Ford brings new Ranger to the mining industry

[Stazza_Brendan]

I dont think they will be popular lease cars for long. The sister model BT-50 is plagued with problems. Local Mazda dealership has an area just for BT-50's needing repair. Some not allowed back on the road until fixed.

Having a vehicle tilt tray'd from mine site to town (200+km) to work on is expensive.

[FTE]

Our mine is new and we've got about 20 Rangers and they're crap. Had nothing but trouble since delivery of the first one back in November 2012. Starting to trial Colorado's now with no issues so far.

[mik]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

I know what your trying to say, but what brand is it over the last few years that has had recall after recall after recall on various models across the globe, including it golden child 4x4 pickup, and had admitted it had cut corners to save money on product development?

Recalls are subjective, how many car makers have been **** canned for not doing recalls over the years or trying to get out of it? Lets face it there have been plenty, having said that no car is perfect, but I do think the japanese motto of taking pride in your work shows in their cars .

[Boza]

even bmw do recalls my mates monster in law has a late model beemer and it has been called back for thermostat problems also had recalls for coils crapping themselves and other stuff I can't remmeber of the top of y head

[DFB FGXR6]

The fact that every car maker has recalls is what I was getting at. So even though Toyota have a so called golden reputation for quality control and reliability, have had massive and frequent recalls but manage to still retain this reputation when its evident their QC and engineering is all its cracks up to be.

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by mik

That is something I like about Toyota, they seem to go the extra mile building the whole car to last without problems, and this is due to the code they build their vehicles too, quality brings back repeat customers.
Even if at times they are a bit bland its easy to see why they are very popular.

what about that abortion of trying to put a V8 in the 78/79 Series Land Cruisers, front wheels track wider than the rear wheels, great if you are in soft sand or mud, you have to make 2 lots of tracks

[Ben73]

A mate was talking to a owner of a 78/9 Landcruiser and he was not impressed with it. The front wheel width and all he isn't sure if it uses more oil or diesel.
Oil consumption seams to be a major problem on those Toyota V8 diesels.

[chrisandsharon]

Personally I've seen hiluxs, 80/100 series, navaras, various 70 series platforms, patrols and a new Colorado delivered 2 weeks ago.

If money was not an option it would be the 70s every time although safety is a factor in the miners eyes. Hiluxs have been great. I worked for a mining company that was running the navaras, I am not a Nissan bloke but these surprised me (shocked actually)......you couldn't kill em'. The Navaras had ground clearance issues but apart from that they were a fantastic performer given they were never serviced, we had one that had 28 000km without the first service being done (never found out when it was done either).

When with RIO they serviced vehicles religiously at 5000km. We had plenty of 100 series with over 500 000km on them when moved on, they ran the painfully slow but bullet proof 1hz. Half a million km in the mining industry speaks volumes but then again look at the driveline, strong, basic, slow and proven (over engineered and underpowered).........glorified 40.

Irrespective of vehicle none survive roll overs and I thank the industry for fitting roll bars to most. In ten years I've seen 5 roll overs, attended 1 and all walked away.

I hope the ranger in the long term does well. I think it has the mine creds to be a winner.

Another thing to any manufacturer........carpet has absolutely no bloody place in a mine vehicle!!!!!!!!!


Have plenty more to say but I've been tagged by the missus to do the school run, time to battle with the mums......let's do this.

[deadfish2]

Originally Posted by Ben73

A mate was talking to a owner of a 78/9 Landcruiser and he was not impressed with it. The front wheel width and all he isn't sure if it uses more oil or diesel.
Oil consumption seams to be a major problem on those Toyota V8 diesels.

The tracking problem is a bit of a dum idea... Wouldn't have hurt to stretch out the rear after developing all the front end again...

Oil problems were relatively early on and has been resolved now... Was an issue with vacuum pumps leaking oil were fixed up under warranty if presented....



I've said it in the other thread that was here before, chassis wise I doubt there would be an issue they seem strong enough, it's the electrics that's gunna let them down get a dirty connector in the can loop and the whole vehicle shuts down.... Toyota May seem like low tech but there's good reason for it, its more reliable,
noticed the other day the hiluxes now come with a big factory fitted touch screen audio unit with integrated trip computer DVD etc even in the base models as well as 5 star

I've got a new bt as my own car, I get given a v8 cruiser to use underground and I quite like using it, I've been in a ranger for a drive underground once and I found it was rather harsh to ride in... Suspension was garbage

Fleets that operate in large numbers don't want to cross breed fleets it becomes to much of a **** fight to keep spares in stock for....

Other thing to note is the body panels are a lot stronger in the cruiser.... Rangers panels are rather tinny in comparison.... Allows a lot more dints to appear...