So I am going to need a truck

With the purchase of a trailerable Sailboat with a trailer, I find myself thinking about buying a truck to haul it around.

Because moving the sailboat will only be a small part of it's use and I have no need for a full size bed, I am drawn to the Ranger Pickup. I understand that some of the V6s can actually pull quite a bit of weight and still return decent amounts of miliage if driven carefully.

This would probably also be a "foul weather" vehicle rather than exposing my saab to ice, snow, and salt.. and as I said I neither need or want a full sized truck. So can somebody fill me in on the downpoints of the V6 the ranger had? I understand that some of the V6s (I think there were two different engines) had some issues.

What I would love to get is a 90's 5 speed, 2wd, V6 with the flareside bed like the Ranger Splash had. I know Ford downrated the 5 speed for towing, but that was most likely because they did not want to do warrenty work on burned out clutches

How much does the boat + trailer weigh?

My problem with the Explorer sport trac was some of my heavier loads pushed me around a bit and it required a lot more throttle towing.

This lead to a low worse gas mileage than my full sized, V8 pick up.

Though I assume you're looking for used you didn't rule out new, and some of the new full-size trucks get halfway decent mileage. The new Ford F150 with the ecoboost gets the same mileage as my 2001 Toyota Tacoma with its V6, and the Ford has twice the power...

I dont want to come across as a party pooper, wet blanket or troll, but there is no way that I would want to tow anything remotely heavy with a manual trans. You definitely need to find the combined weight of the boat and trailer. You might be surprised.

May I recommend a Chevrolet C3500, preferably with DRW?

You need to know the weight of the boat and trailer in order to make a decision. It will also depend somewhat on the terrain where you live, if it's relatively flat between your house and the lake that's one thing but if you have to go over a mountain range that's another.

Also, compare the cost of buying a truck to the cost of a slip at your local marina - it will be a lot more convenient to use the boat if you don't have to haul it back and forth.

HappyAndy wrote: I dont want to come across as a party pooper, wet blanket or troll, but there is no way that I would want to tow anything remotely heavy with a manual trans. You definitely need to find the combined weight of the boat and trailer. You might be surprised.

Quit being a wet blanket! Even my wife tows her horses with a manual transmission.

The total weight is going to be the biggest factor. Do you want to go truck or are SUVs an option?

I won't claim to know the first thing about towing, but I did see a sailboat on a trailer once. They seem to have quite a lot of side surface area, and up high. I imagine that towing with a heavy crosswind would be quite a pucker moment.

Generic sailboat on trailer picture:

my boat weighs in at 3200 pounds.. add another 1000 for the trailer. Unlike that boat, mine is full keel (that is a fin) and only draws 3 feet of water.. so assume a 5 foot 5 1/2 foot rig. You are right, I am buying used, I kinda refuse to take the depreciation hit with new.

Land -is- very flat and in all reality, this truck/trailer combo might only get used a couple of times a year. I am not ruling out occasionally pulling the boat from the water to cruise in further places though. That is one of the reasons I do not need a large truck, it will only get used for hauling the load a few times a season and the rest of the time running about for parts, work, and pleasure when it is too nasty out to risk my saab.

As for manual trans when towing. I do not see the big deal, I used to drive commercial, never burned out a clutch in half a million miles of running from Boston to DC

AFAIK, the derangers with manual trannies tow LESS than autos.

Also, a 1/2 ton will get better mpg, tow better, haul better, and be more worthwhile of a vehicle.

Wet blanket accomplished!

Why not a Chevy 1500 or 2500 diesel? I bought my '94 1500 turbo diesel Z71 for $2400, it had an automatic but I swapped it for the NV4500 manual. So I have about $4k into the truck and it can tow pretty much anything I can throw at it.

Edit: I was getting 18mpg with the slushbox, but I expect it to go up to 20 or more with the manual.

logdog wrote:

HappyAndy wrote: I dont want to come across as a party pooper, wet blanket or troll, but there is no way that I would want to tow anything remotely heavy with a manual trans. You definitely need to find the combined weight of the boat and trailer. You might be surprised.

Quit being a wet blanket! Even my wife tows her horses with a manual transmission. I carry mine with a manual trans too, but it weighs a lot less than a boat. .

HiTempguy wrote: AFAIK, the derangers with manual trannies tow LESS than autos. Also, a 1/2 ton will get better mpg, tow better, haul better, and be more worthwhile of a vehicle. Wet blanket accomplished!

yes. the manual rangers with manuals are rated from the factory to tow less. From what I have read, there is no reason for it. If anything the manual transmissions are stronger than the autos. The couple of websearches I have done seem to point to Ford not wanting to warrenty clutch jobs on the manuals, so they made it less likely somebody would tow with a manual by lowering the rated weight.

yes, the torque converter will absorb a lot of the shock loads towing might encounter, but somebody who knows what they are doing should be able to mitigate that as well.

For people saying I need a fullsize. you forget that 90% or more of the time, there will not be a trailer behind the truck. I simply do not need or -want- a full size pickup any more than I want an SUV. I think too many people are stuck on the "bigger is better" and that is why the small trucks have all diappeared from US streets

Having gone down this road. I can say with authouiy that unless it is a sunfish type sailboat get a full size truck.

You mention that the land is flat but what about the launch ramp?
These very greatly.
Do you think you will have to back the boat down or are you looking at a facility with a hoist that can crane launch the boat?

I have driven towing this Wavelength 24 and Trailblazer. It does it but it was "busy" and keeps the driver alert. Part of what sucks about it is the single axle trailer. In this picture we towed 2 hours away, pretty flat.
I have also towed another Wavelength 24 from Ohio to St. Pete, Florida for The NOODS. That trip was done in a full size Chevy Van and a two axle trailer. It made for a much more pleasant experience even though there was snow in Ohio and steep hills in West Virginia.

Specs:
A WL24 weighs about 2,500 lbs for the boat. Maybe 1,500 for trailer.

Honestly, you'd be fine with a full size 2WD truck.

Actually, i think given the general E36 M3tiness of the options of actual compact pickups, there's only one way compact pickups make sense to me: 4cyl/5spd 2wd. They're the only ones that get remotely justifiable mpg margins over a 6cyl/5spd fullsize.

If you get, for example, a 3.0 or 4.0 Ranger, you're throwing away the majority of the mpg advantage of having a tiny truck. Which is pretty much the only advantage unless you just resent the size of bigger trucks even if it isn't costing you much of anything. At that point a 4.2/5spd f150 gets nearly the same mileage, has a bigger bed, a much stronger auto transmission (if you go auto), stronger brakes, stronger rear end, is easier to work on (and more reliable vs the ranger 4.0), and more comfortable.

Im not against compact pickups at all.. There are ways of thinking and preferences that make them make sense. But if you're only getting a truck for practical, utilitarian purposes and dont have any pretensions of trying to derive some kind of sporting pleasure from driving it, then getting a v6 ranger doesnt really add up vs a v6 f150. There have to be other things besides pure logic involved to make that sell.

So far I kinda agree with what other people are saying in regards to full size, but what I know about the later rangers (1998+) -

You want the 4.0 V6, more power and very similar mileage to the 3.0. I think the 3.0 is more reliable overall but its called the 3.slow by some people (I'm in a 2.3 so the 3.0 sounds good to me lol).

Head gaskets can be an issue on the 4.0, but only if something else fails first.

Around here, explorers tend to be cheaper for basically the same thing, fwiw.

It's not that people "think" bigger is better, in this case it is. AND you'll get better gas mileage all the time with the full sized pickup.

PUs have changed in the last 10-15 years and that's partially why the small ones have disappeared. There's not much advantage, other than parking, with the larger ones.

I loved my little Mazda PU, but the F150 is so much more useable and gets just as much gas mileage, rides better, is more comfortable and is so much more useful. I use it as my DD and I never could use the Mazda that way. Nor the Datsun one.

mad_machine wrote: For people saying I need a fullsize. you forget that 90% or more of the time, there will not be a trailer behind the truck. I simply do not need or -want- a full size pickup any more than I want an SUV. I think too many people are stuck on the "bigger is better" and that is why the small trucks have all diappeared from US streets

I think they disappeared because they were less efficient, capable or useful. If I could have bought a Tacoma that got better mileage than a Tundra and could pull 7500 lbs I would have bought it. The thing is - the F-150 and C1500 are WAY more capable trucks and equal or better on efficiency... and really imperceptibly larger these days.

I gradually progressed to a Chevy 2500HD Duramax... and guess what? It gets 23 highway, 18 city and 12-16 towing an 8k load. It is really hard to justify the 17 hwy/13 city numbers that my Tundra (and pretty much every other truck with 6 or 8 cylinders gets if not worse) when there does not seem to be a downside except the turning radius. It's a bitch to park in the city - thats really about my only complaint.

I am the last person to say "bigger is better" when it comes to pickup trucks. A Ranger will work fine, although everybody here talking about gas mileage is probably correct. If GM had put the 4.8 LS motor into an S10 truck, that would have been the worlds most perfect truck. Sadly, I had to get a fullsize because I wanted a V8, and insurance salvage didn't have any Dakotas when I was looking. My 4.8 manual shift 4wd Silverado is a pretty good truck, other than it being about 25% too damn big.

Your combo should have a much lower center of gravity.
Sample:

Do you have dual axle?
Does your trailer have a similar Y shaped keel guide? Without it, ramp launching is a bitch. Ask me how I know...in the pic above we ramp launched that WL24 on a crazy steep ramp. Off was easy. On, not so easy (damage was done.)