- months after testing every new mid-size and full-size crew-cab pickup on sale except the 2019 ranger, the insurance institute for highway safety has finally released the ford's results.
- the ranger performed well but didn't outscore the toyota tacoma.
- mid-size pickups have all consistently scored worse on the passenger-side small front overlap test than in the same test performed on the driver's side.
the first crash-test ratings for the 2019 ford ranger show it's a tough truck in an accident, according to the insurance institute for highway safety (iihs), although no mid-size pickup has yet aced the group's complete battery of tests.
among 2019 crew-cab mid-size pickups, the ranger scored the same as the toyota tacoma. it earned the top good rating in five of six tests but a second-best acceptable for the passenger on the small front overlap test, in which a quarter of the vehicle's front end hits a rigid barrier at 40 mph. that's because the test dummy indicated a "significant risk of injury" to a real person's right leg due to some intrusion into the cabin. the same test on the opposite side yielded better results. like other pickups in this category including the gmc canyon and chevrolet colorado, which scored an even lower marginal in the passenger-side small overlap test, the iihs test shows ranger sustains more damage in the area surrounding the front passenger than around the driver.
elsewhere, the ranger scored marginal for headlight effectiveness and for the ease of installing child seats into the latch anchors. its standard forward emergency braking earned the top superior rating among collision-avoidance tests. these tests were also identical to the tacoma's. the national highway traffic safety administration (nhtsa) has not yet tested a ranger.
compared with the 1998 ranger, which the iihs ran in only one test, the new one is considerably safer and is evidence of how much ford reengineered its foreign-market truck to meet more stringent u.s. standards. but we do miss the old ranger's compact size.