can a ford ranger tow trailer on steep mtns rds?

Put actuators on the solar panels that can stand them up facing forward on downgrades. More frontal are with light weight works wonders for downgrade braking.

My truck needs to use brakes if descending 6% or better grades. Been down plenty of long 9%-10% grades without issue. Some engine braking helps and the brakes work fine. Some of these commenters need to have their brakes checked if they are having issues.

mkirsch wrote:
What is all this malarkey about "engine braking?"

I've owned several full size pickup trucks, all with small block V8's except my '03 Chevy 3500, and NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM could hold ITSELF back on any sort of incline using the engine alone. Downshift downshift downshift, rev rev rev, faster faster faster... I ALWAYS had to control the descent with brakes.

The ONLY truck I've ever owned that would control itself on a hill is the '03 Chevy 3500 with the 8.1L and Allison. Turn on tow haul mode, hold the brakes for 3 seconds, and the hill would have to be EXTREMELY steep to need brakes, and then only a brief tap. However, the truck still needs frequent application of brakes to maintain speed with any sort of trailer behind.

Unless you're throwing out a ship's anchor at the top of the hill, you're using brakes.

That's my experience with gas engines, not diesels with exhaust brakes. My current truck does a great job managing 25K+ GCW on 6-7% grades without having to use the brakes. The EB in my Duramax was considerably weaker, but still much better than any gas engine I've used.

I'll just leave this right here 10 spd transmission and engine braking
Enough Said

What is all this malarkey about "engine braking?"

I've owned several full size pickup trucks, all with small block V8's except my '03 Chevy 3500, and NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM could hold ITSELF back on any sort of incline using the engine alone. Downshift downshift downshift, rev rev rev, faster faster faster... I ALWAYS had to control the descent with brakes.

The ONLY truck I've ever owned that would control itself on a hill is the '03 Chevy 3500 with the 8.1L and Allison. Turn on tow haul mode, hold the brakes for 3 seconds, and the hill would have to be EXTREMELY steep to need brakes, and then only a brief tap. However, the truck still needs frequent application of brakes to maintain speed with any sort of trailer behind.

Unless you're throwing out a ship's anchor at the top of the hill, you're using brakes.

theoldwizard1 wrote:
The Ranger comes with a 10 speed automatic transmission. It can be shifted manually. USE IT ! Down shift early going up hill or down hill.

If it has the 10 sp transmission you don't have to shift manually. It has a Tow/Haul mode which incorporates engine braking and it works great. No need to overthink it, use Tow/Haul.

The Ranger comes with a 10 speed automatic transmission. It can be shifted manually. USE IT ! Down shift early going up hill or down hill.

I think other people have answered this appropriately, so I'll just add an example:

Just yesterday we drove eastbound over Monarch Pass in Colorado. The east side is 10 miles of 6-7% grade -- if you try going down that using nothing but your service brakes, you're going to end up on the runaway truck ramp halfway down. Driving in the mountains, the irresponsible thing is using your service brakes to maintain a fixed speed on the downhills rather than engine/transmission braking. Brakes fade under continued use and if you ride them to control your speed, they won't be effective when you actually need them to suddenly slow (like to make it around a curve) or stop the vehicle.

Oh, and the drum brakes that come on most trailers are much worse about fading than disc brakes - on my fifth wheel, I converted over to disc many years ago, and suggest you do the same if you think you're going to be using the trailer brakes on any long grades. Most trailers come with barely sufficient brakes for the hill country.

On a long steep downhill, if you use the truck & trailer brakes as the primary means of controlling speed, they will heat up (especially if you just ride them). Then when you have a situation where you need hard braking (reach a sharp curve or someone pulls out in front of you, etc...), there is the risk that the brakes overheat and lose braking power.

Instead, if you use primarily engine braking to keep the speed under control, you have fresh cool brakes on the truck & trailer that have their full capability available in those situations.

If the engine braking isn't enough, you want to do a short but fairly hard braking for a few seconds, then let the truck slowly gain speed before repeating. That will allow the brakes to cool off a bit between uses.

Without a doubt you can tow a trailer up to the max tow limits of that Ranger without exceeding any other max limit. Now all you need to know is things like GVWR, GAWR (front and rear), Payload rating, how much "extra" weight you will be carrying in the truck, etc. None of that information can be determined by anyone but YOU! So you have to read up and see how it all works, or give us all of the numbers and we can help you work through it. Anything else then working through the "real" numbers is just SWAG. Clicky for Learning about it all