FORD RANGER
Page 27
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• We used an abridged version of our M25 van test route for this comparison to give a 53mile run (about 34 miles short of the full distance). Almost all the missing distance came from the motorway sections of the route, leaving just an initial cruise along the M25.
Our first run was the control, without a tonneau cover, with properly inflated tyres and fully laden to the Supercab pickup's best-of-range 1,045kg capacity. Front tyres were Inflated to 2.0 bar with the back pair pumped up to 4.4 bar (a big difference from the unladen recommended pressure of 1.8 bar).
Laden handling was as we expected: assured and comfortable with a little bob over bumps and occasionally around corners. Overall it was commendably controllable and comfortable.
Speed is not one of the strengths of the normally aspirated Ranger engine and fully laden it's a bit slow, especially when running uphill.
Our second run was our tonneau test. it was a little noisier than usual thanks to some slapping by the cover, but everything stayed in place.
The third run was wfth 20% under-inflation of all tyres and no tonneau. Tyres were running at 1.8 bar at the front (the same as normal unladen pressure) and 3.96 bar at the rear.
Handling was not as bad as we'd feared, and was certainly a lot better than running fully laden at "unladen" tyre pressures.
The figures
Control rurr 33.4mpg.
Run two (with tomeau): 36.5mpg.
Run three (with under inflated tyres): 29.3mpg.
All runs were made fully laden.