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Toyota Tacoma vs. Ford Ranger, Part XII
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The ES also had an ashtray that rattled if it was closed. I usually left it open so I could plug in my radar detector.
Nothin's perfect.
The sport trac is still an Explorer... Which is perfect for any middle class mom with 2.5 kids. But I don't think it's meant for off-road ability, if that's what you are aiming for. However it would make a plush ride, if you didn't need a bid pickup bed.
A similar thing is sorta being hashed out in another thread. You might be right. More would buy the Ford simply cuz of what it is -- cheaper and a Ford. The fact that their reliability is just a shade behind doesn't matter to most. Still others are just plain blind to that fact. By the way, I am speaking totally with respect to the specific trucks Ranger and Taco. Some say that the extra cash is not worth whatever pluses Tacos offer - I disagree, and they might too if they weren't so closed-minded. Thank you for not being so. I just hate how Yota has this reputation of being so weak, thin, puny, and unable to take a whipping. You have stated that perception yourself. It simply is NOT true.
That is really my beef with the whole deal. Wasn't directed at anyone in particular of course. Maybe you Ranger guys don't even necessarily have that attitude. Any way that was way off topic. Does anyone see what I mean, though?
hell yeah buy the ranger. more power, more torque, more payload, more towing, more standard features, more interior room, bigger bed, real axles (dana), easier to get, cheaper to maintain, cooler and better lighting system and front end, no sludge problem potentialities, a proven record of sales because people know it is a good truck. nah, i bet he'd rather have a truck that doesn't even have a clock in it, eh?
SR5 is more or less defacto standard on Tacomas. You have to pay around $1K for it, but it comes on 99.9% of all Tacos. It's got things like AC, tach (there are people who drive without those), wipers, CD player....basically all the nice little things that you might make your life easier.
You could, if you tried hard enough, get a Taco without SR5. If you did that, you'd need to get options that you want piece by piece, and that usually comes out to be more expensive.
If I can guestimate, SR5 went on trucks sometime around late 97-early 98, 'cause a lot of 96s and 97s (older grills) don't have it, they came as Limited.
www.carreview.com
Looks like some people aren't so happy with their new Ford Rangers. You can get consumer feedback on the tacoma, Ranger, and all small trucks.
-do you know what the payload capacity is for a ranger (supercab, 4x4)? I tried checking ford's website for the ranger but it's confusing. For Payload and Towing, they only list "GCRW" and "weight." apparently they want you to calculate it yourself? Also, aside from being 1/2 inch shallower, the tacoma's bed is longer and wider than the ranger's.
issi--->And we never have seen an early to mid nineties Tacoma or Toyota Pickup get rusty have we? 5 years ago my Ranger was parked 5 feet from the Gulf of Mexico for a week. It played in the sand, and the salt water waves and then sat without a wash until I got home. After leaving about 5 pounds of sand in the driveway, I know it had plenty of chance to start rusting. However, to this day, my undercarraige is unmarred by rust. It's dirty, but it isn't rusting at all. 1993 model too.
And the Ranger makes up for roughly 10% of all trucks and SUV sales(vans too). The Ranger also sells more that all Lincolns, and just less than all the Mercury's. I guess those companies are just after thoughts too? If the Ranger is an afterthought, the lesser selling Mustang is just a fling... (A 39 year fling at that)
By the way, what potential sludge problem? I saw one article on a woman supposedly having a problem with a Toyota but it wasn't a Tacoma. If I use that logic, you have a potential of everything failing on a Ranger.
As far as bed size, great point eagle. I hope that shuts em up on that issue for awhile.
More towing capacity - I'd like to shake the hand of the Taco or Ranger owner that towed even 4500 pounds much less the maximum of either one. All comparos show that the Taco acclerates better when loaded anyways.
Tacomas "inferior" axles are used on a 1/2 ton pickup that, although smaller, still works as hard as the competition without having ANY failed axles. Congrats to the Taco on that one.
Whoever gets an mp3 player from the factory in a vehicle should be forced to drive Dodges for the rest of their lives. How dumb is that?
Wrobelc, the point is this: treat buying a truck like you would treat looking for the perfect woman. The Ranger is the one who has all the expensive clothes, purses, and shoes. But when you look closely, what you thought said Gucci, really only says Gussi. She will always be going to the doctor and passing on her diseases to you in various ways (use imagination). When its time to get rid of her, you won't be able to without taking a huge shot in the bank.
The Tacoma is like the good old girl you'd love to take home to mom. Although not as flashy and maybe a little harder to woo your way, she will NEVER NEVER let you down. The benfits of having the love and affection of something so perfect may only be apparent after the first couple of payments, but you will wonder why you ever thought of doing things any differently. Just like you always have heard, "don't judge a book by its cover," and don't buy a truck just cuz its cheaper and has more bells and whistles. That is, unless you want to end up with chlamydia and a broke down truck. Most of all, get out there and make you own decision. Don't base it totally on what you read here and don't listen to me! LOL
issteelman, i laughed all the way through your pointless post. such bull.
On the other hand, the Toyota trucks for sale always seem to be older, high mileage trucks whose original owner is asking quite a bit. And guess what? Their truck is usually sold pretty quick.
I think it would be interesting if somebody found some data on the average length to time somebody keeps their Toyota in comparison to a Ranger.
Tbunder, you forgot to mention that Ranger has more recalls than Tacoma too. If you are gonna go for "Ranger has more ..... than Tacoma", go all out.
Hmm...I want a Ford Ranger in FX4 configuration with a V6 and manual transmission, 4x4. When can I have it? Heh.
Although, of course, I gotta wonder why it wasn't planned ahead a little. But I'm not gonna knock on people's lifestyles, there's a lot of folks who don't plan their kids, they just have them as they go along.
Awesome, huh?
Also wait until you get a girlfriend (not personal knocking here I swear) and she tells you she's late on her period. It'll change your whole perspective on life. So tbunder needed a safer vehicle for a future child. Is that any reason to question his thinking(Pluto)?
The price of a truck would go down (maybe even below the 10K mark), people would have more flexibility with aftermarket accessories.
You have a valid point re: work trucks, but again, here in Colorado, work trucks are usually full-size 4x4s, not compact trucks.
pluto- someday, you too could have a family. key word-COULD. until then, enjoy your ext. cab trucks. one little tidbit why more rangers are for sale- MORE BUILT. a lot cheaper to trade up to newer model with ford than with toyota. it all works in conjunction.
to whom imc, ranger had one recall in '01. dont know how many if any taco had, nor do i care. i like the extra crap available for less with ranger than stripped down taco. for those of you ditching the mp3 player availability, what century you living in?
I have no doubt that they will play, but there are SOOO many different configurations that mp3 players come in and only the top of the line ones NOW are worth their $350 pricetags. Do you even know what they are and how they work? Who is really more ignorant here? What was wrong with what I said? Give me a break, if we bragged about such a thing on the taco, you'd be all over it. We would rather spend option money on a locker that actually has a place being on an "off road" packaged truck, instead of being a poser with an LSD and an mp3 player.
I am sorry if you feel this is unfair or what not. But the statements about the mp3 player are true. I have some experience with them and a player that is a $128 upgrade is obviously lousy. I have no doubt that it will play and maybe for a long time, but you will get soo tired of 15 second pauses in between tracks, no track labeling, and innumerable other faults that you will be ready to trade it for a casette player in a month, honestly. Even players that cost $300 are still underdeveloped and a pain to work with, more money gets a little better quality.
What exactly is your view on why they wouldn't work in a truck.
Sony, Pioneer and others are beginning to make similar players that are fairly easy to use. Each player uses different types of tags, which are the ways the player reads the title, artist, etc. and displays them on the screen. It is hard to find compatible software that will write the correct tags onto the CD. Without the right tags, artist name and so on will not be there.
Lots of players, especially the bottom line ones, also are cheap in the way that you can separate songs into files. Flexibility in ways that you can organize songs when you burn to discs is very important so that you can search and find a particular song without scrolling thru 180 songs. Alot of times you may want to organize into several subfolders. Very important yet, sometimes a hard to find feature.
Also important are certain repeat functions, ways that it moves to different folders without being told to, and various other searching ablities. But in short, this player is much different from the one you are used to. If I am wrong and took for granted that the player in these trucks is not up to par, I apologize. However, nothing tells me that these things are even as easy as the run-of-the-mill aftermarket mp3 decks. Nothing against Ford, but to make a GOOD mp3 player, it takes a bonafied electronics company.
I may be behind the times but how does the mp3 part in the trucks differ from just burning discs at home and playing 'em in your CD player???
What pisses me off is my wife can burn discs on her "back pack" and it'll play on both my Ford's and Lexus CD players but my CD/DVD player in the house won't recognize the burned CD's....grrrrrr.
have you even listened to an fx4 mp3 player? i rest my case.
i still haven't seen a real off-road truck that didn't come stock with dana axles on it. rangers have them front and rear. toyota's have japanese specials. what kind of axles do jeeps come with? i rest my case. you heard of the new rubicon wrangler that's due out this summer? fully locking front and rear dana axles. hmmm.....
As for the "real offroad truck": sure, Jeep Rubicon will kick [non-permissible content removed] offroad. You'll probably have to tow it to the playground because of horrible onroad ride, though. Current generation of 4x4 trucks is something of a mix of offroad and onroad: they are potent offroad but have a fairly good onroad ride. It's true for Ranger, it's true for Tacoma.
And how can ABS be bad for non-paved roads? Even if you can support that statement, isn't America covered with paved roads too? I wonder where we should be concerned, in traffic, on the highway, on the way back from a movie, or out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road.
Saddaddy--->Good point about the MP3 player, but it seems none of us here know the specifics of such a player to really make a claim for or against it. I've got some MP3 discs at home, maybe I'll try swinging by a dealership and seeing how they work out...
-this is exactly what I've been wondering for a while now. Obviously you need some type of physical media to get the MP3's to your truck's MP3 player, and presumably it's a disc, so then what's the point??
When you burn a CD for listening in a regular CD player, you are typically converting that MP3 player back to CD Audio, and losing that MP3 compression that allows lots of music to be stored in little space. A burned CD regular of regular audio typically stores a little more than 1 hour of music.
So by offering a CD player that can read and decode the MP3 compression protocol, you can store a lot of music on one CD. It just takes special hardware to play it.
What mp3 players do is read mp3 files off the CD disk, and then uncompress them in hardware, and send the resulting data to the sound system. Regular CD players skip the uncompress step, because they read data directly from the disk and send it to the sound system.
so what you're saying is, if I get an MP3 player for my rig the only thing I have to do differently is burn the MP3's directly to the CD, instead of using a program to convert the MP3's to uncompressed audio format and then burn them. right?
You also might want to be careful with your existing mp3s. For example:
my portable Rio mp3 player (the one you load songs directly into memory) will not play malformed mp3s (I have a large collection of music I got off napster in my college years, and some of them have junk in the beginning/end of the file). I have to sit down and run the mp3s through a utility to cleanup the files and then load them into the Rio. I don't know how sensitive car mp3 players are to that problem, but it's definitely something to look out for, otherwise it might bite you later. But, if you burn your own mp3s off your own CDs, you ought not have any problems.
As for the Dana axles, how can you prove that they are any better than Yota axles. They have a nice name, but Toyota has NEVER had a problem with their axle strength. Tons of guys over at TTORA swap out the IFS for SFA and leave the 8.0" locked axle in the rear. They bash the living crap out of those smaller axles, but I have NEVER heard of one failing. There is one Ranger guy that comes on the board alot, the only Ranger rockcrawler I've ever seen. His ranger came with solid axles front and back, yet he still changed out BOTH of em. Or wouldn't you think that was necessary with the unstoppable Danas that comes stock? Obviously, he knew something you don't. Anyway, go out West anytime and tell me whether you see more Rangers with Danas or Tacos with [non-permissible content removed] axles out their crawling.
how can i prove the dana is better? cuz dodge, jeep, ford, gm, land rover, etc. put them on. they all know they're the best so they don't even bother to build their own axles for the specific application. some fords and probably others have their own rears, but the majority of front axles on any real 4x4 have the dana name on them.
Are you sure about the Rangers having never had solid front axles? I am sure that I see em all the time, not lifted, and when you look at em from the front you can see the diff sticking down below everything else. I am positive I have seen Explorers like this. Maybe the I-beam setups have something that sticks down and looks like a diff? The Ranger guy I was referring to also replaced his rear axle, for what it's worth.
I will agree with you that the I-beam setup was a good one. I was gawking over it on that Trucks! show when they made the Ranger prerunner with the 6" lift. Obviously made for lots of wheel travel. It is very easy to modify, BUT when you did so you ended up with tons of wheel camber - not good, and very ugly. Lifting also limited wheel travel tremendously without replacing the beams and control arms. However, stock they were very strong. Have a good one!