Ford Ranger

Which Ford Ranger years should you avoid?

Going by 8,197 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Ford Ranger years to avoid are 1998, 1999, 1996, 2000 and 2006.

• 1998576 complaints, 2.1× a typical Ranger year, most often about the tires; and 2.2× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (29 fires, 66 crashes, 7 deaths).
• 1999755 complaints, 2.8× a typical Ranger year, most often about the tires.
• 19962.5× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (18 fires, 41 crashes, 10 deaths).
• 2000670 complaints, 2.5× a typical Ranger year, most often about the tires.
• 20062.4× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (2 fires, 14 crashes, 4 deaths).

1 more year cleared the same bar; it is marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2022 and 2020 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

Too new to judge: 2025 and 2026. Complaints take a few years to arrive, so a new model year looks better than it is.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →