If the Bronco is comparable to a Wrangler and the Ranger is the pickup version of the Bronco, I guess that means that you're buying the Ford equivalent of the Gladiator so you just saved yourself a bunch more!I have been waiting on the Bronco for 18 months, still on order but I needed another tow vehicle and couldn't wait any longer. Shopped around as it needed to be flat towable, and not too heavy. The Ranger fit the bill, and I actually like it a lot, more pratical with more room than the Bronco (was always a sticking point), and $20K less. Same engine and Tranny as the Bronco with 600lbs less weight. So I am not sure I want to keep the Bronco order as the Ranger is fitting in well, and I am past my Rubi rock crawling days. Besides, the Ranger is paid for.
I don't think of the Ranger as a cheap Bronco, two entirely different vehicle types. In my case my needs were a decent off road 4X4 that was flat towable (not many) that was less than 5K pounds (again not many), plus I wanted to buy American if possible. The Bronco comes in at a tad over 5K lbs for the one I settled on @ $47K, the Ranger (which I had never looked at as it is my 1st Ford) is 4400 lbs, is decent off road (will be better when the front locker & lift goes on) vehicle, with a ton more storage than the Bronco, yes I am trading rock climbing ability for space, comfort, and $$$$, but I am good with that as I don't do that any longer. I still have the Bronco on order and depending on how long it takes them to clear the backlog, and how happy I am with the Ranger, I may pick it up..... or not. Nice to have options.
Curious where you see the major differences in off-road capability from Bronco to Ranger, and while we're at it including other off-road contenders like Wrangler and Tacoma? Both before and after doing after market work to it.
The Ranger is not bad off road, pretty good as an overlander or desert runner, but with no front locker, no 'crawl' mode, no swaybar disconnect, long wheelbase with low approach and departure angles it will never be a off road competitor to the Bronco, which was designed for serious rock crawling. Try taking the Ranger thru Mickey's Bathtub, which a stock Bronco can do, you will be winching it out. I have done the Rubicon many times (live near it) and you don't see many pickups out there, and the ones you do see are heavily modded, I would never attempt it with the Ranger. The Bronco was designed to be a Jeep killer, and so far in all of the off road meets and testing it has done very well, why I ordered one, but at 73 started asking myself if I still needed it.
Yep, gotcha. I'm not going out of my way to look for serious off-road challenges -- I get why people would -- but for me it's mostly about getting to places I want to go and assuming exercise of decent judgement not breaking stuff.
