My Fiance's lease on her Explorer is comming up soon so she gets al these ad's in the mail from local Ford dealerships to lease new car and trucks. She's got advertisements from at least three diffrent Ford dealers and NOT ONE has the Ranger advertised in it.

All three have the Focus, Explorer, Escape, 500, F150, Fusion, and even the Super Duitys, but NO RANGER. Does this truck get screwed when it comes to promotion or what?

 

Wow that seems really weird to me. I don't know about your area, but mine (northeast ohio) is full of rangers. It seems to be one of the most popular vehicles.

 

We have a lot of Rangers around here too. Got quite a few on the lot, too. Now the Crown Vics.... they are trying not to sell them. They don't even stock them on the lots.

I've got a theory here:
- The Ranger is still selling good, so they don't promote it.
- The other cars you listed have a larger profit margin than the Ranger (other than the Focus) It's odd they didn't promote the Crown Vic, it's been on the same frame since '79. The CV is one of Ford's most profitable cars.
- The other cars you listed have pretty new engineering involved and Ford is trying to recover the costs. The Ranger has no new engineering, other than a grille. The only new engineering cost on the Crown Vic is addition of a tachometer instrument cluster finally!
- Also, they probably figured your wife wouldn't want to "downgrade" to a Ranger from an Explorer. I use downgrade loosely, but the Ranger is considered a downgrade from an Explorer by FoMoCo.

 

You'd almost think the Ranger has to be a fairly high margin vehicle for Ford since they haven't spent much on re-engineering for what seems like many years and the vehicle still sells well! I like my Ranger and hope they keep making them IN THE USA, not some pos from thailand, I won't buy that.
Or maybe they don't promote it because it does sell well! No need for extra promotion when you have a large loyal customer base.

 

There are so many Rangers whizzing around here, they don't need to advertise. I drive 2 miles to work every day and pass at least 3 others every time. Many are fleet vehicles too: my town's DPW has em, the park service, the auto parts stores, you name it. It's Rangers everywhere I look!

 

Ford doen't have to push the crown vic, police dept. and taxi co. buy them up. I still see ranger comercials on tv, they promote them as a rugged offroad vehicle. They show rangers about every week during american idol, along with the escape, and fussion, going after the younger crowd I guess.

 

A little off topic, but why would a vehicle only availble with an auotmatic transmission need a tachometer in the first place?? If a 5 speed were an option, I could see the need, but I've always been puzzled as to why someone would really need one in a car/truck with a slushbox, unless of course you're talking about something with a built auto used for drag racing.

 

I have been to a few ford sponsored car shows or showcases where all that is there is the new models coming or the concept cars. It always turns out that they have 5 0r 6 of every Ford model on the floor, but the ranger. If the have one on the floor that is all they have and then to boot it is last years low end model, and they also never have and booklets or info packs on the ranger just the other vehicles. So yeah I think the ranger takes a big backseat at Ford HQ. Maybe ford designers have gotten bored with the ranger and just do enough to limp it along each year. Sometimes the things these automakers do just doesn't make any sense.

 

The three Ford dealers around me all have the Rangers buried in the back of the lots, too.

 

Yup & if they'ed put a decent serious diesel engine in one, they wouldn't be able to make em fast enough either.

The Dealers would likely have to call law enforcement for traffic control, at the new vehicle lot!!!! LOL

Sometimes I think Ford is so smart they're DUMB!!!!!!!

They could clean Nissian, Toyota & GM's clock, with a really serious compact diesel truck, but I guess they just don't want to be mean & put a whoopin on the competition, they're just gonna play nice & give up some more market, because the Capt. is asleep at the wheel!!!!!

Heck with indecisive, short sighted, managment like this, the competition has it made!!!!! Just wait around & Ford will hand them the rest of the compact truck market by default & on a silver platter!!!!!

WAKE UP HENRY-II !!!!!!! LOL