Should I buy a 2023 Ford Ranger Sport 2.0TT or a Nissan Navara Pro-4X?

The last 12 months was a bumper year for dual-cab utes. Not only do the vehicles that comprise the segment continue to sell at an incredible clip, but the category has also seen multiple key new models refreshed.

For segment stalwarts like the 2023 Nissan Navara, which has soldiered on through several model-year updates and facelifts since its launch in 2015, it’s certain the release of a new-generation Ford Ranger will take some wind out of its sails.

The 2023 Ford Ranger is about the closest thing Australians can hang their hat on as a locally built car. Designed and developed here (but manufactured in Thailand), it means the new Ranger is a car imagined with Aussies at heart and, therefore, should be one of the best suited cars to our country.

Both the Ford Ranger and Nissan Navara line-ups have myriad options to suit individual buyers, but for the purposes of this comparison we’ll focus our attention at the higher end of the range with the 2023 Ford Ranger Sport and 2023 Nissan Navara Pro-4X.

What we’re trying to find out with this pairing is whether the Nissan Navara has the chops to cut it with the current ute segment frontrunner. The Ford Ranger has been making a lot of noise for the last six months since its Australian launch, notably taking out our 2022 Best Dual-Cab Ute Megatest.

By comparison, the Nissan Navara languished near the back of the field, taking out fifth place (of eight).

Let’s have a deeper analysis of what each of these options bring to the table.

The 2023 Ford Ranger is about the closest thing Australians can hang their hat on as a locally built car. Designed and developed here but manufactured in Thailand, it means the new Ranger is a car imagined with Aussies at heart and, therefore, should be one of the best suited cars to our country.

It slips into a busy dual-cab ute market to compete with rivals including the Nissan Navara, Toyota HiLux, Isuzu D-Max, Mitsubishi Triton, Mazda BT-50, plus newcomers such as the GWM Ute . Currently, the Toyota HiLux sits at the top of the sales charts to date, though it’s a position Ford will obviously be pining for, so long as its supply can meet demand.

Ford has a full range of new Rangers spanning 4×2 variants to 4×4, and offers a variety of trim grades to suit specific buyer preferences. The model grade we’ll focus on in this comparison is the 2023 Ford Ranger Sport with a 2.0-litre twin-turbo four-cylinder diesel engine.

The variant sits near the top of the line-up in terms of positioning and price, just below the Ranger Wildtrak flagship. Of course, the wild Ford Ranger Raptor is above the Wildtrak as a performance-focused ute, but the Wildtrak sits at the top of the regular range. Buyers at a lower budget can choose the Ranger XLT, XLS, or XL.

With the Ranger Sport you have the option of a 3.0-litre turbo-diesel six-cylinder for an extra $3000, though the 2.0TT engine under the bonnet of our Ranger means its more affordable at $63,690 before on-road costs. Outputs of 154kW/500Nm are sent to a part-time four-wheel-drive system through a 10-speed automatic transmission.

Our car on test featured the $900 Touring Pack, which brings a 360-degree camera system, trailer brake controller, and exterior puddle lamp lighting, while the $400 spray-in bedliner sits in lieu of a drop-in plastic tub liner.

Dual-cab utes are the gift that keeps on giving to manufacturers in this country. Release a new one, regardless of price, and you’ve got an immediate waiting list.

It wasn’t quite that bad when Nissan launched the current Navara, but that was in a pre-pandemic world. Supply and demand were a little more closely aligned than they are now in 2023.

The Nissan Navara separated itself immediately from the pack thanks to a rear end that did away with the leaf spring suspension and made the brave move to coil springs. Not the only ute to do so, nor the first, but a rarity in the segment, and a big shift for a volume brand.

The Navara arrived feeling more car-like, more sophisticated, more focused on unladen ride quality – something dual cabs never did very well. The Volkswagen Amarok was as good as it got with leaves, at the time, and then Ford kept fettling the Ranger to make it as good as possible.

There was some bleating about load carrying and the Nissan not being able to lug a near-tonne worth of whatever it might be in the tray. Problem is, criticism like that doesn’t take into account the fact that few people spending Navara Pro-4X money expect their dual cab to actually work for a living. I was way more inclined to celebrate the Navara’s car-like cabin and on-road manners unladen.

Isuzu blew the segment up with a new D-Max, which as you know also provides the underpinnings for the Mazda BT-50, and the whole state of play had changed again. The new Navara wasn’t quite so new anymore. And then Ford released an all-new Ranger. And, we know how that has gone thus far.

The question, then, is whether the Navara can still hang with – or at least land a few blows on – the best in the segment. Plenty of buyers don’t care which dual cab is the best. Brand loyalty, decisions based on style, or a preference for cabin ergonomics mean the best isn’t always the one punters want.

We loved the cabin of the old Ford Ranger for its upmarket materials and practical design, but interestingly there isn’t a huge amount of carryover design exhibited by the new car. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s just a new feel and new style for the new car.

In place of the padded dash of its predecessor, the new Ranger gets a harder-touch dash-top, though it does incorporate more storage in the form of a small shelf built within. It also gets odd slots at the extremes of the dash that are meant for cupholders in the Wildtrak, but they’re awkwardly left blank in the Sport variant and aren’t deep enough to store anything useful.

Storage elsewhere inside the cabin is good, with a little slot under the infotainment screen for keys, a wireless charging slot, and two cupholders. Ford Australia has proven it knows the Australian market better than anyone else by incorporating a cool Easter egg that sees a special slot especially for your Macca’s run fries – nice touch.

The seats feel lower than I’ve come to expect from the Ford Ranger, as a comfortable car-like seating position. The electric driver’s seat misses out on under-thigh adjustment to keep you from falling forward in your seat, though it does raise and lower as needed. It’s a picky point, and doesn’t detract from the seat feeling comfortable overall, but could have been more adjustable.

Black leather-accented seats don’t feel the best quality to the touch, and probably should feature some accented stitching to liven up the space of this high-spec offering, like the Wildtrak gets.

Ford’s opted to do away with the traditional placement of an interior door pull high on the door card and has incorporated them into the grab handle. The handles themselves feel a bit plasticky and cheap for the high-spec variant, and could have benefitted from a bit of silver trim to also make them stand out more. However, they do make the door easier to open as you simply unlatch and push the door out.

Second-row passengers are treated to a good amount of space that doesn’t encumber on legroom, headroom, or space for your feet. The knees of taller passengers do hit the seatbacks, but overall the area remains very spacious. In terms of amenities there are air vents, map pockets, a 12-volt power outlet, and a fold-down centre armrest.

Further back you’ve got the Ranger’s tub, which is lined with a spray-in liner in our example. According to our tape measure, its dimensions are 1540mm long, 1590mm wide and 540mm high.

Navara’s cabin has always been well executed, but like all dual-cabs, there are some things that could be improved.

The steering wheel has no reach adjustment, only tilt, and I’d like to be able to lower the seat down into the cabin more. You do feel – if you’re a taller driver – that you’re sitting a little too high up in the cabin. Compared to the best in the dual-cab segment, that’s something you will notice.

The fact that the Navara feels car-like inside the cabin remains, and that’s thanks not just to the dash design or choice of materials, but also the general ambience. Second-row passengers get air vents, and there’s dual-zone AC up front.

The second row is another area that could be better, especially now against newer competition. The Navara isn’t horribly cramped by any means, and even the biggest could be more comfortable, but it is tighter in the second row.

Two USB ports up front and two in the back take care of charging, and we’ve always liked the sliding rear window, which aids with airflow through the cabin when the mood takes you. The cabin remains, as it has been since launch, comfortable and insulated around town or out on the highway.

It is a lovely touring dual-cab on any road. The all-terrain tyres remain impressively quiet, even at highway speed.

Ford’s Sync infotainment system has always been a Drive favourite for its simple operation and big blocky design, and the new 10.1-inch portrait-mounted display featuring the most up-to-date version (Sync 4) is no different. It’s easy to approach, displays very nicely in portrait fashion, and contains all the right functionality to keep occupants entertained.

Special shout-out to the way maps display – they look great – and you can call up a series of recently used shortcuts midway through the screen. The display is quick to respond to touch inputs.

One thing it’s missing is a home screen to show various information all in the one view, though it’s not the end of the world. Image quality from the 360-degree cameras is high. Also, for as big a screen as it is, the button icons for things like the keyboard could be larger. I had some trouble inputting addresses for navigation because of my fat fingers.

Wireless and wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity are included as standard, as are satellite navigation and digital radio.

The digital instrument cluster can cycle through information such as drivetrain status, trip data, and song information, but it can’t show things like maps.

An 8.0-inch touchscreen controls infotainment duties for Navara, and the grainy image from the 360-degree camera is a mile off the best in segment now. It works, but it could be so much clearer.

While the screen is adequate, newer dual cabs have much larger screens. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s something you’ll pick up on if you test the Navara back-to-back with the competition.

The functionality of the screen itself was excellent on test, and we had no dropouts with the wired phone connection. Navara gets Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as native satellite navigation and DAB+ digital radio.

The surround-view camera also works well enough, but could also do with a clarity improvement. The 7.0-inch digital driver’s display is dwarfed by the new Ranger’s, but the information it displays is easy to decipher and customise.

I find Nissan’s controls, switchgear, and general layout to be useful, sensible and robust. None of the switchgear feels tinny or cheap, it’s not stupidly laid out or complex, and it all works as it should. The audio system itself produces strong sound quality when you’re rolling down the highway too.

ANCAP recently tested the 2022 Ford Ranger line-up and awarded it a full five stars under the most recent 2020–22 criteria.

In testing, the Ranger received an 84 per cent adult occupant protection score, 93 per cent for child occupant protection, 74 per cent vulnerable road user protection, and 83 per cent for safety assist systems.

Initially tested back in 2015, the Navara was awarded the full five-star safety rating from testing body ANCAP. Under recently introduced changes to ANCAP, rating expire after six years, leaving the current Navara range as unrated.

The scoring was different when the Navara was tested. You’ll see that the Navara scored 14.01 out of 16 for frontal offset, 16 out of 16 for side impact, and two out of two for the pole test. Whiplash protection was good, pedestrian protection marginal, and the overall score was 35.01 out of 37 to get to the full five-star rating.

The entire Ranger line-up scores an array of active safety additions such as autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian, cyclist, and junction turning intervention, lane-keep assist with road edge detection, blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and rear cross-traffic alert.

It also gets nine airbags, including a centre bag designed to keep the driver’s and passenger’s heads from colliding in side impacts.

Other technology included with the Ranger Sport is a drive-mode selector dial mounted on the centre console, which can select between six terrain modes.

The 2022 Nissan Navara Pro-4X gets seven airbags, autonomous emergency braking with forward collision alert, trailer sway assist, lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, automatic high beams, a driver fatigue detector, rear parking sensors, the 360-degree camera, and tyre pressure monitoring. Hill descent control and hill start assist are also included.

However, the Navara doesn’t feature radar cruise control, speed sign recognition, or a centre airbag between the front seats, features that are now standard for D-Max, BT-50 and Ranger. Even though Navara has been around for a few years now, updates that add these features would make a big difference against newer competition.

For its range of vehicles, Ford offers a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty. It expects customers to come back to the dealership every 12 months or 15,000km to service their vehicle. The first four services cost $329 each.

Every time you visit a Ford for a scheduled service, you’ll automatically receive an additional 12 months of roadside assistance until the car reaches seven years old.

We inquired about how much insurance will cost for the 2022 Ford Ranger Sport and received a $1765 quote, based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

Nissan’s five-year warranty covers unlimited kilometres, and there’s a capped-price servicing scheme for that same period as well. Service intervals are handy for those of you racking up serious miles, with a 12-month/20,000km expectation, although I’d probably be back at Nissan for an oil and filter every 10,000km. Over three years you’ll spend $1816, and over five years the scheduled services cost $2971. Buyers also get five years of complimentary roadside assist.

The Navara Pro-4X will cost you approximately $2065 per annum to insure based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

The overriding experience gleaned after driving the new Ford Ranger is one of extreme refinement. It was already one of the most car-like dual-cab utes in the previous generation, but Ford has made striding improvements in engineering the new car to be even more approachable to drive and comfortable to use daily.

Our specification makes do with the 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel engine, not the new 3.0-litre diesel option. That said, the smaller powertrain doesn’t miss out on too much – roughly 30kW/100Nm. As it stands, the 2.0-litre twin-turbo engine outputs 154kW/500Nm to a part-time four-wheel-drive system. The only transmission available is a 10-speed automatic.

It all works in unison to provide a smooth power delivery that’s responsive to sudden throttle inputs and delivers a waft of handy torque when needed for situations like overtaking. We’ve levelled complaints at the transmission previously for its tendency to continually hunt for the right gear around town, but the experience in the new Ranger is better.

Compared to other utes, very little engine vibration makes its way through to the cabin, and Ford has also improved the Ranger’s tendency to shunt the driveline when changing gears.

Other areas that have changed include the steering weight, which is a heavier feel than it was before, though it still lacks definitive feel around the centre. It remains fairly easy to manoeuvre about town, without having to labour over steering efforts to perform three-point turns for example.

In the rain, the Ranger feels assuredly planted and connected to the road, and you don’t often experience that ute phenomenon where it could slip out from underneath you on the wrong stretch of tarmac.

The driving position is low but still affords good visibility out of the cabin. The seat bolstering is supportive around corners, but under-thigh support could be more scooped to help you keep set in your seat. As a side note, Ford has frustratingly skimped on auto-down windows for the rear row.

Ride comfort is good all round. The Ranger Sport still uses leaf springs at the rear, but doesn’t exhibit too much bucking or unsettledness over larger upsets like speedhumps. It’s a tied-down profile that remains comfortable over uneven surfaces and shields passengers inside from the vast majority of road impacts.

It’s still a hefty 2242kg (kerb) weight to deploy around a set of successive bends, but the Ranger manages to exclude the top-heavy tendencies often exhibited by a high-riding dual-cab ute.

As with the Ranger above, we focused on around-town manners for this test, with the usage of the regular buyer in mind. We know from previous tests that if you’re towing a heavy trailer, for example, the Navara’s 2.3-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo diesel engine can’t match the best in the segment. However, with 140kW and 450Nm on offer, the Navara can get around town without ever working hard.

The peak torque figure being available so low in the rev range means it always feels punchy in traffic, whether you need to get moving speedily from rest or roll onto the motorway. There’s a clean surge of punch from down low that keeps delivering to up near the redline. Navara will happily sit on 110km/h all day if you want it to, and remain efficient doing it. If you like the idea of family road trips on the weekend, the Navara will make light work of touring duties.

Where the engine works hard when towing, it never feels – or sounds – stressed around town, and that makes for a relaxing experience whether you’re cruising along the motorway or in stop/start traffic. Cleverly matched to the engine, the automatic’s seven ratios work away without the transmission seeming to hunt or constantly shift gears just for the sake of it. The gearbox didn’t do anything weird or clunky at any time during our week of testing.

While the Pro-4X does get all-terrain tyres, it’s well behaved in the city, even on a wet surface, with a light feel to the steering that makes moving it around a cinch too. The brakes work well, without needing a heavy shove to pull the Navara up, and whether or not you take the Navara off-road, the off-road-focused rubber doesn’t detract from the on-road reality.

It’s really quite interesting testing a dual cab in town, where you can watch hundreds of others being used for exactly that purpose. No matter how good they are off-road or at work, the reality for the more expensive variants is that they will be doing exactly what I’ve been doing on test.

As such, the Navara’s coil-spring rear end is a bonus. While it can’t haul huge weight as easily as leaves can, that’s irrelevant for anyone who doesn’t do that, and the Navara does ride effortlessly over poor surfaces. In the major cities at the moment, we have plenty of poor surfaces to give a dual cab a workout too.

There’s a sense of solidity and insulation to the way the Navara works its way through rubbish patches of road, right up to highway speed. It’s not perfect, but it’s composed and comfortable. Put the Navara head-to-head on-road with a new Ranger Wildtrak, and Nissan’s venerable dual cab is starting to feel its age. But a Ranger is more expensive, and the Navara is still accomplished at getting around town in a relaxed manner.

There’s no doubt the dated Nissan Navara was facing some tough competition pitted against the latest and greatest Ford Ranger.

Ford has introduced one of the most impressive new car releases of 2022 with the Ranger, let alone being a great ute release. Though the enduring Nissan Navara undercuts the newcomer on price, there’s a lot more to the Ranger experience than meets the eye.

It may walk away with the win on this occasion, but let’s break down why.

The Ford Ranger in Sport specification with the 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel engine starts some $3000 more expensive than the Nissan Navara Pro-4X. However, the Ford claws back some considerable dollars when it comes to servicing – the Navara is more than $1600 more expensive over the first five services. For what it’s worth, insurance premiums are cheaper with the Ranger according to our research too.

As for the interiors, while the Ranger might lose some points for its hum-drum materials choice, it at least backs up the presentation by offering a suite of features and a new infotainment experience. By comparison, the Navara chooses hard plastics, but also doesn’t have too much to write home about in the infotainment and equipment stakes.

Ford’s Ranger has a neat portrait-mounted infotainment system with wireless smartphone mirroring, while it also includes app-based car connectivity. The Nissan has nothing like that and presents old hat because of it.

When it comes to driving, the Ford Ranger outclasses the Nissan Navara yet again. It’s far more refined in the powertrain stakes, while outputting more power and more torque. Both are rated to tow the same 3500kg (braked). The Ford feels very planted to drive around town or further afield, whereby the Nissan can tend to be heavier in the steering which can annoy in suburbia.

The Nissan remains a fine option within its segment, but is starting to show its age against newer utes like the Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max.

Though you will pay more initially for the Ford Ranger Sport over the more affordable Nissan Navara Pro-4X, it’s well worth the extra spend for the amount of extra kit you receive, the enhanced outputs, and the overall refined experience of the Ford Ranger.