Video: 2024 Ford Ranger Review: One Useful Little Truck

And we're here to test out, if all of these things actually work. (upbeat music) So before we get going, in addition to this cool little step back here, to make getting in the bed easier, I just wanna show off how Ford has kind of transformed this into its own little workspace. You've got nice soft closed door, a ruler, places for C-clamps, you've even got a bottle opener over here. And of course, two power sources. One more of a cigarette lighter style plug, the other more of a house plug. It's not the full Pro Power Onboard that some of the higher end Fords have, but it will power some tools. (upbeat music) So admittedly, we haven't had a ton of time in the New Ranger, we've only had a couple hours of drive time total, but we've had kinda a sampler platter of Ranger-ness. We've done some twisty roads like the one we're on now. We've done some neighborhood roads, we've done some freeway driving and we've done a little bit of towing. And overall, you're not gonna mistake this for a car. It is very much a body and frame truck, but it also feels pretty sturdy, in that kind of knock around kinda way. So the best part of the New Ranger is this New Pro Trailer Backup Assist Feature. Most of the Trailer Assist's I've used, only help you back straight up. This one can help you back around a corner or wiggle into a weird spot. You can enable it using this simple button on top of this dial. Once the Trailer View Screen comes up, you can use this dial to aim the line on the screen and the truck will take over steering, so your trailer just follows the direction of that line. The wheel will go nuts and it'll look a little scary to begin with, but trust me, it took much less time for me to get used to this weird Onscreen Line Setup than it did to yell at a passerby to spot me. So Ford said the trailer we were towing on the road is a bit under 3,000 pounds. And it definitely bounced along. Part of me kinda wants to tow something heavier to see if it pushes the truck along a little more. It's rated for 7,500 pounds of tow capacity, which is pretty good for a truck you can maneuver in the city and happy with it parked and not feel like you're taking up half the parking lot. I'm pretty impressed with this base 2.3 liter turbo and it is an inline-four. There's a lot of room in the engine bay, if you wanna put bigger turbos, but in stock form, it gets out of its own way pretty well. Flooring it on the freeway, kind of fun, not gonna lie. You did feel a little bit of extra sluggishness with the trailer. Probably the most enjoyable place that we've been driving it has been through the twisties. You're not gonna mistake this for a sports car. Hit bump, feel bump, bounce over bump, just a little bit. It's obviously probably gonna be a little bit more stable with a little more weight in it. Three people not enough to really weigh down the suspension. So the upside of how the Ranger is set up is it's a really comfortable highway cruiser. At speed it's happy, it soaks up the bumps. The only thing is when you hit traffic, it's got a soft brake pedal. It doesn't have a lot of feeling or feedback, and you do have to kind of lay on it to really feel like you're gonna stop in time. I just wish there was a little more feeling in the brake pedal. It would inspire a lot more confidence. We're here in the top trim. It's the Lariats. It's usually the one with all the bells and whistles, but compared to Ford's, other Lariat trims, like the one in the F-150, that feels pretty luxurious, this is a little bit of a letdown. There's a couple misaligned plastic bits in this example. The leather is kinda rough on the steering wheel. I mean, maybe it will soften up with time. This is meant to be a very rugged, useful truck, but some of the Lariat trim pieces remind me more of a work truck than I really want out of this trim. Something that was frustrating while driving this is the buttons to go back and forth on the Main Touch Screen between the different functions, they're itty bitty circles, so you have these redundant HVAC controls that take up a lot of real estate that really should have gone into bigger buttons. All in all, the Ranger's update is a bit of a mixed bag. There's a lot of very functional stuff that's very likable and very well done, but there's also a lot of things that feel cheaper than I expect from Ford, especially on a top trim. You can't wait to get more seat time in this truck to really feel what it's like to live with. If you wanna know more, check out my full review on cars.com. (upbeat music ending)