Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 2022 Tow Test

The 2022 Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 is the top 3500kg towing-capable model of the new-generation Australian-developed ute series and offers a long list of standard features.

Key items fitted as standard on the Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 include an on-demand, dual-range 4WD system, powered rear roller shutter, aluminium tie-down rails, 12-inch centre touch-screen, 360-degree camera, upper glove box, outer dash cup holders, ambient lighting, mirror puddle lights, tow bar and wiring kit (but the tow ball is not supplied), trailer electric brake controller, leather seats and power-adjustable front seats with heating.

The Ranger Wildtrak V6 starts at $70,190 plus on-road costs, but the vehicle on test included the $1500 Premium Pack, which bundles a 10-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system, Matrix LED headlights, LED tail-lights and roof-mounted auxiliary switches.

The test car also had the optional Aluminium Silver premium paint ($675), bringing the total to $72,365 plus ORCs.

Ford doesn’t include a tow ball, so you’ll have to allow an extra $25 or so for a chrome-plated 50mm tow ball if you’re towing a trailer with a standard coupling.

Towing is well covered with a 3500kg maximum braked capacity, with a maximum 350kg of that permitted on the tow ball.

Gross vehicle mass (GVM) for the Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 dual-cab is 3350kg, maximum payload 997kg and gross combined mass (GCM) 6400kg. Kerb weight is 2353kg.

As we’ve previously reported, the Ranger has the same problem as other utes in that it can’t be fully loaded and tow to its maximum capacity.

However, the Ranger Wildtrak V6 does have an excellent payload capacity of 547kg remaining without exceeding GCM when 3500kg is being towed.

The new 2022 Ford Ranger has received a maximum five-star rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), based on the independent safety authority’s current tough testing protocols.

Ford has taken the advantage of designing an all-new platform to incorporate extra safety features into the latest Ranger.

There are nine airbags fitted standard, now extending to a centre airbag and front passenger knee airbag, and the autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system now includes cyclist detection and intersection assist in addition to the previous model’s pedestrian detection.

Adaptive cruise control (ACC) is also smarter now, with stop-and-go functionality and a traffic sign recognition system that, when ACC is engaged, automatically adjusts the vehicle’s speed to the posted limit.

In-car (or perhaps that should be in-ute) technology has taken a significant leap forward, and Ranger is comfortably a class leader here for its breadth of capability and, literally, the size of the offering.

For this review, we’re focusing on Ranger tech towing smarts. And there’s a lot of it.

Some features will be familiar to those who’ve kept up with the Ford F-Series range in the US.

For starters, when hooking up a trailer, you can drill down to a menu on the centre screen to activate a trailer light test (and once you have the FordPass app registered on your phone, you can do this via your phone screen).

Press the start button and the test cycles through all trailer lights on, then indicator, brake and (if fitted) reversing lights – very handy if you’ve hitched up solo and don’t have a helper to check the trailer lights are working.

The system goes though the sequence five times, unless you cancel it before.

You can also set up the blind spot monitoring to include the length of the trailer. You can save a trailer in the system so you only need to set up a particular trailer once.

Lastly, there’s a connection checklist – which is exactly that. The screen page sequence simply shows you what you should be doing when hitching a trailer, such as crossing over safety chains and so on.

Towing regulars will likely see this as a novelty feature, but if you’re new to the towing game it’s a great checklist to go through before you head off.

The ‘Lion’ V6 turbo-diesel in the 2022 Ford Ranger isn’t entirely new, having been in active service in a variety of models over the years including the Australian-developed Ford Territory, the Land Rover Discovery 3 and 4, and even the Citroen C5 and Peugeot 407.

While it’s been variously used with 2.7-litre or 3.0-litre displacements before, here it’s a much-revised 3.0-litre that produces 184kW of power and 600Nm of torque.

And what a butter-smooth engine this is, especially teamed with the 10-speed automatic we’ve already seen before (and continue to see) in the Ranger 2.0 Bi-Turbo.

It’s so smooth, quiet and refined that it’s often hard to pick it’s a diesel engine, and its power delivery is relatively linear, with very little lagging in initial response – a common turbo-diesel trait.

It doesn’t feel quite as responsive as the slightly lighter – and slightly more powerful – Volkswagen Amarok V6, which will soon be retired for this same Lion V6, but the Ranger isn’t what you’d call docile.

You might think that with six cylinders gulping down distillate to keep 2.3 tonnes motivated, the new Ranger will be a thirsty beast.

Yet we achieved just 8.0L/100km with mostly freeway solo running and 12.1L/100km with much of the driving in slow urban work.

Towing a 2.9-tonne caravan, including the needs of performance testing and photography, the Ranger saw a measured 17.1L/100km.

You can read a more in-depth review on the solo performance of the 2022 Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 here, because in this test we’re going to focus more on how the Ranger tows.

We went to RV Connection in St Marys, NSW, to hitch up a Millard tandem-axle caravan. It had its water tanks filled, resulting in a 2900kg as-towed weight, with 190kg on the tow ball.

Getting the trailer hooked up and all the electronic assistance stuff set up was quite simple.

The rear camera screen, with its centre marker to line up the tow ball with the trailer coupling, shows some disparity – you think you’ve lined up the tow ball perfectly under the hitch to only discover it’s up to 20-30mm off.

Ford’s wide-angle rear-view camera isn’t by any means the only one to have this issue.

Entering the caravan dimensions was simple and thus allowed the blind spot monitoring system to include the trailer.

The Ranger barely moved with the van hitched up; the front raised 10mm and the rear lowered 20mm (measured at the wheel-arches).

We selected ‘Tow/Haul’ mode on the driving mode rotary dial and headed off. We did testing in two-wheel drive, rather than AWD, as the conditions were dry and we believe most owners will tow in 2WD for the majority of the time.

The Ranger was very strong when pulling away from standstill and also getting up to 100km/h with the caravan behind.

While it tended to hold eighth gear on the freeway, on even a slight incline, when the terrain levelled it slipped into 10th gear. There was some shuffling of gears on occasion, but this transmission is not nearly as restless as some can be with a heavy trailer behind.

Even some of the best-riding utes when unladen turn to water when there’s a trailer hanging out in the breeze. The Ranger isn’t one of them.

To be really picky, perhaps the ride was a bit abrupt over patchy bitumen at 50-60km/h, but elsewhere the Ranger just gets on with absorbing undulations and sharp bumps equally well.

It feels planted, even with large trucks blasting past on the freeway when we were stuck behind slightly slower traffic.

The Ranger motored up our test hill-climb with a 90km/h start speed, only running out of puff at the last, steepest section of the climb. It was indicating 85km/h with full throttle at the measurement point in fifth gear.

Engine braking was quite good, with the 70km/h start speed (holding third gear) increasing to 74km/h.

The transmission’s manual mode (a switch on the side of the gear lever) is a bit hard to find and fiddly to use, if you want to hold gears.

The blind spot monitoring seemed to work well, alerting us to the vehicles coming up beside the trailer, as intended.

There is no doubt that the new 2022 Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 is not only well provisioned out of the box for towing, but also gets on with the job of hauling a heavy trailer very well.

At first blush, it appears to be quite economical, very stable and comfortable to ride in with a heavy caravan behind it.

In short, the new V6-powered Ford Ranger is a 3500kg-capacity towing game-changer for the mid-size ute market.

How much does the 2022 Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 cost?
Price: $70,190 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel
Output: 184kW/600Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Fuel: 8.4L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 222g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2022)