Ford News: Half Of Ford Ranger Owners Could Be Leaving To Other Brands

[William Maley]

William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

August 20, 2012

Ford's decision to end Ranger production and move towards an expanded F-150 lineup could cost it about half of its Ranger owners, a new report says.

Ford ended production of the Ranger last year and closed down its St. Paul, Minnesota, assembly plant where the truck was built. Ford said that the market for small pickups was dwindling and the decision was made to not continue with the Ranger. Instead, Ford is pushing Ranger owners to the F-150 or other Ford vehicles.

"We are retaining some Ranger buyers, with the bulk of them moving to F-Series and Escape. As for the compact pickup segment, it has become a much smaller part of the overall industry over the last 12 years," said Erich Merkle, Ford's U.S. sales analyst.

Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry analysis for TrueCar.com says Ford overestimated the number of Ranger owners who would be willing to step up to the F-150.

"We do know that a good portion of would-be Ranger buyers are going to different brand. Ford may have been too optimistic in their assumption of how many Ranger buyers want to buy an F-150."

Reasons as to why Ranger owners aren't snatching up F-150s are the higher price-tag and the large size of the F-150 compared to the Ranger.

What are former Ranger owners looking at? The Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier.

Source: The Detroit News

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