Looking for some advice on my 2003 Ranger XLT. Its the 4.0 V6 with an automatic trans. First of all, I got this truck from a dealer who had the flexplate replaced a few weeks before I purchased it. Anyway, I was driving to work about a month ago and I suddenly lost all power to the drivetrain. Stepping on the gas was causing the engine to rev but no power to the wheels. Had it towed to a shop where the removed the started and discovered that the flexplate was cracked again. Had the torque converter, flexplate, and bearing replaced, ended up costing about $1800. That seemed to fix the issue up until yesterday. I noticed a strange engine sound and after taking a look under the hood, it looked like the crank pulley was out of alignment/wobbly. That coupled with the fact that the engine sounded all around terrible, I took it back to the shop today where they dropped the started and found that the flexplate is cracked AGAIN!! Thats 3 flexplates in about 3 months. The shop is saying that they're not sure why this keeps happening and for the life of me I have no idea either. If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate it!

 

Have a ford ranger 3.2 xlt automatic.
Had gearbox done on 180 000 km
Torque converter on 195 000 km and 205 000 km
First flexplate on 210 000, second flexplate on 212 000 km
Still don't know what caused the flexplate to Crack..second time way worse than the first
Gearbox guy can't tell me why and ford sa not replying to my messages.
Could all the previous breakdowns be due to flexplate problems?

 

Welcome to the forum

We are in North America so could never get your T6 Rangers here, our Rangers were smaller, different frame and body, also different engines and transmissions
Ours were 1983 to 2011

But it reads like a problem with bellhousing to engine alignment
There are alignment pins/dowels that are used to line up the crank on engine to the input shaft on transmission so they are EXACTLY spinning on the same center line
The "flexplate" is named as such so it will "flex" just a bit as needed to get a true spin, if its off by too much then you get what you have, repeated broken flexplates

Could be a bad bell housing, just can't be aligned properly, not at all common but can happen
While trans is off the engine have the center line of the crank and the center line of input shaft checked

 

Sounds like the alignment pins/dowels are missing that align the bellhousing to the block.

My guess is that is why the dealer had to replace the flex plate originally before you bought it, previous owner probably lost them.