Doylestown Auto Repair

2019 Ford Ranger oil change procedure contains an extra step: wheel removal

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Performing general maintenance on modern vehicles can be a serious pain sometimes. It gets even worse for

supercars

like the

Lamborghini Huracan

and

Bugatti Veyron

. Changing the oil on one of those is a full day’s work and then some. The other day,

The Truth About Cars

obtained some documents detailing the necessary steps to swapping oil on the

2019 Ford Ranger

.

To get at the oil filter, you’re going to need to remove the left front wheel. This step isn’t especially egregious or unheard of in the world of automobiles, but it is annoying. Typically, trucks don’t force people to do this. In fact, not having to jack a vehicle up for an

oil change

is one of the biggest benefits of truck maintenance. Cars with less space up front might have you remove the wheel to get at a filter or drain plug.

Ford

made some changes to the U.S. market

Ranger

that forced this move. An enlarged oil cooler for the 2.3-liter EcoBoost means there’s no room for the filter to reside next to the pan anymore. Instead, Ford moved it up and into the side of the engine block, protruding at a right angle from it.

Once the wheel is off, there are nine push-pin clips in the wheel well that must be removed before access to the filter is granted. (Have fun with those nine clips after 100,000 miles of wear and tear.) Plenty of modern cars force people to go through these machinations to get to maintenance items like these. Shrouding, panels and other coverings are always needing to be removed to get to things — a lot of this is due to installation of under-car aero for better

fuel economy

or underbody protection. The Ranger is no different, as it also requires the removal of an access panel to get to the drain plug.

We’d like to point out that Ford’s service intervals for most of its vehicles (non-staggered setups) recommends a tire rotation to go along with every oil change. There’s no reason to expect anything different for the Ranger, meaning you’re going to have the tires off about the time you’re doing an oil change anyway. It’s unreasonable to expect this regimented service schedule to be followed explicitly throughout the truck’s life, so the tire removal could become annoying down the road. We point this out, because other mid-size trucks (

Colorado

,

Tacoma

,

Ridgeline

, etc.) don’t require the same extra step that the Ranger does. It’s hard to imagine this being the reason for anyone to get turned off of Ford’s revamped pickup, though.

Related video:

from Autoblog http://bit.ly/2BYG5up