First Time Ranger Owner

[jss81258]

Hi Daniel,

The front hubs are automatic locking hubs...Ford has used these for most 4x4 applications since the middle 1980's. So with a dissimilar spare, jack up a front wheel and change to the dissimilar spare wheel. Then take the removed tire to the rear and change out the flat tire.

When still at Ford, there was an investigation to just delete the spare all together... Not necessary as there are just not a lot of flats anymore thanks to radials with steel belts. Fortunately this never when beyond the study and never made production on any truck as I recall.

A bit of a back story. You should have seen what I call the extreme absurdity. Someone mounted 4 mini spares on a Ranger and took it to the handling track to see how the Ranger handled. Vehicle looked like a rollerskate. Surprising was it really did okay. In the days of the dissimilar spare, which continues today, the Vehicle Dynamics engineers had to evaluate the dissimilar spare at each corner of the truck, laden and curb weight. So when you see a dissimilar spare tire in your vehicle, you can be assured that this tire combination was tested and passed the stringent vehicle dynamic requirements. We do not just blindly throw a dissimilar spare in the vehicle and start production. It is tested thoroughly.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

I think the Ranger used an automatically locking hub for a couple of years, but I know 2011 wasn't one of them. I replaced the right front hub on mine and it was bolted directly to the axle.

I also had a 2000 that might have had an automatic hub. I never had any trouble with it so I'm not sure about it. If it did, it would have been vacuum operated. I've read where these gave some trouble but again, if it had them, mine never gave trouble. I was thinking Ford quit using them on the Ranger around 2000 or 2001.

I don't know about the current Rangers since I've never had reason to check but thought I read that they too are locked.

Edit: After giving it some thought, I think the Rangers with the auto hubs had a swing axle where the differential and one axle would swing, and the other axle would swing from it. Then Ford changed to the external axles with the CVs and boots. I think that's when they quit using auto hubs. My 2000 Ranger had the external axles.

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