Rear Ride height a Design defect caught tooo late?

[subquark]

Hi RDS,

Okay...I have remained silent on this post to let members "vent" etc... Did not read the entire thread due to a waste of time. So here is my take.

This IS NOT a design defect. If Ford produced a vehicle where something like this occurred, it would have not seen production without many design reviews. Since the 5G was produced off shore since 2016, there were redesigns of the Ranger for the North American market for power train and interior trim etc. The ride height was deemed acceptable for the frame design...tweaked for the 2.3l ten speed trans etc., but it was a decision to accept the tail up design was made. So throw the lemons you wish at the Ranger, but the design was not a mistake...

A bit of a back story....I had built 4 race trucks for racing at Livernois ( yep...the now tuners) Vehicle. The 4th truck was my test mule....the three race trucks were mulitlieaf rear springs.
I was looking to reduce weight and we developed a reduced weight monoleaf spring for the race trucks. The weight savings came at a cost so to speak as we had to retune the shocks, which we did many times during developments of the Test Mule and supplied to the team, Saleen Autosports. Multileafe design provides friction damping, but a monoleaf had no damping (like a tailgate damper, which is SO contentious). The weigh reduction was enough to merit bookshelfing the race truck technology for future productes....thus the 5g benefits from my work/development of racetrucks...

So lambast away... It was not considered a Defect...

Enough said...170 posts of mixed bag...

I saw the 5g in New Zealand in 2016...it was the No 1 selling vehicle in NZ and Australia.

When it hit the USA and being head of Ranger Vehicle Engineering, I just had to have one...trading my 2007 Ranger for a 2019...

5G is a worthy product and I am proud to be part of the heritage that delivered the Ranger back to market even though I had no direct input to this happening...

So I retreat to my flameproof bunker for my statements... Take them with a grain of salt or the whole saltshaker as you wish..

Best,
Phil

A million percent this! ^^^^^

People like Phil spend their days completely engrossed in design, engineering, building, testing, refining, and so much more.

I never knew about multileaf friction and I have a masters in science degree.

But I do know that for every dumb thing I see (like removal of hood struts) there are 100s of meticulously solid design decisions that make this the perfect truck for me.

Thank you Phil and all the others that eat, breathe, and sleep the best product they can create.

Now back to the armchair designers. =D

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[Cmar]

Do you shake your ranger is butt around, when you see a Nissan?

Probably.

you talk bad abut my Wanger. i get mad like little girl....

hahahaha hahaha

Frontier IS a better truck. i know, I've owned both. That's not to say the Ranger is a bad truck, just has this one odd design feature. Better than a Tacoma.

Well hopefully Nissan will listen and do a better job this time around. It wasn't that the D40 was a bad truck, indeed it had many good points. I considered buying one myself until I did some research. It's just that Nissan appeared to cut too many corners in assembly, and component QC. Nissan themselves knew this and put out a public apology in Australia. https://www.drive.com.au/news/nissa...sting-navara-promises-new-model-will-improve/

 

[Philvarah]

good luck with the nissan. I have very few regrets in life and buying a frontier was 1 of them

I would never buy a Nissan anything...
The company manufactured the Nissan Altima in the 2000s for years with a faulty TPS Sensor..
Many complained... Cars would die in the middle of use... Extremely dangerous... Never did a recall... They sold several hundred thousand as the third nest selling vehicle behind Honda and Toyota..
Because they sold several 100k vehicles... Would have been to costly to their bottom line to repair..we owned one.. a known defect by dealers and charged consumers to pay for repair... F Nissan.

 

[yamahaSHO]

Lamborghini's have a design flaw in that they're way too low for old people to get in and out of.


That's about the equivalent to this thread.

 

[Philvarah]

Design flaw? No.
Design flaw would be if the bed wrinkled when loaded, tailgate won't stay shut, etc. Functional problems, not STYLE problems.

Is the Ranger bed high? Compared to what? 3G Ranger? Yes. 2005 F-150? Yes. Other contemporary trucks. Yes and No. It depends.

Is bed height a result of chassis design choices? Yes. It's definitely possible to modify any truck feature, to any degree of customization. The only question is at what cost in terms of time, effort, materials, and planning. If you found the Ranger's bed height a deal-breaker, you made the right choice to sell it and get a truck that is more to your liking.

But don't try to pretend that the truck is defective, and Ford could not fix the defect. That's just moron level stupid ... well ... I'll be nice and say it's uninformed. Things like Bed Height are defined VERY early in the design cycle, and if unsatisfactory, are quite easy to change, before metal is cut, bent or welded, and would be fixed at the prototype stage at the latest. Nobody overlooked this. There is (always) a trade-off involved and it was decided that the benefit of "some other characteristic" was worth the minor inconvenience of having a bed at this height.

Corrected with the 2024 model?

 

[Frenchy]

I would never buy a Nissan anything...
The company manufactured the Nissan Altima in the 2000s for years with a faulty TPS Sensor..
Many complained... Cars would die in the middle of use... Extremely dangerous... Never did a recall... They sold several hundred thousand as the third nest selling vehicle behind Honda and Toyota..
Because they sold several 100k vehicles... Would have been to costly to their bottom line to repair..we owned one.. a known defect by dealers and charged consumers to pay for repair... F Nissan.

And how many miles did it have when it would fail?

 

[Philvarah]

And how many miles did it have when it would fail?

Started acting up when at 30k I think... For us...Would act like running on 3 cylinders...for a time or several miles...Then after parked shut off ...Altima would be fine. There is blogs ... posts about it online... Dealers new about needed fix... Cars were towed in dead where TPS failed. We took to dealer running and paid to have fixed at our expense...Peace if mind selling fixed to a younger driver for cash. Think $500 repair. Altima was great till that incident..excellent in snow. Sold Nissan Altima to buy a Jeep Cherokee..
It was fine till 40k when the entire cooling system needed repair as began to leak at all attached areas to engine etc. $5k est...traded in at $5k over market price as dealers needed used 4x4s ...New war was coming and gas going to $4-5 gallon...came to my senses ...cancelled buying a Ford Edge and got a Toyota Venza Hybrid..Getting 45 mpg.
Was warned about Jeeps and their always service repairs... #1 sold vehicles in Colo next to an F150... Subaru is third.
Think my Ford Ranger will be fine for 100k miles..
All my F150s were... Just gas, oil, tires, and a windshield... Run them up to 100k miles plus... My Chevy Silverados... Well... I got to know my service managers on a first name basis regularly.

 

[Friday yet?]

Ranger Pride was a long timer here, he got banned a while back for stepping too far over the line, too many times. He could be hilarious, most of the time, or your worst nightmare if you asked what he thought was a stupid question. He really put the Mods in a tough spot with some of his shenanigans.

Granted being new here I didn't experience the dancing banana live. But I have to say, in reading some of his old posts I find myself often LMAO. Maybe it's just me. And of course I've not run across one where I felt he crossed the line. Again, being new, maybe the mod gods removed "offensive" posts, I don't know. Or...... maybe my sense of humor is the problem.

 

[NotBudule]

Granted being new here I didn't experience the dancing banana live. But I have to say, in reading some of his old posts I find myself often LMAO. Maybe it's just me. And of course I've not run across one where I felt he crossed the line. Again, being new, maybe the mod gods removed "offensive" posts, I don't know. Or...... maybe my sense of humor is the problem.

Yeah , all the good stuff gets removed , ask me how I know ...

 

[KJRR]

Granted being new here I didn't experience the dancing banana live. But I have to say, in reading some of his old posts I find myself often LMAO. Maybe it's just me. And of course I've not run across one where I felt he crossed the line. Again, being new, maybe the mod gods removed "offensive" posts, I don't know. Or...... maybe my sense of humor is the problem.

You only saw the one left behind. Mods removed the rest. There was an RP appreciation thread that was removed too. He had plenty of chances and pushed things too far. Some people just need to know where the line is and know how many times it can be crossed before you get booted. ?

 

[KJRR]

Yeah , all the good stuff gets removed , ask me how I know ...

Wasn't there some guys father who asked to get removed??

 

[Friday yet?]

You only saw the one left behind. Mods removed the rest. There was an RP appreciation thread that was removed too. He had plenty of chances and pushed things too far. Some people just need to know where the line is and know how many times it can be crossed before you get booted. ?

Wow.... really sucks that they'd remove an appreciation thread.

 

[NotBudule]

Wasn't there some guys father who asked to get removed??

and his wish was granted ! It's different when you ask as opposed to making it happen, ehhh, not really... I probably need to check on ole dad though , been a while...

 

[Frenchy]

Started acting up when at 30k I think... For us...Would act like running on 3 cylinders...for a time or several miles...Then after parked shut off ...Altima would be fine. There is blogs ... posts about it online... Dealers new about needed fix... Cars were towed in dead where TPS failed. We took to dealer running and paid to have fixed at our expense...Peace if mind selling fixed to a younger driver for cash. Think $500 repair. Altima was great till that incident..excellent in snow. Sold Nissan Altima to buy a Jeep Cherokee..
It was fine till 40k when the entire cooling system needed repair as began to leak at all attached areas to engine etc. $5k est...traded in at $5k over market price as dealers needed used 4x4s ...New war was coming and gas going to $4-5 gallon...came to my senses ...cancelled buying a Ford Edge and got a Toyota Venza Hybrid..Getting 45 mpg.
Was warned about Jeeps and their always service repairs... #1 sold vehicles in Colo next to an F150... Subaru is third.
Think my Ford Ranger will be fine for 100k miles..
All my F150s were... Just gas, oil, tires, and a windshield... Run them up to 100k miles plus... My Chevy Silverados... Well... I got to know my service managers on a first name basis regularly.

Yeah.... So at 30K it's under warranty. That was something with the dealer... Not Nissan

 

[Philvarah]

Yeah.... So at 30K it's under warranty. That was something with the dealer... Not Nissan

Didn't get taken in for repair till after warranty... Should have been a recall period.

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