Ford Ranger 2012 - electronic driving aids tech analysis

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I must admit I wasn’t impressed with the Ranger’s specs at first glance. It wasn’t the 470Nm which is by today’s standards, ordinary in a world of 500Nm plus, although these numbers are so large even bigger gobs of torque don’t mean much more in practice, just bragging rights.

What disappointed me was the fact Ford have stuck with part-time 4WD, leaf springs and live axles, rear drum brakes, it can’t tow quite 3500kg (rated for 3350kg) and the payload isn’t spectacular, just like all their competitors.  You only need to drive the equivalent from Nissan, the Pathfinder/Navara duo to see how much better handling the wagon is, and you can still get a decent payload with independent and coil suspension.

But to give Ford credit, the new Ranger is one of the first utes to achieve a 5-star safety rating, and they’ve also done a good job by including the full gamut of modern electronic driving aids. At first I thought they’d be tacked on to the car just for the sake of marketing, as happens on occasion with lower-priced vehicles. Well, I was wrong on that score as it appears Ford have well and truly designed the electronics into, with and for the new Ranger. So what’s it got, and how does it work?

• ABS, EBD & EBA – ABS prevents wheels locking when braking, EBD distributes braking force between the four wheels to best effect, and EBA assists with emergency stops.  And this is the modern ABS which works better on dirt roads, permitting more lockup.  Forget the old-school thinking about ABS.
• Stability Control, which in Ford terms is Dynamic Stability Control or DSC. This is often confused with traction control, but it’s not the same. Read more on that here, and stability control is now mandatory for all cars sold in Victoria.
• Adaptive Load Control – changes the DSC and other programmes if the vehicle is loaded, which it detects by rate of acceleration allowing for inclines.  Nice work, and an example of the evolution of electronics.  Older vehicles had some sort of compromise that never really worked outside of a narrow range of conditions.
• HDC – Hill Descent Control. Kind of like cruise control at a snail’s pace for controlled descents down steep hills.  I generally say this is pretty useless, but I've used Jeep's latest effort and that's brilliant.  We'll see what Ford's is like soon.
• CBC – Corner Brake Control. Related to DSC, helps keep the vehicle cornering neutrally by gently applying brakes to individual wheels.
• Roll over mitigation – another DSC development. Detects situations likely to result in a rollover and takes avoiding action by cutting engine power or braking individual wheels.
• Trailer sway control – detects trailers, and if a side-to-side movement sets in (sway) brakes individual wheels to cancel it out. Humans can’t do that.

Not much of the above is new, and most of it isn’t even new on utes as the Triton for example has had most of this since about 2007. That’s why Ford aren’t claiming any firsts. But they have refined the electronic aids, and that starts with what’s known as “traction control”, or what Ford call the Traction Control System (TCS).

There are two types of TCS, E-TCS and B-TCS. B-TCS is the Brake Traction Control System. That detects when a wheel spins, then applies the brakes to just that wheel, which sends torque (“drive”) to the other wheel, thereby allowing the Ranger to maintain forward momentum, and it’s what you want when you’re offroad. This is more effective than a limited-slip differential, and often better than a cross-axled locking differential.  Yes, I said that, because it's true - more old-school thinking that needs updating.

Then there's E-TCS, which  is the Engine Traction Control system. This is a mechanism that will reduce engine torque if the driven wheels are both spinning, thereby regaining traction as madly spinning wheels mean you’re going nowhere. It kicks in when the optimum wheel slip ratio is exceeded, which means when the computer decides there’s too much torque going to the wheels for the traction available.

Like any similar traction control system, B-TCS is a huge improvement for the Ranger’s offroad capability, but what about E-TCS? You don’t always want the computer reducing your power for you. Happily, that’s been thought of. In 2WD High (4x2 drive mode) both E-TCS and B-TCS work, but E-TCS has the priority as it provides more “refined intervention”, according to Ford. However, in 4X4 high mode the driver can press the DSC off switch on the dash to place DSC and E-TCS in offroad mode, which reduces the extent of the intervention and the speed of the intervention from them both. In 4X4 low both DSC and E-TCS are entirely disabled, leaving B-TCS to do its best work, and contrary to received wisdom that won't slow you down.

Other electronic features such as ABS and its variants EBD and EBA, plus trailer sway control (TSC) are always on, albeit recalibrated depending on whether you’re in high or low range. The DSC programme includes “offroad logic” which Ford say “recognises when the pickup is driven on rough roads and modifies the system to ensure the best balance between stability and timeliness of interventions.” How it does this I don’t know, but can guess that if it senses lots of little bounces as you’d get on a dirt road it desensitises a little bit and lets things go.  With cars that don’t have this you can get stability control interference even driving in a straight line on some dirt roads.  The LC100 is a notable offender.

Yet despite B-TCS, there’s the option of a conventional cross-axle locking rear differential, or "locker".   Why? Because B-TCS is reactive, whereas a locker is already locked before it gets to the obstacle, and doesn’t wear the brakes out. However, once the rear locker is activated E-TCS is disabled, like it is on the Pajero and other vehicles.  No engineer has yet been able to explain why this is done, and I think it's dead wrong. In practice, we find that having a traction control system like E-TCS work across all four wheels is very often more effective than having just a rear locker activated. Some Pajero owners have re-activated their traction control so it doesn’t disable when the cross-axle locker is engaged, and unsurprisingly that provides better traction in rocky conditions than either traction control without the locker, or the locker without traction control. This re-enabling would only be effective for the front, unlocked axle as the traction control on the rear would never activate as thanks to the locker both wheels would be rotating at the same speed.

The Ranger’s auto shift points and throttle mapping are also changed according to what the car is doing. In low range, Ford say "the throttle response is changed to an off-road setting which provides a less sensitive, softer pedal feel. This helps prevent unintentional acceleration due to the bouncing motion of the driver’s foot while moving over bumpy ground.“ This is not unique to the Ranger, but it’s good to see it in a ute. Ford continues with “ the auto trans has a unique shift-map for low range. The emphasis here is on control, so there is more lock-up in the torque convertor, and it holds gears to higher engine rpm, instead of always seeking to upshift as early as possible for fuel economy. It will also downshift more easily.”

That’s fine, to a point, but sometimes you don’t want to hang onto the gear for longer, for example in smooth, slippery but low-drag conditions you’d want early upshifts and minimum throttle. What Ford describes befits rocky or very soft terrains. However, you could always override the auto and select gears yourself.

New to the Ranger is HDC, or Hill Descent control. This can be used at speeds below 40km/h, in high or low range, and in any gear, forward or reverse. It will deactivate above 60km/h and reactivate when you slow below 40. The slowest speed possible is 2km/h, and that can be varied by pressing the cruise up/down controls which change the speed by 2km/h per tap. Or, press-and-hold to change speed quickly. If you want to move off up a hill the Ranger’s electronics help too. Ford says that “when moving off up a slope either in forward or reverse gear, the Hill Launch Assist feature holds the brake pressure temporarily for two seconds, ensuring the pickup does not roll downhill. As the driver accelerates, the feature gradually reduces the brake pressure. It releases the brakes once the driving torque is enough to overcome the gradient, enabling the pickup to move up the slope smoothly. With this feature, a fully-laden Ranger, which weighs about 3200 kilograms, is able to stop and then pull away on a 60 percent grade – not a feat easily achieved by all trucks.”

That sounds great, and I can’t wait to test it. Previous systems I’ve tested suffered from several faults – firstly they didn’t hold the vehicle very long before just letting go, secondly they didn’t work on steep hills, and thirdly the brake release was pretty binary, which rocked the vehicle as it moved off which could induce a loss of traction.  So, not much right with it then, which is why for automatics I teach and advocate simple left-foot braking.

Speaking of autos, the Ranger has a nice modern adaptive one. This means it figures out you’re descending and will select lower gears to help with the braking, and will (should) always be in the right gear for any corner exit instead of acting all surprised as you accelerate before belatedly banging down a cog or two. The “adaptive” part also means the car will sense driver inputs and if you’re moving along smartly it’ll start to hold gears longer and shift down earlier for a sportier drive.

The final interesting Ranger stat is the wading depth, at an incredible 800mm. Yep, that deep. Nothing else on the market comes close, and that’s not just a moving figure either. To pass Ford’s test the car must be stationary in the water at that depth – and then another car comes past to create a bow wave. That’s impressive, and good on Ford, but I’d still be wanting a snorkel! Would I also want a Ranger to go with the snorkel? Well, for my money it’d have to be a contender as it’s the most technically advanced ute, has capabilities at least the equal of its competitors and is the safest. I’ll be testing one shortly so let’s see then how well theory meets reality.

Related content

• Stability control is not the same as traction control
• Ford Ranger 2012 specifications and pricing
• The 2012 ute market
• Ranger 2012 roadtest