom line --- Ranger is the BEST small truck in its class.