Last Wednesday, I had a boring day. No friends to chilling out or such. So, I was strolling around Damansara and the Ford Ranger radio ad kept playing in the radio nationwide. No matter what radio station you tuning in, there will be this ad playing around. I forgot what does it says about, but if I can recall, it says that the dealership was located thousands of kilometres from the city, and you have to pass through the tropical forests and mountains with weird names, except Mount Kinabalu, lol. After the ad stops playing, I was completely brainwashed, leading myself driving to the Ford dealership at Bukit Damansara. It was just opposite the secretive located Rolls-Royce dealership and also Audi.
That's right folks. I'm talking about pick-up trucks. Even though that I'm not a truck fan here, but at least I learned a little starting from driving a most dangerous and dinosaur-engineering truck like the Toyota Hilux. Until, I get to see this technological beast that is more to safety, and throwing in some bits with practicality and a small sense of comfortability.
Let's be honest here. We all know that the Ranger is the most advanced and the most priciest trucks in Malaysia. The only bad thing is, with the ridiculous price tag, the new NP300 Navara, the D-Max, and also the Triton dethrones the Ranger. But in terms of safety and performance to carry loads, the T6 Ranger still on top of the position. The 2015 Ranger is actually had a minor cosmetic surgery, and add more muscle to the heart. I have no hate against it, which is also the same case to the pre-facelift one.
Staring at the front, the Ranger has been extremely designed with a new hexagonal grille and reshaped headlights. The XLT trim gets the chrome accent grille while the Wildtrak has the grey accent instead, to give it more, Raptor-ish..
Moving on to the side, it doesn't have too much difference, except that both XLT and Wildtrak have a new set of wheels. What I can see is the facelifted XLT wheels are way uglier than the pre-facelift. As for the high end Wildtrak, it comes with the 18" wheels, but it looks less sportier too.
There are no changes on the rear. Everything has the same chorus like a song that has been re-recorded.
Now here's the best part for every Ranger. The whole dashboard has been redesigned, leaving away the stupid tiny buttons from the pre-facelift. The new dashboard is more rigid and less rounded, giving it more feel to it like a real truck, compared to car-like interior that you found on the new Navara and Triton. The air vents have a chrome accent around them, and the dash are soft padded as well. The Wildtrax gets a faux orange stitching across the dash.
New to the Ranger Wildtrak is the Ford SYNC 2 infotainment system with an 8'' touchscreen. It displays your compass and altitude, climate control menu and also your hands-free phone calling. You can also adjust the climate control manually via the newly-designed climate control system at the bottom, if you don't want your screen to get dirty with your hands filled with oil after you having a McChicken or Whopper for a late night supper.
The XLT rather gets the small 4.2" head unit.
Both of them comes with voice control system, Bluetooth hand-free telephone, iPod and USB connectivity. However, the Wildtrak is the only one that came with automatic and dual-zone air-conditioning system while the XLT doesn't.
Interestingly, both have two 12V power outlets.
The 6-speed automatic transmission is still intact.
The Wildtrak had a redesigned leather seats with a black and orange accents around them compared to the old single line orange stripe on the the old one.
Meh, the XLT still gets the old-fashioned way. Black fabric seats. Black urethane arm rest. Oh well, only those commercial people will get this one instead.
Just like every new Fords in the US and Europe, it has a new gauge cluster with the center analog speedometer. The left screen displays the music while the right screen displays your fuel gauge, a tachometer or even a warning light (door ajar, out of fuel, etc)
The XLT get the more easy-to-look-at traditional dash.
There is a significant updates for the powertrain on all trim levels. The 3.2 inline-5 Duratorq TDCi now produces 200 bhp and 470 Nm of torque at 3000 rpm
The 2.2 straight-4 counterpart gets 160 hp and 3200 Nm of torque at 3200 rpm. Well, now that's about 10 or 20 percent horsepower increase for both engines.
Enough for all the dramas, I would like to comment about how it drives. There is no test drive for the 3.2, as the dealership only have the 2.2 XLT as the only pick-up as a test drive unit.
The new Ranger was actually drives like a normal modern car especially when it comes to handling. All Rangers get a new electric power steering for easy turning and parking. For people who hauls heavy stuffs, this will be a good news. When it comes to uphill driving, it still got enough torque to tackle it. Sharp cornering? No problem and not scary at all. Why? Because it has stability control and electronic brake assist are standard across the range. You can't even find this in most top spec pick-up trucks on the market here. It does equipped with hill descent control too, so I didn't need to touch the brakes when going downhill, as the ABS let their job done to each wheels.
Overall, the new Ranger was one of the best pick-up trucks I've ever driven. Best of all, the Ranger is the future of pick-up truck in this segment and no other competitors dare to fight against it when it comes to safety and technology, until the next generation Hilux coming to Malaysia next year.
Now the price is going up for this beast in every trim. The Wildtrak currently costs about RM 136K while the XLT costs about RM 112K.
Now we all know that safety is the main priority when buying a pick-up truck. I will give a two thumbs up for this one. Nice job, Ford.
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