Travel

New Bakkie October 2015

The Purchase

I bought a new Ford Ranger 2.2L Diesel 4x4 XLS Double Cab bakkie (pickup) on 17 October 2015. I took delivery of it on 22 October 2015.

On a recent trip to Namibia (report soon) I drove a hired version of this vehicle for very close to 2000km. During those kilometers, I felt that my 1994 2.2L petrol Toyota Hilux 4x4 Double Cab was in need of replacement. The comfort, power and fuel economy were more than enough incentive for me to look into replacing the Hilux.


The hired bakkie near Diaz Point, Lüderitz.

On returning to Pretoria from the Namibia trip, I thought about going to a dealer for a couple of weeks. Then when I heard that a new range of Ford Rangers was due to be released, I decided to visit a dealership to find out what kind of offers were available on the model to be replaced. The first dealer offered less than 7% discount on the retail price at the time, so I was not too interested...

I did not think about the purchase too seriously for while, until I met Rudi in a pub one afternoon. He had just bought a new Ford Ecosport and got a very good deal from a salesaman (who I shall call George for anonimity) at Ford dealer in the north of Pretoria, and suggested I see what he had to offer. George came up with a price marginally better than the first dealer, but could offer the 3.2L XLT double cab (with an option pack) for less than the 2.2L XLS model! I was tempted, but I am not too fond of shiny chrome finishes, and the higher fuel consumption put me off somewhat.

I chatted to Pat about it, and we both felt that the price was still too high, so we would think about it for the week that the quote was valid. However, George took the matter out of my hands the next morning. He phoned to say they had a pre-registered 2.2L XLS on the floor which they were willing to let go for 15% off the list price. (Pre-registered: the vehicle had been registered, but the prospective owner had not gone through with the purchase. The dealership could then not sell it as a new vehicle, even though it had not left their warehouse.) This now became a bargain as the extra discount would pay for the canopy and rubberising of the load-box. I went to have a look at it and when I saw 37km on the odometer, and the right colour, I knew this was it. I spoke to Pat and she didn't even hesitate - she said go for it. The next morning, I signed the offer to purchase.

The Canopy

A day to day part of living in South Africa is pilfering and petty theft, which means you cannot leave unattended goods in an open load-box on a bakkie - you have to lock it up. This means some form of lock-up container is a necessity. I am in favour of canopies as these give you plenty of packing options without having to tow a trailer.

As it had been more than twenty years since my last canopy purchase, I had to do my research from scratch. I started with the South African 4x4 Community Forum, as these folks are serious off-roaders/overlanders and would give good advice as to what currently works best. One thing I was very interested in was that the canopy had lockable flaps on the sides, to make access to the load box easier when the vehicle was packed.

I eventually decided on a canopy from 4x4 Community Forum member SarelF, whose company Blinkgat Products, makes custom-made aluminium canopies, canopy campers, and trailers. What was also nice was the discount he was offering for October, which made his canopies half the price of similar canopies from suppliers in Pretoria.


The canopy in the making.
Photo courtesy Sarel de Klerk

Putting final touches to the canopy on collection day.

Sarel inspecting the canopy after it had been placed on the load-box.

A problem with fitting a canopy to a Ford bakkie, is that the mounting brackets have been known to cause the load-box to crack in places. Ford refuse to honour any warranty for this unless Ford approved brackets are used. Sarel said that although none of his canopies that had gone out on Ford/Mazda bakkies had had any problems, he would make brackets to fit like the Ford brackets. This turned out to be a problem, as the brackets he received from Ford were only for the front end, so he had to come up with his own idea for the rear end. As the front end brackets were screwed onto the load-box tie down points, he made brackets for the rear which also used the load-box tie down points.


Front bracket using the tie down point screws to secure it.

Rear bracket, also using the tie down point screws.

After fighting with the levelling of the canopy, and Eskom's regular power outages on the day, the canopy was finally done. Fortunately, the inverter in Sarel's Amarok saved the day by at least allowing his guys to use their drills!


Ready to roll.

One issue with the canopy is that from the outside, it does not seem to fit squarely on the walls of the load-box.


The canopy appears not to be square on the load-box.

However, if one looks at the canopy from the inside, one can clearly see that it is seated squarely on the walls of the load-box.


Here one can clearly see that the canopy is seated squarely.

The issue here is that width of the top of walls of the load-box increases from back to front.

Dust

A major problem we found during the tour of Namibia, was that a huge amount of dust got into the load-box. This was so bad that we had to put our luggage into garbage bags. With the new bakkie, I found that even without the canopy, a fair amount of dust was deposited in the load-box. The reason for this can be seen by the fairly large gap around the edges of the tailgate.


Very large gaps around the edges of the tailgate. Along the sides the gap is large enough to insert a finger.

The workshop manager at CMH Ford recommended that I put a strip of rubber across the floor of the load-box at the interface with the tailgate (he very kindly gave me a strip for this purpose).

I shaped the rubber to fit the complete width of the tailgate. The workshop manager suggested screwing or riveting the rubber in place, but the gap between the tailgate and the floor, when the tailgate is open, makes fixing it in place rather difficult.


The opening between the tailgate and the floor of the load-box. Note the rubber along the base of the tailgate - this serves no purpose as the dust gets past it.

Fortunately, the thickness of the rubber was only marginally more than the gap between the closed tailgate and the floor of the load-box, so what I decided to do was to place the rubber in place, and secure it by closing the tailgate on the rubber. Having the rubber loose also makes it much easier to clean it.


The rubber in place on the load-box floor (Note the residue of the dust that it had stopped).

The rubber secured with the tailgate closed.

What also helps with the dust is to have the front window of the canopy open when driving on dirt roads. However, this works best with a better sealing tailgate.

Dust - Update

Searching the web for solutions for the dust issue led me to this oldish thread on the SA 4x4 Community forum. the method put forward by Trader77 (posts #4 and #7) appealed to me as it was cheap (very cheap) and required no drilling into the load-box. I found the tape at a nearby Chamberlain's Hardware Store.


Fitting the tape to the countour of the body was was easy due to the flexibilty of the tape. A small notch was cut into the tape to allow the tailgate stopper to pass through easily.

The tailgate closed, showing a nicely closed gap.

Issues

Several of the issues mentioned here were not found in the Ranger XLS that I drove in Namibia.

  • With a cold engine, there is very little power in second gear, unless the revs are higher than 2500rpm when you change up from first. I dislike revving engines that high in the lower gears. Once the engine reaches optimum temperature, there is no problem.
  • Sometimes when changing between first and second gears it feels as though the clutch has not engaged and the engine feels as though it wants to drop off its mountings. This is more pronounced when driving at low speeds, such as in a game/nature reserve. The airconditioner also seems to have an influence on this.
  • When changing between third, fourth and fifth gears, the throttle does not close properly, resulting in a slight snatching of the clutch when it is released.
  • After the first trip on a poor dirt road (slightly more than 1km from the tar to the Blinkgat workshops and back again), a very bad rattle developed under the load-box. This got progressively worse, even on highways. This was sorted out within five minutes at the CMH Ford workshop - a loose nut on the top of the rear shock absorbers. According to the workshop manager, there was a problem with one of the torque wrenches at the factory (This begs the question, why was this not checked during the pre-delivery inspection/service?).

Conclusions

In spite of the issues mentioned, I really do think this is a super vehicle to drive, especially when comparing it with my old Hilux. To me the power difference is is amazing, especially on the highway. Gadgets, like cruise control and the hands-free kit for a phone are lovely toys - just a pity the vehicle has to be on to play with them. At this stage, I'm getting better fuel consumption than from my Corolla, with town driving!

It's a bit wider than the Hilux as well, so getting in and out of the garage is a bit tricky. I also have to take it out of the garage if I want to work at the workbench. There is too little space to get around it.


In my driveway after collecting the canopy.

Another very nice bonus from Ford is that they give you a free 4x4 course with the purchase of a new vehicle. This course, run by de Rust Outdoor, is really worth the effort of going through, as you get to grips with the elctronics controlling the 4x4 system on the vehicle. The obstacle course is well designed, so you get a feel for many different off-road driving conditions.


One of the vehicles on the 4x4 circuit at de Rust.

Update

One thing I found rather strange was the lack of front mud flaps on an expensive vehicle like the XLS, especially as the things are so cheap (less than R400 for a pair). These are standard issue on 3.2L variants of the Ranger. With 4x4 driving, mud tends to get thrown up quite excessively by the front wheels. This tends to cause a huge mess along the cab.


Fitted mudflaps, with some of the mud stopped.

I also dislike pictograms to describe what an item does. I have added short descriptions of the buttons on the dashboard to remind me what they mean.


Labels on the switches controlling the some of the traction control features.

(28 April 2016)

Update

One thing that I found that the issues that I had with the power in second gear (see above), seems to have miraculously gotten better once I had passed 7000km. The vehicle feels much more responsive now (or maybe I have just learnt how to drive it properly!).

(8 August 2016)

Update

We did a trip to St Lucia in July, which unfortunately turned into a disaster as Cindy got seriously ill and ended up having a heart valve replacement in Umhlanga Rocks. Pat and I stayed on at St Lucia, and one of the side trips we did was to Maphelane. The last 20 or so kilometres to the campsite was on a rather bad road, which was made worse by mud from rain the previous weekend. This section of road required 4 wheel drive the whole distance, mainly in second gear. Overall, the Ranger handled this superbly, but one thing I found that I really hate is the computer controlled anti-stall mechanism. When riding against compression in second gear (on downhills), the computer often decided the vehicle was going into a stall and opened the throttle. This is very scary, and downright dangerous.

What was really pleasing was that the fuel consumption was 8.4l/100km on the way down to St Lucia and 9.4l/100km on the way back to Pretoria.

(8 August 2016)

Update

In this week, the radio lost its bluetooth. I had reversed out of the garage, switched off and went into the house to lock up and set the alarm (my normal practise). When I started the vehicle again, the radio display gave me an error message saying the USB had been disconnected and started playing the radio on a station that I did not even know was in the presets. After a bit of fiddling, I got the USB activated again, and it carried on with the track it had been on when I switched off the vehicle. However, try as I may, I could not get the bluetooth activated (including a Master Reset).

I put this question to the 4x4 community, and one of the suggestions was to disconnect the battery for a few minutes. I was a bit wary of doing this as I was worried what it would do to the computer. I did some googling and found a very useful blog post on Ford Tech Lane. The writer says in a case like this one needs to do a hard reset. This entails disconnecting the negative terminal of the battery for a few minutes. In a response to a comment to the article, the author says the positive terminal must not be disconnected, or the computer will lose its settings. Disconnecting the negative terminal will reset Ford's Sync system and a few other things.

This hard reset did the trick, and bluetooth was back. The only thing I found that was not working properly was the auto-close on the driver's window, but I think I have found out how to fix that. It seems if you close the window, then hold the button up for a few seconds, the auto-close is reactivated.

(19 September 2020)

Update

Slider: Ray recently built a loadbox slider for me - what a treat.

(30 April 2021)

Update

Checking the oil levels is not as trivial as inspecting the dipstick while refuelling.

(12 July 2019)

Update

I had to replace the bumper after a reversing incident. During this exercise, I also decided to install a reverse camera.

(3 October 2017)

Update

How to replace the pollen filter.

This How To has been updated after the second service, when the pollen filter was supposed to have been replaced.

(13 August 2017)

Update

The Naauwpoort 4x4 Trail at Ohrigstad Dam Nature Reserve.

(25 October 2016)

Update

The CargoLoc Storage Basket.

(12 November 2016)