Toyota to Increase Tacoma Production Based on Demand

Or at least when people "perceive" the competition produces a good quality and reliable product.

 

Right, but a new Colorado, Canyon and Ridgeline (lol), have all come out in recent years, and none of them had even the slightest affect on the Tacomas sales (Taco's sales have even gone up during that time). Instead, they seem have just expanded the mid-size truck demographic.

I think the new Ranger will do the same. It will just bring more people to the segment (largely Ford guys). And I think it will be the same with the Jeep truck...it will pull from the Jeep crowd, not the Tacomas.

 

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." That's the bottom line in a nut shell.

We had a bunch of S-10 in the fleet back in the day, they were good tough little trucks, If i'm not mistaken the first ones were actually Mitshubishi or was it Isusu?? Can't seem to remember, but those early ones were the good ones

 

I'm not sure on the exact reasons, but its sales numbers suddenly fell through the floor. Coincidentally (or maybe not, I don't know), the sales descent started getting noticeable the same year the new Tacoma came out ('04/'05). It went from selling like absolute crazy, to barely selling.

 

It is purely anecdotal on my part, but the few Ranger owners I've talked with had many problems with them that left bad feelings.

 

They even had the "OR" version with the black plastic flares on the Mazda B2300 variant.

 

The FX4 Level 2 was pretty solid.

 

I will chim in all the Ranger talk in this thread, i owned this beautiful 1998 XLT 4x4 3.0 v6 5 speed.

I drove the 98 from 2008 until end of 2016 (99,000 miles to 143,000). Very reliable but i am a previous mechanic and know what to look for and caught a lot of things before they failed, all typical problems with any ford or any vehicle of the era. Main problem i had was from the "rust belt" type issue eating the bottom of the truck, the rear leaf springs and shackles, exhaust system corrosion and doing any repair on the underside just turned into a nightmare of broken bolts nuts fasteners etc...
Also had some AC issues that dumped money into that never got resolved.

Was thinking about waiting around for 2018-2020 Ranger to come out but just did not want to wait, had some money saved up for down payment and a family member ready to buy the Ranger from me, wife and i needed more room for future little ones and carrying our things, valuables, dogs etc...

Very happy with out Taco and we love it!!

Do a quick google search! FYI the ranger production ceased in December 2012, will mean almost 5 years... I believe the first MY Ranger was 1982 making it a good 30 year production run : )

 

I know the last year of US production. That doesn't change what I said. The last few years, its sales were horrible.

 

Ford did not get rid of the Ranger. They sell the hell out of it everywhere but the U.S. They were very clear that they stopped selling it in the U.S. because it was cutting into the F150 sales, and those are higher margin trucks. Also, sales declined because they had not updated it in a decade. The updated version does very well internationally.

 

True and dealers and marketing were pushing F150 sales and the Ecoboost etc... True

Yes i was referring to US market, i was researching the Ranger sold in Asia, Australia and Europe for sure in anticipation!!

 

They also invested nothing into the platform as they knew they were going to retire it so it was pretty stale by the end.

 

Fair enough. I still don't see it eating into the Tacoma at all, though. Time will tell, I suppose.

Either way, I hope the new Ranger is awesome. Some actual sales competition in the segment would be good.

 

There seems to be a few die hard Ford Ranger fans here, It was a good truck basically a B-200 Mazda, all Japanese high quality components that Ford can't seem to be able to manufacture.
Mazda made the Ranger a good little truck not Ford. If it had been made by Ford, it never would have flown, sorry fans.

At any rate now that we cleared that up, here's one explanation as to why production was discontinued.

"Ranger sales steadily dropped in the last decade of the car's lifetime—from 330,000 in 2000, to dipping as low as 55,000 in 2010, and then briefly spiking to 70,000 in the truck's final year. Yet the Ranger's absence from the market hasn't been reflected in compact truck sales. Between 2011—the last year it was in dealerships—and 2012 industry-wide sales have remained level at 264,000 vehicles—with Toyota and Nissan picking up the slack."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/car...s-us-why-the-ford-ranger-is-no-more-15388686/

Hope that helps and brings some closure to the subject
Cheers

 

I don't see the Ranger in the same league as the Taco. Did the Ranger ever come out with an "True" Off-Road model, like a mini-Raptor?

I feel that, other than the Nissan 4x4, only the new Jeep Pickup truck will be true competition for the Taco.

 

My first pickup truck was a 1997 Chevrolet S-10. Man, what a piece of junk. Problem after problem, until the truck finally bit the dust at around 76,000 miles.

 

I believe the Ford Courier was a rebadged Mazda and then it went the other way afterwards

 

But that 226k recall on gen3 is really going to kill toyata..blah,bla,blah,bla,blah(sarcasm). It's Good To Be The King.

 

They've both been at or near the top of residual 5yr value forever. I think they'll be just fine.

 

Paid 1000 under MSRP.