Reviewer's Rides 2017 Ford Ranger

Jared talks about the modifications done to the car & how she has performed over the last few years. 

From hardworking farm ute for the Christmas Tree Farm to 4WD tracks throughout Tasmania and being utilised as one of our main test vehicles for tyres. A warts and all tour of the Tyre Review 2017 Ford Ranger.

I mean, some people say you don't actually even need a lift. Just for reference we're out here in the lovely Styx in Southern Tasmania. We scheduled this filming day and it decided to rain like 10 to 20 mil today. So we must've to do it anyway, and we've got awesome umbrellas anyway. Anyway, back to the car. 

This is sort of a bit of a warts and all. And I'd say, if I'd get a rhino bull bar again I'd actually get it colour matched to the car or actually get it powder-coated afterwards because the finish on the bar has just deteriorated a little bit, but otherwise it looks really good on the street and I've hit a few things and it's not dented or anything like that. So, yeah, that's pretty good. Light bar because the lights in the ranger of this model are s**t. 

So I really encourage anyone who has a Ranger to get a light bar or something like that, or the LED upgrades or whatever. The Rhino Bar comes with a really solid bash plate on it too, which I've also put to use. And then there's a 10,000 pound winch behind there as well. I'll start when I found these shackles with the orange tips on them, but they've kind of faded a little bit over the time. 

Now if we go to another side. I decided to go over the factory ranger snorkel at the time, and I probably wouldn't do that again. I really like it because it looks like it's part of the car and it sort of has a bit of a feel to it, and it uses the side entry to get air in, but it's just not big enough. You can see up here at the top of the neck, it doesn't look like it lets enough air in. And so I'd probably go for a full Armax Snorkel or something like that next time, or even a Staino one, look out. 

Sidesteps, you probably might've heard the sidesteps are usually referred to as disposable and mine that came factory certainly were disposable after our trip to the West coast a couple of years ago. And they ended up with massive dents in them. So we've gone for the ARB sidesteps. And they've held up really well and they're solid as hell. So I probably would get those again in the future. Got diesel wheels, by the way, at the moment. Had a couple different sets of these same sort of offset. 

But these have been solid for the last three years and have given me no grief. And they've had probably eight different sets of tyres on them in that time or more actually. Coming around the back. One of the first things I did when I got this car was actually to colour match all of the stupid chrome that comes with this car. It all went black, and that's paid off in that the car looks really good and it was worth doing at the time, but where we put the paint over the Chrome, on the mirrors and the grill and that sort of stuff, it was prepped properly, it was primed properly, but after three years, it's just started to give up the ghost a little bit. 

So it just needs a little bit of a touch-up, but the handles and hardware areas are fine. It's just grill started going, so I've replaced that, but the powder coat up here is tough. So in addition to doing tyres, if you will, I also have a little farm and this gets used as a farm ute. And so pretty much as you see it is, as it is day-to-day. Like I'll wash it for when we're doing something special, but it gets abused pretty much. Come around the back, went for the ARB Summit Rear Bar. So bar, all the electrics are back there. So they're covered.

The reason I went for this is because the ranger regular tow bar hangs down like dog's balls. And so this one actually tucked the tow bar up a little bit higher. So that way you don't snag up as much as you would otherwise. So would really recommend a tow bar, oh sorry, a rear bar changeover for anyone who's going to buy one of these cars and he's serious about full driving. So other than that, REDARC Tow-Pro inside. 

No real customization's inside. So it wasn't a huge amount of money going around when we first bought this. So just went for some really key modes that make the car look good, perform well, and just be easy for day-to-day life. Oh, and the flexible tonneau cover means I can just roll that up and put it away if I'm suddenly picking up stuff for the farm or, you know, taking a load of tyres to the shop to get changed over or whatever. So that can get out of the way really quickly. 

That's my reviewer's ride. Let me know in the comments, if you've got any questions about anything else on the car, that I might not have touched on. But otherwise, thanks for tuning in.