2020 Ford Ranger Pricing and Specs

Unfortunately, because your car was delivered before May 1 2018, it's only covered by Ford's three-year warranty, which, of course, has expired. New Fords delivered after that 2018 cut-off were covered by an longer, five-year warranty, but that's not much use to you.

The best thing you can do is tackle Ford Australia's customer service department to see if they're open to covering part of the cost of repairs on a pro-rata basis. This is a sometimes a possibility if the vehicle is only just out of warranty or has covered very low kilometres with a full service history. But in your case, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

By connecting the Ranger to a diagnostic computer, you should be able to work out what's constricting the engine power. Modern engines constantly monitor everything from boost pressure to fuel pressure, and transmission temperature to alternator output. Somewhere in those hundreds of parameters will be the problem and it should be fairly obvious to somebody who knows how to interpret the codes the car's computer will spit out.

Meantime, it could be that the engine's installation skipped hooking up a sensor or piece of wiring and that has caused the engine to go into limp-home mode which limits the power the car will produce in the interests of self preservation. On a really simple level, have you checked that all the turbocharger's plumbing is intact and the joints are tight post engine installation? Loose plumbing joints and cracked or split plastic tubing are a common way to lose turbo-boost pressure.

Ford's popular PX Ranger (sold from 2011 until its replacement in 2022) marked a distinct move away from timing belt technology, but prior to that, the Mazda-sourced engine in your vehicle uses a rubber toothed timing belt. As such, this belt and its tensioners and idlers require replacement at regular intervals.

The recommended belt-change interval for this engine is 120,000km or six years, whichever comes first.