The truth behind the hype

The truth about the new Ford Ranger Super Duty | Auto Expert John Cadogan

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this critical analysis by Auto Expert John Cadogan, the anticipated Ford Ranger Superduty comes under scrutiny. Cadogan argues that the vehicle's capabilities might not live up to the expectations set by carefully curated reviews and PR campaigns. He reveals the orchestrated media events that shape public perception and provides an engineering-based evaluation of the vehicle's features and limitations. By dissecting the towing and load carrying claims, Cadogan warns prospective buyers to pause and reconsider the real performance figures in the context of fundamental physics.

Highlights

Ford's PR machine is shaping perceptions without delivering full specifications. 🎥
The engineering assessments by Cadogan suggest the weight and load issues may affect the vehicle's performance. 📊
The real-world utility of the Ranger Superduty is questionable when towing and carrying heavy loads. 🏋️‍♂️
Cadogan humorously critiques the media's role in amplifying the vehicle's perceived capabilities. 😆
A call for potential buyers to reconsider their needs against the realities of the vehicle's specifications. 🚨

Key Takeaways

The Ford Ranger Superduty may not be as capable as initially portrayed by the PR hype. 🚗
Cadogan emphasizes the importance of questioning the limited information provided in media events. 🤔
He estimates the curb weight of the Superduty, suggesting it's higher than anticipated, affecting towing capacity. ⚖️
Potential buyers should consider axle load limits and payload capacities before making a purchase. 🔍
The vehicle's stability in towing scenarios might not meet expectations due to its physics and engineering limitations. ⚠️

Overview

Auto Expert John Cadogan exposes the potential misconceptions around the Ford Ranger Superduty. He critiques how Ford's PR strategies and media events have shaped an unrealistic image of the vehicle's capabilities. Through his analytical lens, Cadogan questions the carefully selected talking points regurgitated by many reviewers and emphasizes the importance of understanding the engineering behind the vehicle.

Delving into technical details, Cadogan estimates the curb weight and reports on the implications it has on the vehicle's towing and load capacity. He raises concerns about the absence of crucial information like axle load limits, suggesting that these deliberate omissions mask the vehicle's true performance limitations. His approach is rooted in solid engineering principles, making his critique both informative and entertaining.

Cadogan's humorous yet insightful commentary warns potential buyers about the exaggerated claims surrounding the Ranger Superduty. He stresses the importance of assessing the actual performance capabilities before making a purchase decision, especially in terms of towing and load carrying capacities. His aim is to equip buyers with the knowledge needed to avoid costly mistakes, encouraging them to scrutinize marketing claims against real-world data.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview of Ford Ranger Super Duty This chapter introduces the Ford Ranger Superduty, comparing its highly anticipated capabilities to mythical figures like the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas. The chapter suggests skepticism towards the capabilities of the vehicle, implying they are only as real as one's belief in them, and critiques the influence of Ford's public relations efforts on public perception.
01:00 - 03:00: Media Criticism and PR Strategy The chapter discusses the tactics used in media criticism and public relations strategies, focusing on how some entities cultivate relationships with a select group of compliant reviewers. These reviewers often avoid asking challenging questions, either due to a lack of incentive, knowledge, or bravery. The chapter examines the implications of this dynamic on public discourse and the evaluation of technical products like the Ranger Superduty.
03:00 - 05:00: The Reality of the Ranger Super Duty The chapter titled 'The Reality of the Ranger Super Duty' delves into the misconceptions surrounding the Ranger Super Duty's towing and load-carrying capabilities. It suggests that the vehicle is not as efficient or cost-effective as often portrayed, and these perceptions might have been influenced by selectively curated promotional content, notably from YouTube videos. The author promises to dissect these claims and provide factual clarifications.
06:00 - 09:00: Discussion on Towing and Payload The chapter engages in a discussion about the towing and payload capabilities of the Ranger Superduty vehicle. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the engineering assumptions behind these capabilities to provide a realistic perspective on what the vehicle can actually do. The narrative promises to reveal these engineering assumptions later in the discussion to clear any misconceptions or exaggerated beliefs surrounding the Ranger Superduty. It hints at a critique or a more detailed examination of the claims regarding the vehicle's towing and payload strengths, aiming to provide an honest assessment in contrast to the possibly inflated reputation it currently holds.
09:00 - 14:30: Advertisement Break: Manscaped The chapter titled 'Advertisement Break: Manscaped' begins with a discussion on how automotive content on YouTube often becomes repetitive and homogeneous. The narrator expresses a desire to explore the underlying mechanics of content delivery. This exploration is meant to foster an understanding among the audience of how information is conveyed in modern media, contrasting this with the traditional journalistic method of detailed and diligent investigation.
14:30 - 20:00: Media Event Analysis and Reviewer Critique This chapter delves into the issue of media events and reviewer critiques. It highlights the importance of being truthful and informative in journalism rather than simply regurgitating pre-set talking points. The chapter uses the example of car reviews on YouTube, specifically referring to Ford, to illustrate how reviews can sometimes be biased or manufactured. It criticizes the practice of companies like Ford flying selected reviewers to events which may lead to less critical and more favorable reviews.
20:00 - 25:00: Speculations on Vehicle Specifications This chapter, titled 'Speculations on Vehicle Specifications,' describes an event held at a facility in Broad Meadows where participants from various locations, including different capital cities in Australia, congregate. Those from Melbourne drive in, while others fly in, all to partake in an orchestrated event in a studio setting. The briefing they receive is meticulously planned, indicating a high level of organization and coordination, suggesting an official or significant purpose to the gathering. The chapter details the logistics and structure of the event, highlighting the emphasis on uniformity and careful selection in the briefing process.
25:00 - 30:00: Estimations of Vehicle Performance In the chapter titled 'Estimations of Vehicle Performance', the transcript reveals that some crucial details regarding a vehicle, such as its curb weight and axle load limits, are deliberately withheld by Ford. The objective is to maintain a favorable image or 'fairy tale' of the vehicle's performance capabilities. The discussion suggests that releasing these details prematurely could undermine this narrative and lead to scrutiny. The chapter highlights the strategic withholding of information to control public perception and maintain brand image. It implies that such actions are intentional rather than accidental, emphasizing the importance of managing consumer expectations and marketing strategies in the automotive industry.
30:00 - 35:00: Physics of Load and Towing The chapter delves into the strategic manipulation of information regarding the Ranger Superduty to maintain its public image. It describes how a controlled narrative is shared amongst insiders, who are then shown a prototype of the vehicle without the opportunity to test drive it. The intention is to manage perceptions by limiting what is disclosed to the public, thereby delaying any negative feedback that could arise from a full disclosure of the vehicle's specifications and performance.
35:00 - 41:00: Critique: Towing Capacity vs Safety The chapter 'Critique: Towing Capacity vs Safety' discusses the importance of analyzing and questioning the information provided by manufacturers, using Ford as an example. It emphasizes the need to not only accept disclosed facts but to also connect the dots, make inferences, and draw conclusions that might not align with the manufacturer's narrative but could benefit the audience. The speaker suggests that the consistency in cinematography across Ford's presentations is due to the same person filming them, hinting at a possibly controlled portrayal of information.
41:00 - 46:00: Concluding Thoughts on Vehicle and Buying Advice In this chapter titled 'Concluding Thoughts on Vehicle and Buying Advice,' the speaker critiques the process of vehicle reviews, suggesting that they often consist of regurgitated, carefully selected talking points that don't serve the consumer's interests. The speaker proposes that AI could perform these reviews as effectively, if not better, than journalists, since no hard questions are typically asked in such reviews. The chapter raises concerns about the transparency and authenticity of vehicle reviews and suggests that sometimes there might be off-the-record agreements that prevent disclosure of certain information.

The truth about the new Ford Ranger Super Duty | Auto Expert John Cadogan Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 the Ford Ranger Superduty. So hotly anticipated, but also a fairy tale. Kind of like, I don't know, the Easter Bunny or a unicorn or Father Christmas. Its capabilities are only real if you choose to believe like hook, line, and sinker swallowing it. What you've been told so far by a carefully selected group of reviewers here in Australia. Right. This is an example of Ford's PR machine doing exactly what
00:30 - 01:00 they do best, which is cultivating a tiny group of domesticated reviewers who are too timid or otherwise unincentivized to ask the hard questions. Or maybe they just don't even know how to join a few basic engineering dots and then pose the hard questions when they have access to technical experts and executives. I really don't know. But the bottom line is that the Ranger Superduty is going to be kind of
01:00 - 01:30 okay. Meaning too expensive and also not nearly as good at towing and heavy load carrying as you have been led to believe or maybe as you have inferred from what you've been told from a carefully selected set of talking points that have been pared to you via the videos you've seen here on YouTube. Okay. And in this video, I'm going to break that down for you using, you know, some facts and some
01:30 - 02:00 very reasonable engineering assumptions. And I want to give you an honest assessment of what the real capabilities of this vehicle are actually going to look like. We're going to get to those assumptions in just a second and burst the bubble. Oh, that is building up around the Ranger Superduty right at the moment. It has been so carefully crafted and reiterated back to
02:00 - 02:30 you in so many different ways, but carbon copies of each other via all of those automotive outlets on YouTube. Okay, but first I want to lift up the skirt if you don't mind and have a little look at the undercarriage of how this sort of thing actually works. And the reason I'm doing this is to give you an appreciation for how information gets delivered to you. Because gone, I think, are the days of journalists diligently sleuththing something out and getting to
02:30 - 03:00 the truth and being a beacon of information that would otherwise not be forthcoming. What's actually happening now is just copying and pasting the talking points on video, which is just ridiculous. So, the way these current crop of Ranger Superduty packages on YouTube have been delivered, it works like this. Ford has flown a whole bunch of carefully domesticated selected reviewers to its former manufacturing
03:00 - 03:30 facility in Broad Meadows. Obviously, the ones in Victoria, Melbourne have just driven in, but everyone else from other capital cities have flown in to be part of this quote unquote event where they all just shuffle into the same studio, and I'm going to just come at you unplugged today, if you don't mind. They stand in the same studio. They get the same briefing, which is carefully selected, right? So many meetings are had about what are we
03:30 - 04:00 going to tell them and what are the implications of that because Ford's objective is to keep the fairy tale going. Okay, very important. That's why for example we have not been told the curb weight or the axle load limits on this vehicle. That's not just we'll prick tease that out in the future. That's if we release it up front it's going to burst the bubble and break the fairy tale. I'll tell you right now these things do not happen by accident. there's not some other series of gift boxes awaiting to open. They're going to
04:00 - 04:30 delay the release of this information as long as possible because it's going to make the Ranger Superduty look worse than it does presently with only the carefully curated facts out in the public domain. So these people, they all got the same briefing of carefully crafted information, very limited. And then they stood in front of but did not drive one example of a prototypical Ranger Superduty. And yeah, you can look at it. That's great. And
04:30 - 05:00 you can parrot back the facts that Ford has chosen to disclose. That's great, too. But the missing bit here is joining the dots and extrapolating and making some solid conclusions that maybe Ford's not going to like but maybe serve you in the audience. Okay, same studio, same car, same Ford cameraman. That's why the cinematography all looks the same cuz it's the same dude doing the shooting in all of those
05:00 - 05:30 reviews, right? and then they parrot back the same carefully selected talking points and your interests are not being served at this point. I would suggest you don't even need to be a journalist to do this. You know, AI could have done it. In many cases, I think AI might have even done it a bit better. You know, not a single hard question was asked. And if one was, then there must have been an agreement not to disclose the answer. like off the record, dude. It's this,
05:30 - 06:00 but you can't say that now kind of thing. So, what we saw is a whole bunch of reviewers just gushing. And the gushing in many cases, in my estimation, was undignified because there are some pretty obvious shortcomings to this vehicle. The Handyman from Manscaped is a compact face shaver that delivers a quick close shave with a unique dual blade system. You're looking at a standard foil shaver combined with a long hair leveler blade to knock down up
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07:00 - 07:30 the battery level indicator blinks, it's time to plug in. And any USB power source will do just fine. The Handyman is for busy professionals, travelers, lycra wearing frequent various gymnasia, all the many and varied flavors of dude. In other words, it's for anyone who just wants to look good and feel better without that being a real drag. As dot joining sequences go, this is quite the
07:30 - 08:00 easy one. Go to manscape.com/autoexpert now. You'll get 20% off the handyman with the promo code AEJC at checkout. That's only three dots, dude. Manscape.com/autoexpert AEJC 20% off. That's a great deal. I suppose even outspoken borderline geriatrics plotting, I don't know, um, world domination from deep in their caves might benefit at a deep aesthetic
08:00 - 08:30 level from such an awesome grooming upgrade from Manscaped. But hey, how would I possibly be expected to know anything about any of that? I want to cover who was there just briefly. Not a complete list, but I think they deserve a bit of a roast, don't you? So, let's roast like it's 1999. Pat Kalinan was there and his hat.
08:30 - 09:00 Obviously, they travel everywhere together. I love Pat's hat. Pat's hat is awesome. And if memory serves, it travels business class. That's in its contract, right? Pat hat Pat doesn't care if Pat gets in the check baggage, but as long as it's up the pointy end getting filled with bloody Verve Cleco, that's all fine, right? In Pat's review, which has had 109,000 views, so that's half a boner
09:00 - 09:30 right there, isn't it? In Pat's review, the thumbnail is him down on his knees. I'm not kidding. With his arms outstretched in some act of obesence or comfort. And I'm getting an image of that, but it can't be that can't be what it is in front of the ranger to the side paying homage to the new king, whatever. And I find that amazing. In fact, that
09:30 - 10:00 video is number one on Pat's channel out of the past 10 videos that he's released. It's three times more views even than his tearful goodbye to Ford Everest, which is like nine videos ago or something. Amazing to me that you would do this down on your knees, arms out, stretched, obese, comfort thing uh in a walkound and some selective facts. I I don't get that. But hey, it's a free country. Paul Marrick, Ford Ranger fanboy and uh somewhat
10:00 - 10:30 apologist. 681,000 views. That's amazing to me. That's got to be the wave. And the words on the thumbnail, take my money. I'd suggest Paul, there's no need to do that. They just give you one for a year, dude. Come on. And then you don't even have to pay the rejo insurance. You could just drive it, give it back somewhat used, and maybe even go again. But nothing even nothing screams impartial journalism like the words take
10:30 - 11:00 my money on a thumbnail, does it? Maybe they just didn't have the word the room for the word again on that thumbnail. Anyway, Toby Hagen from car sales. He was there only 84,000 views, but he's looking jacked too. Toby, he's a huge man. Toby, he's always been a beefy kind of chap, but now he's huge and jacked. He's the best looking version of Tobes that I have ever seen. So, he blocks out the sun still, but for all the right reasons. And he'd be very
11:00 - 11:30 hard to throw out of the building, which is lucky cuz he's reporting for car sales and they have such a track record of throwing journalists out of the building. They had such a purge recently. He would be one of the hardest ones to throw out though, I'd suggest. So, they've gotten rid of all the less jacked reviewers certainly. Byron Unpronouncable from Cars Guide as well. Only 10,000 views for Byron. What went wrong, dude? Cars Guide, of course, owned by U Ali Express or T-Mu, whatever it is
11:30 - 12:00 this week. I forget. Maybe they take it one week at a time and just switch. I don't know. They used to be news limited, obviously. But I can't imagine a dude less likely to get his hands on the tools than Byron Matthew Darcus. Actually, now that I think about it, I can. I really can. And that dude would be Big Tongue, who was out and flapping in Broad Meadows in the studio.
12:00 - 12:30 Tongue Newan from Drive. He's got to be a mentally tough dude, too, because he endures working for those at Nine Entertainment. I don't know how he does it. I certainly couldn't do it. Big tongue. He seems somewhat unlikely to me to wrap himself around the tools anytime soon. The jackhammer, the forklift, the skill saw, chainsaw, whatever. Any of that big stuff, a lathe or a milling machine. I'm I'm not seeing it, but I could be completely wrong. It's just the
12:30 - 13:00 impression I get. In my view, Big Tongue is likely to be far more of a hit with the chicks. I don't know why. And of course, my favorite publication of all time. It It was a photo finish, New York Times, La Principia Mathematica or Caravan World. That's not funny. Caravan World just However, having read every edition since u the turn of the
13:00 - 13:30 century, they never use the term porter slum or rolling hovel. And I might have to make a, you know, constructive suggestion there. But chemical toilet or composting dude, they cover all the big issues. I can agree. And if you want to take your effluent on holiday, traveling endlessly from outback hole to outback hole with busted ass cattle scrub in between. Caravan world.
13:30 - 14:00 Dude, if you're thinking about buying a Superduty Ranger, however, I think we better burst the bubble on the BS and come up with a reasonable set of claims about how this vehicle is pretty clearly going to perform in the towing and load carrying domain. So, we'll do that next. The first and most glaring omission from this so-called press briefing that
14:00 - 14:30 happened recently is the curb weight. Because if you're going to release the GCM and the GVM and the toe capacity and you don't release the curb weight, it begs a really obvious question, doesn't it? Because it's the odd one out. Why not just release it? And the only answer that fits is because it breaks the fairy tale and makes the Ranger Superduty seem less of an awesome load carrying and towing beast than it actually is because
14:30 - 15:00 then we could reverse engineer some salient facts about it. So, I'm going to estimate the curb weight of the Ranger Superduty. I'm going to do that in a conservative way, making rational conservative engineering assumptions. And if you'd like to disagree with me in the comments, go for it, dude. I'm happy to be disagreed with at any time. But here's how I take that. The vehicle that was on display, I think it was an XLT spec dual cab. It was certainly a dual cab, and it doesn't make any sense for
15:00 - 15:30 them to display the lesser variant. You'd want the best one on display for the press. So guaranteed it was an XLT dual cab. So, I thought we'd start with the nons superduty standard bog standard XLT Ranger that dual cab that you can buy today. And if you start there, the curb weight is known. It's 2130 kilos. Okay? And then you got to ask yourself, what did they disclose about what has
15:30 - 16:00 been done to this vehicle to sex it up and serve the fairy tale? And among the enhancements that are disclosed, we've got chazzy reinforcement, right? Re-engineered chassis. So, they've probably gone from 4 mm to 5 mm in the section for the chassis in whole or in part. Who would know? But every time you do that, obviously, you add 25% to the weight of the chassis. So, there's that. And then there's 50 L fuel tank
16:00 - 16:30 increase, right? It goes from 80 L in the standard to 130 in the Superduty. And that means you need a bigger tank and you need to carry 50 L more fuel. So then we're going up 2 in in the diameter of the wheels and tires or the tires at least from 31 in to 33 in. And plus we're putting on different wheels and the wheels are not going to be lighter. All right. There's a substantial increase in weight there and
16:30 - 17:00 it's not sprung. So apart from having an implication for the curb weight, it's also going to have an implication in the handling domain because any increase in unsprung mass is undesirable in every car on Earth. All right, there's a suspension upgrade as well. There's a lift in the suspension, so there's going to be more material there. The vehicle is going to be heavier. The springs will therefore have to be heavier, etc. There's uh beefier axles, beefier drive shafts. There's more cooling system.
17:00 - 17:30 There's a new torque converter. It's not going to be lighter, is it? You know, there's a sealed snorkel that's been added. There's uh 5 mm bash plates over critical components in the underc carriage and all the reinforcement that you would need to change a chassis from 3 1/2 ton toe compliance to 4 1/2 ton toe compliance. And I reckon that adds up conservatively to about half a ton of extra Ranger. But just to make the
17:30 - 18:00 mathematics easy, we'll knock it back to 470 because 470 and 2130 go together conveniently to give an estimated Superduty curb weight of 2600 kilos, which does not seem unreasonable to me, especially as they're starting with a package that exists. This is not like clean sheet design approach. you've got an existing package and you're beefing it up. So, that's not as efficient as starting with a a clean sheet. This
18:00 - 18:30 thing's also wider. It's got more track, you know, and it sits taller. That's the result of the tires and the suspension lift mainly, I assume. But the width involves extra mass also. So this means that if you've got a 4 1/2 ton GVM and a curb weight of 2600, the payload is 1,900 kilos. So guaranteed the payload for this thing is going to be 1,900 kilos, call it two tons. It'll be
18:30 - 19:00 interesting to see. And in incidentally, I'm putting my nuts on the line here, right? Because this data is going to be revealed down the track. So, this report is going to be compared later to reality. And I'm happy to put my nuts on the line like this because I don't see how they can turn standard Ranger into Superduty without expending another half a tonish of additional mass just to give it these capabilities. So, time will
19:00 - 19:30 tell, I suppose. Here's another observation, and you could figure this out from the disclosed information in the so-called briefing to the press. If you've got 4 1/2 tons of GVM, and you've got 4 1/2 tons of tow capacity, if you add them together, hypothetically, you would have a 9 ton gross combination mass, which is just can't imagine that. But the officially disclosed gross combination mass from Ford is 8 tons. The difference
19:30 - 20:00 there is one ton obviously, right? So, there's an implication there that you could have figured out from the press briefing, but I didn't hear too many people say it in their video packages, which is that if you tow 4 1/2 tons, your payload capacity is going to drop by 1,000 kilos. This is a fact. Okay, that's the way this works. If it's got this GVM and this tow capacity and that GCM and you load it up to 4 and a half
20:00 - 20:30 ton trailer, then you've only got three and a half tons to play with now for your loaded vehicle weight and 450 kilos of that is going to be on the toe ball, isn't it? So, we'll get to that. Okay. The other way to look at this, of course, is that if you're using the vehicle for work and it is heavily loaded to its GVM, then your tow capacity maximum drops to 3 1/2 ton because you can't breach that gross
20:30 - 21:00 combination mass. So, that's kind of important to realize if you're in the market. Don't go into this thinking that if you want to load it up to the 4 1/2 ton GVM, it's also going to be okay at the same time to tow 4 1/2 tons cuz you're going to be 1,000 kilos overweight if you do that. I would say though that among these super trucks, if you like, and I know they're different sizes, but the Ranger is the Ranger
21:00 - 21:30 Superduty is being touted as something that performs not unlike the next level up of big American truck, right? It's better in some respects based on the specifications that have been revealed, but it's not uncommon for there to be this disparity between the GCM and the sum of the tow weight and the GVM. They they all do it nearly. Although, interestingly, the F-150 XLT long wheelbase doesn't. F-150s roll differently to Rams and Silverados in
21:30 - 22:00 this respect. So, I did a bit of digging and the data I'm using is from redbook.com.au here. So take it up with them if this is incorrect. But I've listed the curb weights, the tow maxima, the gross vehicle masses for all of those vehicles, the sum of tow maximum and GVM for each one of them, and then the gross combination mass from Red Bull and the disparity between them. So they pretty much the Ram's got the disparity
22:00 - 22:30 of about 420 kilos. a Silverado ZR2 as 949 which is not unlike the disparity in play with the Ranger Superduty is it? You know, although interestingly the F-150 rolls without any disparity whatsoever between the two, you can load that vehicle to its maximum tow capacity and its GVM and you're at the GCM. So, there's that.
22:30 - 23:00 Although I'd have to say there that the gross vehicle mass is 3.2 tons, not 4.5. So in many ways the Ranger Superduty is going to eclipse the next size up if you like the F-150 XLT in long wheelbase. It's got dirty big truck bed and all of that stuff, but it's limited in its uh gross vehicle mass and it's got a curb weight not unlike what the Ranger Superduty is going to be. So, you'd have
23:00 - 23:30 to ask yourself, why would you buy an F-150 XLT long wheelbase when you could buy a Ranger Superduty and get more versatility notionally out of that? And that's going to play into the pricing, I think, of the Ranger Superduty because you wouldn't want more capability more cheaply. So, one thing I think is certain is that the Ranger Superduty is going to have to be more expensive than that. Otherwise, they're
23:30 - 24:00 going to give the customer base a reason not to buy that. And car companies hate doing this, obviously. The wheelbase of the F-150 XLT, however, is nearly 4 m versus about 3.3 for the Ranger XLT. And that increase in wheelbase is substantial if you want to do towing because more wheel basease means more sort of polar moment of inertia. It means more stability of the platform in
24:00 - 24:30 the plane of yaw. And that's one of the fundamental restraints for the trailer because pigtype trailers, you know, the trailers that everyone towes in Australia with the axles in the center of the the trailer, they're intrinsically unstable in yor and also in pitch. So y is like rotating like an old LP record and pitch is, you know, where your head nods forward and back under acceleration and breaks kind of thing. So the restraint
24:30 - 25:00 for the trailer in both yaw and pitch is provided by the vehicle and the amount of restraint possible in your is related to the mass of the vehicle in front and the mass of the trailer and also the uh polar moment like the mass moment of inertia of the vehicle in front and a longer wheelbase on the F-150 is going to give you more restraint rather than less. And there's really no way I can see at least that the Ranger Superduty
25:00 - 25:30 will overcome that limitation because it's based on, you know, fundamental physics. The other thing that wasn't disclosed, of course, is the axle load limits. And the rear axle load limit is kind of critical. It's going to be so critical for hanging out the back. It really is. The standard Ranger XLT has a wheelbase of 3.27 m. Okay. And the rear overhang according to Redbook is 1.07 m. And I'm just estimating here for
25:30 - 26:00 convenience that the additional candle lever offered by the tow hitch. Like the rear overhang is the distance between the back of the vehicle and the rear axle center line. Okay. If we add a tow hitch, I'm suggesting as an estimate that that's going to add 130 mm. And that's mathematically convenient because the 30 and the 70 add together to give you a total of 1.2 m of rear overhang. I'm suggesting from the rear axle center
26:00 - 26:30 line to the toe ball center line. All right. And this means that we can have a little think about what the implications of towing 4 1/2 tons really are. We just need dead brainiac who died a virgin but also greatest scientific genius of all time Isaac Newton on the case to get this one solved. All right. So what you can see here is the salient bits of the Ranger Superduty. The front axle, the rear axle, 450 kegs on the toe ball. All
26:30 - 27:00 right, it's 1.2 here and 3.27 for the wheelbase. meaning front axle to toe ball center line 4.47. Now there's this quaint thing in physics that every kid at school should know called the first Newton's first law of motion and it basically says that the sum of forces is zero when something's not accelerating. So if it's just sitting there not accelerating not falling to the center of the earth or
27:00 - 27:30 something then the sum of forces is zero. But also, if you want to go to the next level with Newton's first law, the sum of torqus acting on something that's not accelerating in an angular sense is zero. Okay, stick with me on this. Tampax up, dude. If uh you need to because you might bleed from the ears, but we can sum the torqus anywhere we want in a rigid body and it has to equal zero, said Isaac Newton. No reason to disagree with him at this point because
27:30 - 28:00 we've had like almost 500 years to disagree and still works. So I think we should sum the torqus about here because then we don't have to work out the front axle load. We can just work this torque has to equal this torque for the sum of them to be zero because they're in opposite directions and therefore one is positive and one is negative. And when you do this, the mathematics is here if you want to set check it out. But when you
28:00 - 28:30 solve for the rear axle load with 450 kegs on the back, obviously there's an amplification here because this is a lever. So the load here is just like the nutcracker. Sweet, dude. The node the load here is 615 kilos that arises from putting 450 kilos on the toe ball. So, the rear axle load limit is going to be critical to know for this vehicle.
28:30 - 29:00 You can be compliant with the tow capacity and the GCM and the GVM and still be over on the rear axle load limit and that will get you stopped at the side of the road not to proceed until you fix things up. And that's wholly inconvenient. The front axle load works the same way actually because if you bolt a whole lot of on the front here like a bullbar and a winch and driving lights and big fat UHF antenna and whatever else you want to put on the front of your car because
29:00 - 29:30 Christ knows why a big rack to hold long ladders or uh long building materials and things of that nature. Then the same sort of leverbased amplification in play here for the rear axle also pertains to the front axle when you put all that heavy ARB and trade sheet on the front of your ute. So you would really want to get that right and I'd suggest that they're likely to be the limiting factors as well because the axle load
29:30 - 30:00 limits were not disclosed and this would have to be for a reason. If they were hot and in practice very difficult to overload, they'd be on the table up front. It' be like, "This is the this vehicle is magical. It's anything that serves the fantasy is in. Everything that doesn't serve the fantasy is out, such as the engine being slightly duned for longevity and things of that nature. There's another thing of course that you
30:00 - 30:30 can infer from that lever amplification phenomenon, right? The dual cab is the shittest configuration for load carrying. And in many ways, Ford is engaging with mainstream motoring journalists to get gray nomads and ordinary punters sort of nice and hard about the Ranger Superduty. and they'll be targeting the dual cab with a tub, right? Like that's
30:30 - 31:00 notionally the person who uses a Superduty for holidays and heavy towing, but also for just running around, right? This is the towing scenario we just discussed. 450 kegs on the back equals 615 over the rear axle because Newton. Okay, tub loading is just like that. If you go out and have a look at all the dual cabs driving around on Australian roads at the moment, basically the front of the rear wheel is where the tub
31:00 - 31:30 begins and the tub extends and is caner levered out well behind the rear axle center line. So if you've got some kind of we could model it as an evenly distributed load in the tub. Then if you wanted to remove all of these arrows and just replace them with one arrow that was the total load in a representative spot, it would be here somewhere, right? Like it' be in the middle of the tub
31:30 - 32:00 somewhere. And therefore, it's can leave it out the back behind the rear axle. Not as far can leave it out the back as this, but still can leave it out the back. And that means that whatever load you put evenly distributed in the tub, the rear axle load is going to be more than that because of this lever type amplification that we've been discussing. And this indicates to me as well that the rear axle load limit more than anything else is going to be such a
32:00 - 32:30 critical purchasing decision factor for this vehicle. And you're going to have to be really careful about that. And unless you've actually studied applied physics, it's quite difficult to model that stuff. Like I picked up a mill drill the other day. It's like uh it's here. It's sitting on the table just over here. It's sitting on the floor just over here. Sorry. It's And it in total it's about that high. Maybe it's a little bit higher than that. So I
32:30 - 33:00 stuck it in the back of my dual cab and it's 3 or 400 kilos, something like that. It was on a pallet. They lifted it in with a forklift. I strapped it down with a ratchet strap and I drove home so freaking conservatively because you could feel this effect harbor bridging up in terms of elastic strain stress kind of thing. Harbor bridging up the chassis because of this mass distribution out the back of the rear axle. It's the shittest configuration for carrying actual load. So if you're a
33:00 - 33:30 punter, you'd really want to think about the configuration. Do you really need a dual cab if you want to carry heavy Because if you've got an extra cab or a single cab, obviously your tub moves forward and it's much more easy in that situation to centralize the overall effect of an evenly distributed load over the rear axle. And if you don't have the tray full, obviously you can shift all the forward to the bulkhead and then it
33:30 - 34:00 will be between the front and rear axles and this will not have an amplifying effect on the rear axle load at all. Quite the opposite because if it's in between the wheels, then the front axle carries a bit of it because Newton. Okay, that's just how this works. But dual cabs are going to be popular in this configuration. It's going to add more than the mass being carried in general to the rear axle load. And that
34:00 - 34:30 could be the constraining factor for you if you own a Ranger Superduty. So towing 4 1/2 tons, is it legal? Yeah, it's legal. Is it easy? No, it's not. And is it smart? That's what I want to talk about now. Is it a smart idea? And I would say no, it's not because of this whole business about what provides the restraint for the
34:30 - 35:00 trailer dynamically. When you're driving around, when you go over bumps, when you have to swerve, you know, when you have to stop in a hurry, what's restraining the trailer? When you stop in a hurry, there is an inertial forward motion of the trailer. It wants to pitch uh draw bar down and that is restrained by the vehicle in front. When the trailer gets a your influence like an inertial your acceleration for some reason, maybe the inside wheel going
35:00 - 35:30 around a bend, hits an obstacle, the trailer wants to yaw around that inertial shunt. The only thing providing the restraint is the vehicle in front. And part of that restraint, not all of it, but part of it is due to the mass of the vehicle in front. So if you've got a 2.6 ton vehicle, that's the estimate, and 4 1/2 tons of trailer. The ratio between these two things is about
35:30 - 36:00 1.7. If you look at the standard XLT, which can tow 3 1/2 tons, it weighs 2.13 tons. Then 1.6 64, but our curb weight is only an estimate here. So, these are close enough to be kind of the same. And my comment about that is that would be equally stupid, right? Because it's crazy to tow 3 1/2 tons with a standard Ranger. And I suggest that it's going to be crazy to tow 4 1/2 tons with the
36:00 - 36:30 Superduty, right? If 2 and 1/2 tons is like the safe limit, and I'd suggest 2 and a half tons is a rational, conservative, safe limit for most people with a standard dual cab ute rated at 3 1/2 tons because you'd have the ute weighing in its partially loaded configuration about 2 and 1/2 tons. a two and a half ton trailer. At least then you're not exceeding the mass of the vehicle in front with the mass of
36:30 - 37:00 the trailer behind and there's some hope of restraining it from some unforeseen terrible inertial input that would otherwise seek to park the caravan on its roof on the side of the road and drag you with it. Right? Nobody wants that. So if two and a half is reasonable for a standard dualcat like the XLT standard ranger then if we apply the same kind of mathematics ratio if you like of 1.2 two to the Superduty, excuse
37:00 - 37:30 me, if we apply that to the Superduty, then the rational limit for the Superduty is about three tons. You know, maybe three and a half in extremist, but certainly not 4 and a half. Not if you want to live to tell the tale. Not if you don't want to drive everywhere at 80 ks an hour. Not if you're not that used to towing and you just want the biggest van kind of thing. Towing 4 1/2 tons with a vehicle that light is nuts in my opinion. So, let's talk about
37:30 - 38:00 super dutification, the physics versus the dynamics of this because Ford has made and will continue to make all these claims about its R&D. And I don't want to take anything away from Ford's engineers. I've met several Ford engineers over the years, Australian ones and uh dudes in America as well. and they are extremely knowledgeable people who are very capable and specialists in their area. There's no doubt about that. But there's also
38:00 - 38:30 fundamental physics which they are up against. And I think if you ask them the right questions, they would generally acknowledge that they are up against fundamental physics and in a sense it can only be ameliated as opposed to being beaten. Right? So, we're going to increase the mass of this vehicle by about 500 kilos to superdutify it, aren't we? Right. And that's going to be just unladen. The
38:30 - 39:00 laden mass is going to go up by, I don't know, about a ton or something. The tires are going to go up from 31 in rolling diameter to 33. And there's also that that means that there's going to be a 1 in lift from that because the hub height the radius increases 1 in. The hub height goes up one inch cuz it sits on the radius. Okay. And there's going to be an estimated suspension lift as well. Like I I estimate 1 in, but it could be anything. But it looks to me
39:00 - 39:30 like there's about an inch worth of uh suspension lift into that vehicle as well. Right. So 2 in in total from uh tires and suspension worth of body lift. And we're going to make it heavier and we're going to let it carry more and tow more. It's going to be further up off the ground. Okay. The things that we know that nobody could really argue the toss about about doing that is it's going to have greater inertia because it's going to be heavier. It's going to
39:30 - 40:00 have a higher mass centrid like a center of gravity or mass centrids. depends how you uh model these things. You can model them in a complex way with lots of individual mass centrids. You could have a front axle mass centrid and a rear axle mass centrid and draw a line in between them and that would be like the inertial axis of the car for things like roll whatever you know. And you do the same thing with the roll centers, front roll center, rear roll center, join the dots, there's your roll axis, blah blah
40:00 - 40:30 blah. It depends how complex you want to make this kind of thing. But dumbing it right down, the center of gravity is going to go up substantially and it's going to be heavier. All right? And as a result of doing these things, especially this, the roll center is going to drop. That's how this works, right? This is why they have limits on standard vehicles for mug punters to lift. You'll see in just about every
40:30 - 41:00 state I think there's a limitation on how much overall lift you can get, how much can be derived from the tires sort of thing and how much can be derived from suspension not to exceed a total of blah. And that's because when you do that, you're around with the mass cent. You're lifting the mass centrid and dropping the roll center. And what that does is it increases the roll moment. And if you also make the vehicle heavier, you're getting more roll moment as well because there's more
41:00 - 41:30 inertial mass. Okay? And what that means is you drive around a corner the same way and you jack the car up too much and put the mass centrid too too high and the roll center too low and it just falls over and parks on the roof. And that's why the regulators have these limits that you cannot exceed without engineering certification because if you do exceed that then some engineer has to certify that you haven't done that unsafeely and that other steps have been taken to mitigate the consequence of
41:30 - 42:00 raising the mass centrid and lowering the roll center thus increasing the roll moment which is a fancy way of saying the leverage the inertial leverage when you go around a corner. Let's put it like this. If you drive a standard vehicle around a fixed corner at a fixed speed, like a fixed radius at a fixed speed, then it's going to roll a certain amount because of the roll moment because the mass center is higher than the roll
42:00 - 42:30 center and it just pushes it over and makes it roll. If you do these mods, right, and you raise the mass center and you lower the roll center and you keep the speed in the corner the same, you get more roll. And the more you do that, the more roll you get until the vehicle becomes unstable and goes off and parks on the roof. And you really don't want to do that. So, when you add two and three here, then we got greater roll moment. And when you add one into the picture, which is more mass anyway,
42:30 - 43:00 you get even greater roll moment, right? So these modifications aimed at carrying more load and towing uh more trailer are very hard to justify in the sense that raising it all up like that makes it worse at doing those things. Okay, particularly towing because you want less roll moment, I would have thought. But anyway, they can maybe offset that to some degree by increasing the track
43:00 - 43:30 and thus giving the vehicle a little bit more stability by making it wider. And Ford's engineers are pretty good. They know what they're doing. But these modifications intrinsically make the vehicle worse at being heavily loaded driving around a bend and also towing a heavy trailer driving around a bend. And in both of those cases, all receiving some terrible inertial input from a defect in the road that pushes it closer to the limit of the envelope
43:30 - 44:00 of its control. All right? And that means that they're going to have to be really careful about how they do this. And you're going to be have you're going to behave and you're going to have to be really careful about how you drive it because these things are real. Okay, Isaac Newton says these things are real and there's really nothing you can do about that. And when you look at it, they've given it more off-road compatible tires. So you think about it
44:00 - 44:30 when you're towing your 4 and a half ton aluminium full of your effluent with you and your lovely wife across Australia. What type of road are you generally driving on? And the answer is bumen overwhelmingly 80s something% of your trip bumen right and what that means is you're driving off-road oriented tires on bumen. They don't offer as much grip as on-road oriented tires, okay? They
44:30 - 45:00 just don't. Plus, you've jacked up the mass centrid, added mass, lowered the roll center, and intrinsically made the vehicle less stable when it comes to recovering control, taking evasive action, doing any of that stuff. So, sorry to burst the bubble on the Ranger Superduty. I'm sure it's going to be an okay car. I I am. And I'm sure it's a substantial upgrade over a Ranger, but
45:00 - 45:30 the what I can only describe is the gushing that's been going on about this vehicle based on the limited specifications like 4 1/2 ton towing, 4 1/2 ton GVM, but not both together and with an undisclosed curb mass. That's just undignified and in my view it's doing you a disservice which is essentially why I wanted to lay all this out. So I hope this doesn't mean
45:30 - 46:00 you spend the rest of the week crying into your cornflakes or your schoona because you had these plans this bubble which I have just burst. But if you're going to be spending that much money and it's going to be six figures, dude, you'd want to go into that with your eyes open. And you'd want to make sure absolutely sure based on uh calculations relating to payload capacity that involve the curb weight and also the axle load capacities before you spend
46:00 - 46:30 the big bucks only to be gutted by the fact that you had an impression that that car could do a particular thing. which based on the totality of circumstances and the totality of specifications that it may not really be able to do for You.