Ranger crew cab big enough for family with kids?

Aragorn

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One frustration for me is that the center seat in the back does not appear to have a way to put a car seat there. That would free up two full size seats for adults in the back. Maybe Phil, the retired Ford engineer, can weigh in on why that choice was made.

We bought our car seat before I bought my Crew Cab Ranger. If I could go back in time, I would have done research to find a shorter car seat. We can’t scoot the passenger front seat back quite far enough to be comfortable, even for my short wife. I’m very tempted to just buy a new one.

That being said, I love my Ranger. No regrets. Having more than two kids might be a problem if you use the Ranger as your primary kid-carrying vehicle, though.
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DaytonBenson

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One frustration for me is that the center seat in the back does not appear to have a way to put a car seat there. That would free up two full size seats for adults in the back. Maybe Phil, the retired Ford engineer, can weight in on why that choice was made.

We bought our car seat before I bought my Crew Cab Ranger. If I could go back in time, I would have done research to find a shorter car seat. We can’t scoot the passenger front seat back quite far enough to be comfortable, even for my short wife. I’m very tempted into just buying a new one.

That being said, I love my Ranger. No regrets. Having more than two kids might be a problem if you use the Ranger as your primary kid-carrying vehicle, though.
My seat center is a car seat. Using the two center car seat clips.
 

Benworks

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My 6ft1in son has no issues fitting back there with tons of headroom and enough legroom. With my granddaughter's carseat only 1 adult can fit comfortably though. Short trips are fine. She will be in a booster soon so that will help.
 

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As far as passenger space, its basically like using a Ford Escape or Jeep Cherokee as a family vehicle. I have two teenage daughters and a 9 year old son. It works "fine" in that they all fit. But my wife's SUV has a 3rd row, so the kids still complain whenever we take my car anywhere.
 


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I'm a family of 5 - My wife, our 18 year old son (5'10), our 11 yo and 10 yo. The 11 just moved out of the booster in the truck (and an Australian Shepard). It is tight when all 5 people are in the truck but doable for trips under a couple of hours. However, when it's just my wife and two younger kids we have more than enough room to even bring the dog. My truck is not the primary family hauler that is my wife Atlas so that makes it nicer for longer trips. However, for going around town the truck is prefect and I love the size.
 

THEMIZE

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I have one 7 year old and one 3 year old and they fit well with plenty of room, my only complaint is the rear seat is not split as my 7 yo will soon be in a booster and I could utilize storage under her seat IF they had designed a split rear seat configuration.
 

Aragorn

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My seat center is a car seat. Using the two center car seat clips.
I floated that idea to the wife. Since the truck is not designed to do that, she is not willing to do it. The Ford Ranger manual appears to only say that the left or right seat are designed to accommodate a car seat.

@P. A. Schilke If you have input about whether the center rear seat is designed to handle a carseat--or why the manual says it is not--I would love to hear it.
 

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They line up perfectly, but to each his own I guess. It gets nice and tight, and its the furthest possible point from any potential collision impact site or airbag, so frankly I don't care what the manual says. It's the safest spot I can conceive.
 

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Strange, from what I remember when I was reading up on carseat placement years ago, the safest position is the middle of the rear seat.
 

P. A. Schilke

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I floated that idea to the wife. Since the truck is not designed to do that, she is not willing to do it. The Ford Ranger manual appears to only say that the left or right seat are designed to accommodate a car seat.

@P. A. Schilke If you have input about whether the center rear seat is designed to handle a carseat--or why the manual says it is not--I would love to hear it.
Hi Aragorn,

Since I was not part of the 5G Ranger, just went out to my truck and also reviewed the owner's manual and the center seat can be used for some booster or child seats. The outboard seats are the only ones that can be used on those child seats that do not need to be belted in...referred as latching child seats. The center seating position requires using the seatbelt and does have a tether anchor point if the child seat manufacture requires one.

Hope this helps!

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

slowmachine

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For many years, one of the first things I do when looking a a car is to adjust the driver’s seat to my body, then get into the drive’s side rear seat and evaluate the space and comfort. My teenage daughters are both just barely five feet tall (we say four feet, thirteen inches when we want to get a rise out of them) and they fit easily into the SuperCrew rear seats. For longer trips, we have a BMW X3 that is more suitable, but the Ranger is just fine for an hour or so.
 

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I have one rear facing and one front facing car seat in back, with room for an adult to ride behind driver’s seat. I would take a road trip like this, unless my mother in law was riding back there, but it is fine for local trips.
 
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OP here - thanks for all the responses. Sounds like it's doable but not ideal for my purposes... I am going to try to rent one on our next family vacation to test it out and see how it goes. Rented an F150 Supercrew recently for a road trip and it was great in general but the size seemed like it would be total overkill for day to day use.

Am I the only one who wishes there was a truck size in between a mid-size and a full-size? Seem's like there is a pretty big discrepancy between the cab on an F150 vs. a Ranger. Weird to me that all the different brands (Ford, Chevy, Ram, etc.) seem to all have close to the exact same dimensions for their mid-size trucks and their full-size trucks. Wouldn't it be a good strategy for one of them to build an in-between size to differentiate themselves? I can't be the only one who wants something like this...

Crossing my fingers that the 6G Ranger will be a bit bigger but not banking on it...

EDIT - seems like the Honda Ridgeline is actually sort of an in-between size but I want a legit heavy duty truck so I'm not seriously considering it.
 
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Aragorn

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Hi Aragorn,

Since I was not part of the 5G Ranger, just went out to my truck and also reviewed the owner's manual and the center seat can be used for some booster or child seats. The outboard seats are the only ones that can be used on those child seats that do not need to be belted in...referred as latching child seats. The center seating position requires using the seatbelt and does have a tether anchor point if the child seat manufacture requires one.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
Thanks for the response, Phil. I have valued your input in the short time I have been browsing the forum.
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