It’s known Ford investigates itself over the emissions and gas mileage of the 2019 Ranger, but TFL Truck took things in a different direction. Over the course of 1,100 miles of highway driving, the mid-size pickup with 2.3 liters of EcoBoost four-cylinder turbo averaged 19.5 miles to the gallon.
What’s wrong with that? For starters, even an F-150 can pull off such a figure on the highway. But most importantly, the Environmental Protection Agency rated the Ranger at 24 miles per gallon in terms of highway driving.
The certified fuel economy for city driving and combined are 20 and 22 miles to the gallon, respectively. TFL Truck averaged 17.5 mpg on a tank of fuel, which goes to show the Ranger uses more fuel than it’s supposed to.
To clarify things even further, the EPA validates the highway gas mileage at 55 mph. TFL Truck drove their Ranger at 80 miles per hour, and the course also included uphill driving through crosswinds, rain, and snow.
This isn’t the first time Ford has acknowledged possible problems with their testing and validation. A few years ago, the Blue Oval ended up mailing out rebates to owners of the C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid.
Hyundai and Kia faced the same issue, ending the mess-up with a $41.2 million settlement for overstating the gas mileage of more than a million vehicles by up to 4 mpg combined. In other words, this practice isn’t as rare as some people might think in the automotive world.
The Ranger returned to the U.S. for the 2019 model year carrying a starting price of $24,300. Along with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost, every configuration comes standard with the 10-speed automatic transmission shared by the F-150 full-size pickup truck. Three trim levels (XL, XLT, Lariat) and two cabin layouts (SuperCab and SuperCrew) are available, along with the FX4 package for customers who plan on going off-road.
Ford sold 2,153 examples of the 2019 Ranger in January, far fewer than the 16,852 Tacoma pickups Toyota sold in the same period. Even the extremely old Nissan Frontier moved 6,062 units, which goes to show how competitive the mid-size segment is right now.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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