Thats a lot for two years of driving!!
but appreciate the feedback. I recall someone up north (
@PhilD ??) also having big issues with theirs. I must admit, I don't min the BT once you put some 4x4 'makeup' on the front.
It wouldn't be fair to use my incident as anything indicative of Rangers. If as Ford and the Dealer claim that it all turned out to be the high pressure fuel pump getting over heated then there is no reason that BT50's should not be also likely to get the same fault. Having posted my trouble on a few Forum's and only getting one other mention of something similar then it may just have been an isolated issue. My main real complaint is that Ford/Mazda have a vehicle that is capable of generating a Limp Home condition while leaving no trace of the cause within the computer system. Hopefully they will update their software to fix this possibility as after all the computer knew enough about it to put it in to the Limp Home Mode.
Other than that my complaints were about the attitudes of Ford and the Dealer as to a few side issues. This is where choosing a new car is more than the car itself. In these days of Dealers selling multiple brands, and sometimes ones that would seem to be direct competitors, then personal preference as to who you are buying it from and servicing it come in to it. One multi franchise Dealer sells the Colorado, BT50 and Nissans for example. Most people here on this Forum probably live in areas where you have alternate choices as to Dealers in a particular Brand within relatively easy driving distances. For some Brands up here the nearest alternate is possibly Alice Springs or Mt Isa. If Dealer preference and alternates was our first choice then we would have bought the LC twin cab but lack of creature comforts and no auto version removed it from further consideration. We really only have 4 Dealers up here with most Brands split across them. It must be real comforting for people with luxury vehicles to find out that their local servicing Dealer also takes care of the bottom of the market one's as well.
As to taking vehicles for test drives and making choices, people would probably find it strange that prior to actually taking delivery of the Ranger we didn't take one for a drive. There wasn't an XLT auto available to test at the time but neither was the LC twin cab or the Amarok that we were considering. I had read enough about them that it didn't particularly bother me and the only thing about the Ranger that bothered me was the suspension being a bit soft and wallowing. I doubt that any standard model of any make would have thrilled me anyway and ours is now a bit modified in that area so not an major issue now. Could still do with a bit of tweaking though.
I'll reserve further judgement until we actually get it to go more than the 20km towing the van on the aborted trip last year. Trying to set off on this years trip in late April to May but now having to cut off WA for a down the centre and back via Eastern States for 4 months or so. The Ranger had no troubles in 2013 getting the WnP from Adelaide back here so last year wasn't fair to judge it on.
Phil
:thumb:
