I have a 4x4 Ford Ranger with a 4.0L V6 and 4.10 rear gears, I wanted a stripped down truck that was good for snow and off-roading. In that respect I love this truck. And then there's the transmission, friggin' Mazda can't build one! As a preface to this rant, I went to school to build racecars, so I'm a qualified mechanic not just somebody who knows nothing about cars mad about trivial bullshit.

This truck has seen and done it all, it has done 800 mile road trips in a day, it has survived the hellacious winters of northwestern Ohio, it has taken the salty beating of coastal Maryland, and it does it all without hiccup except for the transmission. My truck needed a new clutch at 100,000 miles on the dot, I installed it myself with the help of my father. Again, I'm a qualified mechanic and he is also a 35-year mechanic, this isn't our first rodeo for a simple clutch job (but we also did the master cylinder). The reason it needed a new clutch is because it wouldn't go into gear, period. This wasn't over time, this was a "I drove it to work and now it won't move" situation. I managed to limp it home only using the clutch to stop, I had to rev-match and gear-jam every shift with no clutch. New clutch installed, it works great for a week, same problem comes back. I figure it's air in the hydraulic clutch line, easy enough to bleed it and the problem goes away for 2 weeks. For the next 3 months I'm bleeding the clutch line every week or two. Then it goes away for 4 months, comes back for a day, but goes away without bleeding. About a week after the first bleed I installed an aftermarket Hurst shifter, although that thing works better than the transmission it's hooked to.

The clutch was installed in may, fast forward past several bleeds and then months without a problem, and suddenly I feel a bad jolt come from the transmission pulling into my driveway. When I let the clutch out the truck stalls, in neutral. Not good. I didn't have time to fix it myself so I called up some friends at a local transmission shop and they cut me a good deal on a rebuild. The input shaft had separated from the counter shaft at 108,000 miles! Now I'm hard on my truck, but I'm not hard enough to blow a transmission at just over 100 grand. I have a turbocharged 1990 Ford Ranger that I use for racing, I don't hot rod this 2004 Ranger around so there is no reason that transmission should have gone up. I'm out over $1400 because Mazda can't build a transmission good enough for use in a Ford Ranger, and it still shifts hard!

Maybe I just got a bad one, but the transmission in this truck is pure junk. I've owned a car with a Mucie M21 in it and it still is nowhere near as hard to shift as this truck!