This kind of blows my mind because I see Rangers everywhere or maybe Frontiers just blend in so much from being the same thing they were 15 years ago. I don't think the pricing is terrible either, especially compared to the Colorado and Ridgeline with options.
Fleet sales for the Frontier. Does your Auto Zone store have a white 4cyl base Nissan Frontier out front for deliveries?
These are the people who used to buy inexpensive, base Rangers and have switched to Frontiers.
You can still get a extended cab manual 4cyl frontier for like $18.5k cheapest ranger is $24.3k.
After living with a new Ranger for a few days, its WAY to big, and gutless.
Frontiers are also slated for an update soon. Therefore, before the body change, I bet that Nissan is making some real bargain deals to their large purchasing customer on a vehicle built with equipment that is fully depreciated.
John Welsh said:Fleet sales for the Frontier. Does your Auto Zone store have a white 4cyl base Nissan Frontier out front for deliveries?
Our parts stores run the nastiest, scabbiest trucks they can buy for $1000 and run them until they die. Nissan Frontier? No. Hardbody? Maybe.
I think ford missed the mark with the ranger. They maybe needed 2. A big bubbly ugly little big truck with “attitude” like the chevy canyonero or whatever it is, and a normal looking bare bones small fleet truck. In my industry, trucks are the main vehicle. F-150 for full size and the small trucks were always rangers or s-10’s. Now im seeing many more frontiers in the mix from the folks who still wanted a “small truck”. The few canyoneros i see are generally pretty new and falling apart and sound sick.
Companies like Dolan, a division of Hertz is a big company for owning cars like the leased fleet you might see outside a corporate Auto Zone Store. Wiki says that Dolan has over 165,000 vehicles currently under lease.
As an expample, Dolan might have offered Auto Zone a very good price on white Rangers in the past but right now, Dolan can off cheaper, white Frontiers.
John welsh reminded me, national rent a car has a ton of crew cab frontiers for rentals. We primarily use national and ive had “my truck” plenty of times as a rental. I have a 2012 crew cab pro-4x frontier. Nice having a rental with no learning curve.
Yeah... have you read the reviews on the new Ranger? Not great. One of the magazines put it dead last in a comparo between the Colo/Can, Taco, Frontier, Gladiator, and Ranger.
Here's a old story but im sure it still happens. The last year the Ford Taurus was sold to the public was 2006. For 2007, ALL Taurus sales were to fleets. This means if you bought a used 2007 Taurus is was likely a rental car or a salesman car. At the time a friend worked for Praxair and the company was loading up on 2007 Tauruses as salesman cars. I think because Praxair needed to hit a quantity threshold, they offered the new Taurus deal to employees also.
For $13.5k they could buy a Taurus. MSRP at the time was $20k. In 2007 I was doing a ton of business travel. We had a corp card with Hertz. EVERY time we rented, you got a Taurus. Hertz had a ton of these cars. I used to joke that my other car (most business days) was a Taurus.
Shortly after, tons of used car dealerships had one year old Tauruses on their lots for $9,999 type offers.
Im sure Nissan is doing a similar blow out to the truck they have made since 2005
Where I live (Nothern California) Tacos rule the sales roost, with Frontiers, Colorados and Ridgelines a long way back. Rangers? I'm not sure that I've even seen one yet.
I saw a new Ranger for the first time the other day, or should I say it was the first time I realized I was looking at a Ranger...if I hadn't read the name badge as I walked by it, I would have assumed it was a full size Ford truck.
Can't say I've seen one being driven on the street yet. I've seen one sitting on a dealer lot.
I'd rather a frontier than a ranger.
Ive seen the rangers from a few years ago out of country. I went to grand cayman for work and man they have some great vehicles. Tons of JDM stuff. They also had some real cool rangers that were bigger and pretty nice looking.
In reply to Professor_Brap :
It has 270hp and 310ft/lbs... seems like that would be plenty for a midsize. Heck, that’s more than most full sizes got one model cycle ago.
In reply to Saron81 :
It is never in a good gear, its always down shifting 2-3 times when you touch the throttle, we towed a TO-35 on a 20ft trailer. It takes rpm to get anything done.
Saron81 said:In reply to Professor_Brap :
It has 270hp and 310ft/lbs... seems like that would be plenty for a midsize. Heck, that’s more than most full sizes got one model cycle ago.
Yeah, but with a full tank of gas and one human they weigh darn close to 5000 lbs.
Scuttlebutt says that early sales are low because early production volume is low and that Ford is in reality selling pretty much every Ranger that hits the lot.
My local Ford dealer has 1400 vehicles in inventory, but very few are Rangers. The supply seems limited to the high end models at launch and the quantities haven't hit the lot yet. I did read a couple of reviews and I bought a Canyon. As for the power, mine has 310 HP and I believe it's over 5000 lb, it's a crew cab 4x4. It's plenty fast enough for me.
Edit: I guess it's lighter than I thought. Online source says 4500 lb.
I'm amazed you are seeing Rangers everywhere. I saw a ton of them in Vietnam last year, but can count on one hand the number I've seen here in the DC area - which is odd since this place is full of high-end pickups...Tacomas and Tundras and F150/250, Raptors, etc....dime a dozen. I see Frontiers pretty often, but yes they are often working trucks or older models to my recollection.
But yeah, very few Rangers here - one guy at work has one and it looks nice.
IDK, they look awfully big. Then again, a new Tundra looks like it's bigger than a 1st gen Tundra....
My Canyon is almost 225" long. That is big, it's 7" narrower than the full size trucks, 7" shorter wheelbase, 14" shorter overall. Full size is just "MOAR BIGGAR !"
The Ranger/F150 are much the same sizes.
Pretty common early in model runs. When the new Nissan Titan came out, the outgoing final year Xterra outsold it by quite a bit for several months, even though Nissan had dropped the Xterra from all marketing and pretended it didn’t exist.
FWIW, they still sold over 20k Xterras per year the last couple years despite trying to starve it to death.
Saw this Ranger “lariat” next to a fleet 2wd f-1 fiddy today. The ranger looks like its “leveling kit” is going to need 3-4” up front. Very tail high. From square behind they really didnt look very different size wise. 
irish44j said:I'm amazed you are seeing Rangers everywhere. I saw a ton of them in Vietnam last year, but can count on one hand the number I've seen here in the DC area - which is odd since this place is full of high-end pickups...Tacomas and Tundras and F150/250, Raptors, etc....dime a dozen. I see Frontiers pretty often, but yes they are often working trucks or older models to my recollection.
But yeah, very few Rangers here - one guy at work has one and it looks nice.
IDK, they look awfully big. Then again, a new Tundra looks like it's bigger than a 1st gen Tundra....
Come down to Hampton, they everywhere here. Also just got back from some country near the Arabian Gulf....lots of them overthere as well of course. Same with the Hilux, Prado, Land Cruiser, Hiace's, Armadas, etc. I did see a Renault Meganne RR.
I drove a manual Ranger while I was over there. It was gutless but a base model with a bunch of dudes and gear in it. I enjoyed the Toyota Hiace van more; but, that's because when you hit a bump at speed in the Hiace you could enter the stratosphere.
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