My husband was driving down the road and his 2003 Ford Ranger FX4 5-speed gave a small lurch and a "stutter". since he was right there at his destination, he pulled into the driveway and shut the engine off. Thinking that it was just a glitch (like his foot slipped off the clutch, or something along those lines), he went into the house to get our son and take him home. He was inside the house no more than 5 minutes. As he was carrying our son out to the truck, he saw that there was smoke pouring out from under the hood. Of course, emergency services were called. The fire reached the inside of the truck within a couple of minutes and began spreading along the ground. After putting the fire out, the fire marshall indicated that he believed that the fire started towards the back of the engine compartment on the driver's side. The truck, of course, will be a total loss. The passenger side airbag (which was disarmed as our infant son rode on that side) had deployed, the windshield had exploded, as had the two front tires. As for the hood, there was nothing left.

- Covington, GA, USA

Cruise control on my 2003 Ford Ranger 4X4 appeared to disengage when I shifted the truck into neutral going down a steep hill. When my vehicle slowed, I shifted from neutral back into drive and the engine raced to redline(rev limiter) as the cruise was trying to immediately increase the speed without waiting for the transmission to engage fully. I shifted back into neutral and then I noticed that I had the cruise control on. I cut cruise control off, then shifted back into drive and everything worked correctly. If cruise control is supposed to disengage when shifted to neutral, it really should disengage not race to redline when shifted back into drive. I don't know what the affect would be if an engine at 6000 rpms suddenly engages the transmission at 65 mph. I'd rather have the engine race when I first put the shifter in neutral than when I shifted back into drive!

- Kingsport, TN, USA

Non injury momentary loss of engine control while driving up a moderate incline with my new Ford Ranger in cruise control & over drive on at about 65 mph & 2500 RPM's. the engine kicked down twice in immediate succession and the engine ran away to 6000 RPM's+ and stayed there. Engine tach limit is 6000rpm's so I do not know the extent of the over rev. I took immediate action to disengage cruise control which lowered the RPM's and turned the over drive off which resulted in a normal RPM of about 3000 @ 65 mph. I have traveled the same area before without any such occurrance. Also the engine has a erratic type misfire at idle which may contribute to the problem. This situation was very unsafe as when the engine "ranaway" I only glanced at the tack twice and do not know how fast it ended up before I disengaged the cruise control.

- Fresno, CA, USA