...until this past week.

I've always been a car and motorcycle enthusiast and never took any kind of liking toward trucks. To me, trucks were cool to look at if they were modded but I never actually liked trucks. Well, my love for motorcycles recently trumped my love for cars and I ended up selling my 2005 Legacy GT and bought a 2001 Ranger and a trailer to persue a licence to race motorcycles.

First big road trip for the Ranger proved to be a success.

I just got back from a trip to VIR and I must say I'm very impressed with the performance of my Ranger.

Before I left NH to pick up a friend and drive to VIR, I loaded up the Ranger and trailer with two race bikes, two tool boxes, fuel, two sets of tires, bike stands for each bike, riding gear, pit bike, ramp and a spare tire for the trailer....all in all I figure I was towing about 3800 lbs including the weight of the trailer (which is enclosed)...this is strictly an estimated weight.

The 4.0 SOHC did a great job of pulling the added weight and at no point in time did it struggle to keep hi-way speeds.

The truck averaged a little over 14 MPG for the entire trip and didn't burn any oil whatsoever. I was surprised about the oil thing considering the number of times it kicked down into 3rd gear for hill climbing and also the amount of time spent operating from 3000 to 4000 RPM's during the hill climbing stints....I didn't operate the motor any higher simply because it wasn't necessary and I need to save as much of this truck as humanly possible.

Turned 110,000 by the time I got back.

I must say, Ford built a really nice truck in 2001 and I only hope this has continued by the time I'm ready for another one.

Wish I could load pics to show you what was in the trailer but no Photobucket for me...

 

Sounds good.

Sure hope you took overdrive off when towing up hills.

 

Good deal!
My 98 Ranger 4.0L pulled strong until I sold it with over 140k miles on it, never used oil or anything. And I ran it hard with 33" tires for most of it's life.

What kind of race bikes?

 

4.0's are the **** :]

 

VIR ftmfw!!!

 

Where in New Hampshire you from. Rochester/Alton area here

 

Took overdrive off?

Only on the non-highway ascents. Is it supposed to be turned off even at hi-way speeds?

My method was to kick the trans down a gear using the throttle and then hit the button to lock out OD until I cleared a hilly section. Was that not a good thing? Now I'm a bit concerned...


About the bikes:

Mine is a CBR929 and my friend's is (well, "was") a ZX636. He had a little bit of a get-off so now it's in many pieces...


DangaRanger99- We'll call it the Nashua area...

Oh hell yeah! What an awsome place all around....the entire facility is outstanding! Very well sorted, IMO.

 

kool another member from around the area welcome i'm from Haverhill Mass next to the plastow line and get some pics up man

 

You should NEVER tow a heavy load in overdrive. If it was a row boat or something, fine, but I would pull over 1000 pounds with OD on in a ranger...

 

ha!

I caught you cheating on nesr with this forum...