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Ford Ranger Can Walk on Water

American manufacturer Ford is sparing no efforts to make its new Ranger as popular as it can be before it hits the hundreds of markets on which it will sell starting later this year. And since some of the biggest markets the Ranger will sell on are located near water, making the pick-up as water proof as possible was as much of an engineering feat as fitting the 4x4 system on the model.

According to Ford, who found this out the hard way, during testing, the 4x4 and 4x2 Hi-Rider models of the Ranger will not sink or stop while passing through high water, even with a full load.

According to Ford, the models have been tested, fully loaded, over a variety of water depths and speeds: they started at 50 mm of water at 30 km/h, 50 km/h and 65 km/h and then slowly increased the depth of the water until they've reached 800 mm and a speed of 7 km/h. In all cases, the Ranger managed to live and tell the tale.

“When we go through the water bath, we’re looking out for every possible functional failure in the vehicle. The most critical one would be if water was sucked through the air intake into the engine, resulting in hydro-lock, which can bend the piston’s connecting rods and potentially destroy the entire engine,” said Tom Dohrmann, the development engineer in charge of Ranger’s water management.

“We have to protect against such failures so that our customers can go deeper without causing catastrophic damage to their engines.”

The Ranger will be launched later this year with three new engines, including two Ford Duratorq TDCi diesel engines with up to 470 Nm of torque, and new six-speed transmissions.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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