With the successful launch of the compact Maverick pickup, Ford is significantly updating its midsize Ranger for the 2024 model year with styling, capabilities, and features that appeal to traditional truck buyers and hone closer to the full-size F-150.
Recently, I drove the 2024 Ford Ranger on a cold and wet winter day at a media event in Salt Lake City, Utah, and its surrounding mountains and high desert plains.
Read our full 2024 Ford Ranger preview for more background and details.
Photo: Ron Sessions
For the 2024 model year, the Ford Ranger is again available in basic XL, mid-level XLT, and top-of-the-line Lariat trim levels. Each is available with a choice of two-wheel drive (2WD) or four-wheel drive (4WD). There is also an all-new, high-performance, 4WD Ranger Raptor model, which is covered separately.
Ford configures all 2024 Rangers with the five-passenger, four-door SuperCrew (crew cab) and 5-foot cargo bed. Last year’s four-passenger SuperCab (extended cab) with its half-width rear doors and 6-foot cargo bed is discontinued.
Including the $1,595 destination charge, base prices for the 2024 Ford Ranger are as follows:
The 2024 Ford Ranger is currently on sale in the United States.
For this review, I drove a 2024 Ford Ranger SuperCrew 4WD XLT equipped with the following optional equipment:
As equipped, the truck cost $45,650, including the $1,595 destination charge.
Photo: Ron Sessions
For 2024, Ford creates some separation from the smaller Maverick pickup with a heavily revised midsize Ranger. The new Ranger’s footprint grows a couple of inches larger, with a broader stance and a longer wheelbase.
Ford also upsized the Ranger’s standard 17-inch alloy wheels. Muscular-looking fender flares and an F-150-inspired grille contribute to the transformation.
The additional Ranger real estate brings a roomier cabin with improved stretch-out space front and back. Ford also upgraded the new Ranger's interior materials with increased use of soft-touch and wrapped surfaces.
The front seats offer a good blend of comfort and support, with cloth coverings for XL and XLT and power-operated leather ones in the Lariat. Among convenience features for the 2024 model year are an available power sliding rear window and a wireless phone charger.
There’s improved storage up front as well. A redesigned center console offers two generously sized cupholders, a pair of open bins for small items and an available wireless charger ahead of the shifter, an open slot for a pen, credit cards, or spare change, and a deep bin under the center armrest with a built-in shelf. Above the glovebox is a rubberized, non-slip shelf, and in the Lariat, there’s a second glovebox higher up on the dashboard.
The 2024 Ranger’s rear seatback folds down, creating a sizeable carpeted, flat platform for toting larger items out of the weather and under lock and key. Lifting the rear seat bottom reveals a pair of storage bins big enough to tote jumper cables, a laptop computer, a camera, or a purse.
As handy as the rear-seat storage is, Ford could improve it if they made the Ranger’s fold-down seatback a 50/50 or 60/40 split design, enabling a passenger back there with just one side folded down for storage.
Ford also improved the Ranger’s pickup bed features for 2024, with a standard, remote-lockable tailgate featuring damped movement when lowering. Also available this year is LED bed lighting and a pair of power outlets on the driver’s side bed wall rated at 400 watts, the latter handy for powering a laptop computer, worksite power tools, or campsite items. Optional are exterior corner steps between the rear-wheel openings and bumper for easy access to the bed's contents.
The new Ranger’s wider stance not only looks good but also improves the usability of the bed. Ford moved the 2024 model’s rear wheelhouses farther outboard, creating a flat space that’s now 48.2 inches wide and good for hauling 4-foot-wide sheets of plywood or drywall.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The refreshed Ranger follows the industry trend to larger infotainment screens, in Ford’s favorite portrait format, this year upgrading to a 10-inch one for the XL and more basic versions of the XLT and the 12-inch example you see here for the Lariat and this XLT optioned with the High Equipment group.
Both screens look big and bright in the Ranger. Still, the 12-inch screen is a gateway to desirable features such as (cloud) connected navigation, a surround-view camera, and an Advanced Towing package with Pro Trailer Backup Assist. Application icons are a decent size, and there’s a dedicated Home button to get you back to square one if you get distracted while wading through the sub-menus.
As with most new infotainment systems, Ford retained a physical volume knob in the Ranger but eliminated the tuning knob. Drivers can also handle these functions with steering wheel buttons.
Ford’s excellent Sync 4A with enhanced voice recognition is standard. I used it successfully to change audio sources and navigate to a point of interest for a short diversion along the planned route.
Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are onboard, handy for bringing in your streaming content and music, plus things like maps and directions if you opt for a lower-trim Ranger with a 10-inch screen.
A USB-A and a USB-C port are handy for charging at the front of the console. The wireless charger pad included with the XLT and Lariat reduces USB cable clutter, but slipping larger phones past the console-mounted transmission floor shifter can be tricky.
The fidelity of the six-speaker AM/FM stereo in the XLT test truck was more than acceptable, but if you occasionally like a bigger, sharper, more involving sound to accompany your epic drives, try out the uplevel B&O 10-speaker premium audio system as I did in a separate Ranger Lariat test truck before deciding which version of the Ranger you choose.
The base XL’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are bare bones, with a reversing camera, automatic high-beam headlights, and a forward-collision warning system with pedestrian detection and automatic emergency braking. Stepping up to XLT or Lariat trim brings an enhanced version of Ford’s Co-Pilot 360 ADAS suite with blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic warning, lane-keeping assistance, and the aforementioned available surround-view camera.
The Ford blind-spot warning system accounts for traffic alongside a towed trailer and the truck itself. That’s a feature I think should be on every truck buyer’s shopping list. Equally appreciated in the XLT test truck were front and rear parking sensors that beeped more urgently the closer the truck got to an obstacle.
During the test, the lane-keeping system buzzed the XLT’s vinyl-wrapped steering wheel if I drifted out of my lane or changed lanes without signaling. The test truck’s adaptive cruise control skillfully maintained the Ranger’s set following distance and speed.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Ford equipped my Ranger XLT test truck with the base EcoBoost turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine, which produces 270 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque. An optional EcoBoost twin-turbo 2.7-liter V6, with 315 hp and 400 pound-feet of torque, will arrive in the summer of 2024. Both pair with a slick-shifting 10-speed automatic transmission and can tow up to 7,500 pounds.
As it did previously, the 2.3-liter 4-cylinder turbo offers ample but not thrilling power for pulling long grades, overtaking slower cars, and accelerating to speed on interstate onramps. Around town, the broad torque band delivers good throttle response, especially at low and medium speeds. The shifts of the 10-speed automatic are spot-on and seamless.
Surprisingly, the ride quality is agreeable, with little or no jounce or jitteriness, often associated with smaller pickups. I credit the tall tires and gas-pressure shocks. The rear shocks now mount outside the frame rails, which Ford says provides better responsiveness to vertical movement.
While cruising down the interstate, the truck is quiet and composed.
Steering turn-in on twisty roads is responsive, and effort is nicely weighted for the electric-boosted rack-and-pinion system. The performance of the Ranger’s four-wheel disc brakes is confidence-inspiring, too, but the initial top-of-pedal response could be crisper.
I sampled the Ranger’s new Pro Trailer Backup Assist and Trailer Reverse Guidance systems in a separate parking lot demonstration. Like the system in the F-150, the new Ranger system allowed me to back a Lariat 4x4 and trailer through a meandering set of cones using only a small dial on the console and multiple views of the truck and trailer on the infotainment screen.
With a wide stance, F-150 styling cues, more sophisticated chassis, a roomy cabin, nicer interior materials, and upgraded infotainment and driver-assistance features, the heavily revised 2024 Ford Ranger channels the winning formula of its larger stablemate. The improvements come just in time to compete with a stronger field of competitors, which now includes the Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Honda Ridgeline, Jeep Gladiator, and Nissan Frontier.
Ron Sessions is a seasoned vehicle evaluator with more than four decades of experience. He has penned hundreds of road tests for automotive and consumer websites, enthusiast magazines, newsletters, technical journals, and newspapers.
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