12 Hour Long Drive Data and thoughts in a 2024 Lariat 4x4

Just did a 12 hour straight drive from Savannah, Georgia to Trenton,New Jersey. I figured people might like to see the drive data. I felt like this is a good example of the type of practical activity/usage that makes midsize pickups appealing to people since oftentimes theres debate about these vehicles being pointless or not used for their intended purpose by the people that buy them.

Lariat 4x4, used regular fuel, normal drive mode the whole trip. Back seat was folded down and loaded with a good amount of stuff, my girlfriend and dog in front seat and bed had two bicycles in it which prevented cover from being closed, would be curious to see how much better I would have done on MPG if I could have closed cover. I will say that if you do fold your seat down be careful with where the seat belt receivers go, I had some indentation/stretching left in the leather from that that I hope goes away over time. Left NJ with 900 some miles on the truck, full road trip down and back and cruising around was 1800 miles, truck now sitting with about 2700 miles on it. A few general thoughts:

The trip data posted above represents probably 85% highway driving and 15 percent in god awful Washington DC stop and go traffic.

-Overall, was extremely happy with truck, I also drove down there as well so I got a ton of time (40 hours over the course of 6 days) riding in this thing, but that drive was broken up with stops so that data less useful.
-Even after 12 hours I found the seat and drive to be extremely comfortable.
-The Ford driver assistance stuff was really nice. The adaptive cruise and lane keeping was awesome, helpful but not overly intrusive, I prefer it over the Mercedes systems I am most accustomed to using. I know some people have no interest in that stuff but on this type of drive its very nice to have.
-Really happy with fuel economy especially considering the truck was pretty loaded up with crap. I used exactly two full tanks of fuel for the trip and got home with 2 miles to empty.
-4 cylinder turbo plenty of power in all scenarios I encountered, obviously the 6 cylinder would be cool and if you have towing needs the situation could be different, but for a wide variety of highway and local driving scenarios the power was more than adequate and enjoyable.
-For all of the stuff I read about the 10 speed transmission, I experienced very few moments during this trip where I felt like the transmission got caught in a weird spot. Barely felt shifts on the highway, overall very impressed especially as it translates to fuel economy.

Minor Gripes:
-I noticed my steering wheel is like a half inch off center which now is really hard to ignore.
-The seat belt check list that pops up every time you start the car is really annoying, ruins the cool built ford tough graphics and I don't want to be burdened by clicking the ok button every time I start my car, its genuinely annoying and I hope there's a way to get rid of that at some point.
-The fact that the 360 camera doesn't stay on when putting in the car in drive to inch forward after reversing while parking is very annoying. Once ive used reverse to park, at that point the 360 camera should stay on until I am back in drive and above a certain speed, having to hit the camera button to pull forward slightly after reversing in to a parallel parking spot makes no sense. I may be explaining it poorly but I'm sure other people know what I am referencing, also hope this can be fixed with a software update. (Edit: I have rectified this issue, there is an adjustment in the options menu which is shown in a post below, so this is no longer a gripe but will leave this here in case anyone else is encountering the issue)


This Ranger did everything I asked of it this week. Incredibly satisfied with the purchase, kicking myself for not owning a pickup truck prior to this, although this is probably the perfect truck for me in terms of size, tech, styling and luxury options so I guess maybe it was more a matter of waiting til there was one that I really liked. I know everyone bitches about the price of trucks now, but my truck has a $52k MSRP. I work for Mercedes and while Mercedes may have an edge in safety, I can tell you that the ride quality and tech in this truck are comparable and probably even superior in some ways to products we sell at this price point. Great looking truck with a ton of functionality and utility, if anyone reading this is considering buying one, I can not be more enthusiastic about the new Ranger, for me it checks all of the boxes and I look forward to owning this truck for a long time...

Nice review - agree on the seat belt annoyance

Seat belt warning and no 360 camera when parking without hitting the camera button is kind of annoying. Also, sometimes the parking sensors alert me to the parking curb, sometimes not. Not sure what's up with that, but it's not bothersome enough to really care. I'll just need to learn to hit the camera button when parking in tight spots until I get used to truck a bit more.

I was playing in the system today and did see where you can adjust the camera to stay on after you shift out of reverse. Not sure that the 360 camera also stays on, as I didn’t play with it, but it’s worth a shot I suppose.
Great review!

You did better than me. I did 25hour drive back to vegas and only got 16mpg.

Comfort was great and adaptive cruise controls was awesome .

CherryCoke said:

You did better than me. I did 25hour drive back to vegas and only got 16mpg.

Comfort was great and adaptive cruise controls was awesome .

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Something about that doesn’t make sense. Even if I look at my full trip data for there and back and all of the local driving i did while I was in Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah (1800 miles) I was getting 22mpg

Scotty piffin said:

The fact that the 360 camera doesn't stay on when putting in the car in drive to inch forward after reversing while parking is very annoying.

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Turn on the rear camera delay. Fixes this problem. I was also frustrated about that until I read the user manual.

Thanks for your write up & review! Glad a couple have said the truck is comfortable over a long distance. I keep hoping for full size levels of comfort but that might be asking a bit much out of the midsize class.

Is the steering wheel something the dealer can adjust at all? That would bother me too I think.

Scotty piffin said:

Something about that doesn’t make sense. Even if I look at my full trip data for there and back and all of the local driving i did while I was in Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah (1800 miles) I was getting 22mpg

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@CherryCoke has the Raptor so that's why he only getting 16mpg whereas the Lariat is getting 22mpg. I have 775 miles on my Lariat FX4 and getting close to 26mpg.

CrudeBacon77 said:

Turn on the rear camera delay. Fixes this problem. I was also frustrated about that until I read the user manual.

Click to expand...

Lol, sure enough, there it is, thanks, don’t know why i didn’t look at that earlier. Still feels like it should be default setting but whatever, as long as it’s fixable, thanks.

Congrats on the new truck and great write up! I believe in FORscan you can program the seatbelt warning out of the startup. Working on getting that figured out. Cant wait to see another Ranger in my area!

Scotty piffin said:

Just did a 12 hour straight drive from Savannah, Georgia to Trenton,New Jersey. I figured people might like to see the drive data. I felt like this is a good example of the type of practical activity/usage that makes midsize pickups appealing to people since oftentimes theres debate about these vehicles being pointless or not used for their intended purpose by the people that buy them.

Lariat 4x4, used regular fuel, normal drive mode the whole trip. Back seat was folded down and loaded with a good amount of stuff, my girlfriend and dog in front seat and bed had two bicycles in it which prevented cover from being closed, would be curious to see how much better I would have done on MPG if I could have closed cover. I will say that if you do fold your seat down be careful with where the seat belt receivers go, I had some indentation/stretching left in the leather from that that I hope goes away over time. Left NJ with 900 some miles on the truck, full road trip down and back and cruising around was 1800 miles, truck now sitting with about 2700 miles on it. A few general thoughts:

The trip data posted above represents probably 85% highway driving and 15 percent in god awful Washington DC stop and go traffic.

-Overall, was extremely happy with truck, I also drove down there as well so I got a ton of time (40 hours over the course of 6 days) riding in this thing, but that drive was broken up with stops so that data less useful.
-Even after 12 hours I found the seat and drive to be extremely comfortable.
-The Ford driver assistance stuff was really nice. The adaptive cruise and lane keeping was awesome, helpful but not overly intrusive, I prefer it over the Mercedes systems I am most accustomed to using. I know some people have no interest in that stuff but on this type of drive its very nice to have.
-Really happy with fuel economy especially considering the truck was pretty loaded up with crap. I used exactly two full tanks of fuel for the trip and got home with 2 miles to empty.
-4 cylinder turbo plenty of power in all scenarios I encountered, obviously the 6 cylinder would be cool and if you have towing needs the situation could be different, but for a wide variety of highway and local driving scenarios the power was more than adequate and enjoyable.
-For all of the stuff I read about the 10 speed transmission, I experienced very few moments during this trip where I felt like the transmission got caught in a weird spot. Barely felt shifts on the highway, overall very impressed especially as it translates to fuel economy.

Minor Gripes:
-I noticed my steering wheel is like a half inch off center which now is really hard to ignore.
-The seat belt check list that pops up every time you start the car is really annoying, ruins the cool built ford tough graphics and I don't want to be burdened by clicking the ok button every time I start my car, its genuinely annoying and I hope there's a way to get rid of that at some point.
-The fact that the 360 camera doesn't stay on when putting in the car in drive to inch forward after reversing while parking is very annoying. Once ive used reverse to park, at that point the 360 camera should stay on until I am back in drive and above a certain speed, having to hit the camera button to pull forward slightly after reversing in to a parallel parking spot makes no sense. I may be explaining it poorly but I'm sure other people know what I am referencing, also hope this can be fixed with a software update.


This Ranger did everything I asked of it this week. Incredibly satisfied with the purchase, kicking myself for not owning a pickup truck prior to this, although this is probably the perfect truck for me in terms of size, tech, styling and luxury options so I guess maybe it was more a matter of waiting til there was one that I really liked. I know everyone bitches about the price of trucks now, but my truck has a $52k MSRP. I work for Mercedes and while Mercedes may have an edge in safety, I can tell you that the ride quality and tech in this truck are comparable and probably even superior in some ways to products we sell at this price point. Great looking truck with a ton of functionality and utility, if anyone reading this is considering buying one, I can not be more enthusiastic about the new Ranger, for me it checks all of the boxes and I look forward to owning this truck for a long time...

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This is an awesome review! Thank you so much for posting this valuable information. I also have ordered the Ranger Lariat but with the 2.7 V6. I do not have a build date yet, looking forward to delivery. Once again thank you.

Why

Scotty piffin said:

Lol, sure enough, there it is, thanks, don’t know why i didn’t look at that earlier. Still feels like it should be default setting but whatever, as long as it’s fixable, thanks.

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why can’t I find that menu ?

Pharmerdan said:

Why
why can’t I find that menu ?

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Should be in the driver assist menu.

Great writeup Scotty...I just did a round trip from NE PA to Columbus OH steelmaking convention. Started with only 700 miles on Olaf, my XLT. Added about 930 miles, in 14 hours, and exactly 25.0 mpg when I got home. Granted the truck sat in the hotel lot for 4 days, so it was almost all highway.
Ride is great and as I mentioned before it's much quieter than my 5g was. The Android Auto is very confusing, switching from the radio to my phone, and Ford nav to Waze, I still don't understand it!!

Final thoughts, at the end of the annual convention, they give away a truck...Silverado, glad I didn't win it, how to get 2 trucks home? And the bugs!! This 6g is hard to wash...