Which of these engines would yall prefer? I am loooking for low end torque, reliability, which has better aftermarket, and is easier to upgrade? Which gives beter fuel economy?

 

Which variant of the 2.3 are you looking at?

I assume the older Lima 2.3's. Correct? Not the newer 2.3.

 

had an 92 Ranger with the 2.3, wife had a 91Toy truck with 22R engine.

while I never had problems with either, the 22R seemed to be the better engine.

dont know what they have now.

 

Sorry bout that. Yeah, the older ones.

 

Economy depends on so many factors, vehicle body type, wieght, how it is geared, what model year for emissions, California or not, carbed or FI, etc. Both have a wealth of aftermarket options. For me the main difference is belt or chain cam drive. Toy wins on that one. I had an '84 Toy 4x4 (CA emissions, carbed, 90hp), noisy and underpowered, reliable and economical. When I replaced it with a Ranger, I got the V-6, so no 2.3 comparison.

Jim

 

Toyota will probably last longer, but still I would rather drive Ranger.

 

My ex had a 85 Toy with the 2.4, and her bro had a Ranger with the 2.3. Toy with 4 speed, and Ranger with 5. Both ran for many miles. The Ranger got better mileage, and the Toy was quicker. Both topped out at around 110 mph. It seemed like the Toyota handled better, but rode rougher. The Toyota bench seat sucked. The Ranger buckets were better.

 

Older models, or current?

The current Tacomas have a 2.7L. I've been considering a new Tacoma, so at some point I will probably test drive this engine.

There is nothing wrong with the Ford 2.3. I just think it is underpowered for a Ranger.

 

I just bought a new ranger 2 months ago and Love it. It handles well and goes like a scared rabbit over 3000 rpm. The new 2.3 dohc has plenty of spunk and I insisted on 3.73 gears. The 30 mpg to and from work on fall gas now into winter gas it is 26- 28 mpg. I just love driving the darn thing.

 

I'd be willing to bet the Ranger will last just as long as a Toy, if you maintain it.

 

It depends what you consider maintenance. It is very likely you will have to replace the camshaft position sensor, maf, iac, heater bypass valve, air conditioner compressor, front discs, ball joints and u-joints on a Ranger long before the same parts will need to be replaced on a Tacoma built before the 1995 model year. It is too early to tell what kind of reliability the new Tacomas will have. This is just my observation with people I know that own both trucks, and from what I've read on various Ford and Toyata forums and usenet groups.

As for my own personal experiences, I've owned two Mazda made pickups (the actual Mazda mini-trucks made 1993 and prior) and one Ranger. My dad owned a Courier, which was a Ford branded Mazda pickup, and a Ranger. I gave both my Mazda's some moderately heavy abuse for a 2wd. I blew a head gasket at 170K miles with the last one, a 1993 B2200. Absolutely no prior problems. It had great gas mileage too. I haven't been nearly as hard on my Ranger. Being ten years older now, I just don't do the crazy stuff I used to do with the Ranger, yet I've been snowballed with multiple problems started at 128K miles. Now at 141K, the Ranger is just miserable to deal with. My dad replaced a few suspension parts and a distributor on the Courier at 150K miles, and decided to sell it because he realized the truck was probably going to live longer than he would (My dad has a thing with driving a vehicle till it dies a long painful death). With 44K miles on his truck, he has had to have several minor things done to it. You can now just begin to tell the ball joints are starting to show wear, and the howling IAC vavle is making everyone else in the neighbourhood wonder why he is driving around with a fog horn on his truck in the middle of Fresno's hot summers. He doesn't care about the IAC making noise though...he is half deaf and can't hear it.

To be fair about all this, I'll say the Ranger is a great truck up to about 100K miles, though I've had plenty of people tell me I've been damn lucky to go get 128K out of mine without any problems.

Anyway, I've been looking for a new truck, and I'm not really happy with what is available. I think I may just look around for a used Tacoma or Nissan Frontier from the years past when they actually were mini-trucks.

 

There's a thread in the Ranger forum titled "how many miles on your Ranger." It's 17 pages long.....

100,000 doesn't even get you into the hunt. 200,000 gets honorable mention, but you'd have to be over 300,000 to be in to top 10 or 15. I think the highest was 650,000. According to JD powers, the Ranger has a better 3 yr reliability record than the Tacoma. Looking at that thread, it's not hard to understand. Go look for it in the FTE Ranger forum.

 

Sure. But with what amount of work? I could very likely reach 200K+ if I'm willing to spend more than the truck is worth, unless I work on it myself. I don't have a place to work on the truck, thus it is not economically feasable for me to spend $4000 to have someone to do the work for me.

Aside from all that, fanatic-type websites aren't the best places to find out the true average life span of any type of vehicle. And then, how do you measure the life span and reliability of a vehicle? By amount of mileage for first major repair? To the point where a repair, or repairs far exceed the patience of the owner to deal with it timewise, or financially? The average person is likely to throw in the towel after they get a $1000 guestimate to replace ball joints on a vehicle with 150K miles. Half the people on a website like this are likely to take on the task of working on the vehicle themselves IF they have the time and a place to work on it.

And consistently you will find that people on every Ford website will generally say Ford is best. Websites for Toyota fanatics are full of people that think Toyotas will outlast the Earth, and all I'm going to say about the Chevy websites is those people need to quit drinking so much.

 

Both trucks have their good points, but it really depends on what era you are talking about. A pre-95 toy with the OHC 22RE 2.4l is great, especially with the five speed manual. I had a custom-spec'ed 3/4 ton 94 (they offically stopped making them in 90 or 91). 4.10 gears, but a really rough ride. Handled like it was on rails, and not too bad to work on. The downsides, other than the ride, are that parts were expensive, and once you start doing work to the motor, the clutch won't hold up. It's just a little 7" or so disk, the 4x4 truck has an 8", but the 4x4 pressure plate won't fit in the 2wd bellhousing.
The 95 DOHC 2.4l is junk, very underpowered, not much low end at all, it makes max power somewhere around 4800-5000rpm, with a rev limit of 5500. The 2.7 isn't much better, especially with an automatic behind it, plus it's a wicked gas hog.
The older Rangers, with the twin I beam front ends, were very tough. Very simple system, they rode nice, but suffered the same bumpsteer problems as the F-150s. The 2.3 is a decent engine, it runs forever as long as you keep up on oil changes and tune-ups. You can easily turbocharge that engine, or just swap it out for a Mustang or T-bird turbo motor. Some slight mods to those engines, and you can have a real fast little trucks. The later trucks with the true IFS rode and handled very nice, better body roll control than the Toyota. In the end, both trucks are pretty well matched, so it comes down to what body style you prefer.

 

Well done Ford Six.