Zakirin
“Ford’s V6 Wildtrak Quiet Cabin, But Rear Passengers Will Hate It”
I have been a car reviewer for seven years, but I’ll admit something straight away: I am not an expert in pickup trucks. My comfort zone has always been sedans, crossovers and the occasional SUV where finesse and handling talk louder than towing charts and load beds. That said, I wanted a real, practical perspective on the new Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 for Malaysia in 2025, not just a journalist’s lap times and spec-sheet worship.
So I did what any sensible person who wants truth over hype would do: I set a meeting with my childhood friend Ridwan, who lives and breathes pickup life. Ridwan runs a printing business, he uses his Isuzu D-Max 1.9 BluePower every day for work, and he knows the difference between a truck that looks good and a truck that actually performs for daily labour and real-world use. He’s not a professional tester; he’s a user, a mechanic-inclined operator, and that perspective is exactly what I wanted the reader to have — the insider view you only get when someone who loads pallets, hooks trailers and works late-night jobs tells you what matters.
Before we jump into Ridwan’s hands-on observations, let me outline what the Ranger Wildtrak V6 is on paper so you know what we’re talking about when we discuss holes in the bed liner or a three-pin plug. The Wildtrak V6 in Malaysia uses a 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 diesel engine that produces around 250 PS and an impressive 600 Nm of torque, numbers that immediately position it as one of the most muscular diesel pickups on sale locally. That V6 is paired with a 10-speed automatic gearbox and a full-time four-wheel-drive system, which Ford advertises as a combination intended to balance smoothness on the road with capability off it.
Ford has kept the practical numbers sensible for work use too: the Ranger Wildtrak V6 is rated with towing and payload capacities that align with what professional users expect, including a 3,500 kg towing limit and a payload capability that sits near the 1,000 kg mark for typical double-cab configurations. nside, buyers get a modern infotainment layout with a portrait-orientation touchscreen running Ford’s SYNC 4A, and the cabin appeals to people who want contemporary tech next to traditional truck durability. In Malaysia the new Wildtrak V6 arrives at a premium price point, and the local launch pricing was reported at around RM192,888 on-the-road for Peninsular Malaysia, which places it well above entry-level Ranger variants but below the extreme Raptor.
Ridwan’s review is the part I was most interested in because he uses pickups the way they were intended: daily, dirty, and heavy. He spent time in the truck bed, crawling around the liner, testing access points and imagining how he would load timber, sacks of ink, and his business’s folding rack system. One of the first things he pointed out was a three-pin plug installed in the truck bed, a tiny detail that suddenly mattered a lot to him because it meant he could power work lights, a compressor or a small soldering iron without running cables into the cabin.
He said he would still like to see a USB Type-C outlet in the bed as well, because modern power tools and phones increasingly use that standard and it would make charging and powering devices during a job far more convenient. Ridwan liked that the bed had interior lights and that the side mirrors and peripheral lamps made loading and reversing at night easier, a seemingly small feature that actually changed the rhythm of late jobs when visibility drops and you need to be fast and precise.
Walking around the bed, Ridwan noticed the wheel arch intrusions are smaller inside the cargo area compared to many other pickups he has used, and he liked what that meant for usable width. Even though the overall bed is already wider than his Isuzu’s, the slimmer wheel arch profile created flatter real estate for odd-sized loads and made it easier to slide timber or long crates without snagging.
The bed liner itself is not a simple skin; Ford has sculpted square recesses and anchoring points along the sides that Ridwan immediately interpreted as places to hang temporary brackets, wooden slats or a custom hanger rig for securing awkward loads. For a man who sometimes improvises a rack out of plywood and rope, those sculpted squares were a thoughtful touch that reduced the amount of after-market tinkering he’d normally do.
Ingress and egress matter to Ridwan more than many reviewers make it sound. He spends his days jumping in and out of the bed and helping apprentices clamber over tubs of materials, so he noticed the side step beside the rear wheel instantly. To him the step was not a cosmetic accessory but a functional convenience that reduced the scrambles and minor bruises that come with heavy work. He also spent a lot of time in the cab and commented on the door feel — it was solid, heavier than the doors on his D-Max, and suggested a higher build quality and better sound insulation. That heavier door translated into a sense of premium in everyday use, the kind of reassurance that your tools and passengers are slightly better protected from road noise and weather.
On the subject of interior space, Ridwan said the cabin felt noticeably wider, which has practical benefits when you’re handing over paperwork to a helper, sliding a clipboard across, or mounting additional storage brackets. He appreciated the extra breathing room in the front seats, and commented that the back seat felt usable for short trips, yet not as hospitable as a proper people-mover; the rear seats sit more upright and that translates into discomfort on long trips for adult passengers. He was blunt about that: the Ranger’s rear seat is fine for short crew runs but you should not expect lounge-level comfort back there. For Ridwan, who sometimes ferries young staff between job sites, the upright rear seat posture was the truck’s most visible passenger-related compromise.
Mechanically, Ridwan was fascinated by the way the Wildtrak V6 feels when you ask it to move. The engine’s low-end torque is substantial and, from a standstill, the acceleration to highway speeds felt smooth and effortless, which matches the engine’s hefty torque figure and the transmission’s tall gearing for comfortable cruising.
Ridwan did, however, point out that the torque delivery felt “heavy and slow” in character despite the 3.0-litre displacement and big torque numbers, and he compared that subjectively to his own 1.9-litre D-Max which sometimes feels snappier off the line. He and I talked about turbo characteristics and he suggested the Wildtrak’s delivery might be affected by early turbo lag or a more gradual torque curve designed to protect the drivetrain and smooth out shifts under heavy load, which would explain why it feels less immediate than the smaller engine that he knows intimately.
There was a debate between us about suspension. Ridwan described the Ranger’s suspension as one of the best he had experienced among modern pickups, praising its composed ride over uneven job-site roads and its ability to carry weight without harshness. When I drove the truck briefly I felt more bounce than I expected on certain speed bumps and rolls, which made me question whether the suspension was tuned more for comfort under load than for sporty on-road manners.
Ridwan was quick to remind me he was comparing it to his D-Max and other utility-focused trucks, and in that light he thought the Wildtrak handled the trade-off between comfort and load-carrying very well. His perspective is useful because usability under load is the metric that matters in day-to-day work, and on that metric he gave the Ranger a positive nod.
On noise, the Wildtrak V6’s cabin surprised both of us by being relatively quiet for a diesel pickup, with less intrusive engine buzz at typical urban speeds. Ridwan noted it is quieter than many work trucks he has been in, though he conceded that at higher speeds the refinement cannot be compared to European passenger cars where insulation and aero are at a different level. He didn’t expect it to be a grand tourer, but he did appreciate that the quiet cabin made conversations with drivers and clients easier while on the move.
Practicality details like the bed lighting and available anchor points won high marks because they translate directly into time saved during a job. Ridwan visualised how work would go at night: the bed lights and the external-facing lamps around the mirrors allow one person to check a load and hitch a trailer without a second set of hands waving a torch. The built-in three-pin plug means the compressor, lights or a kettle can be run without running extension cables back to the cabin, and he imagined how useful that would be for event set-ups or emergency small repairs. His wish for a USB Type-C port in the bed felt like a small but modern demand — power where you need it, using the chargers everyone already carries.
If there were complaints, they were practical and specific rather than show-stopping. The rear seat orientation is a clear shortcoming for passenger comfort and could matter to buyers who regularly shuttle colleagues. The perceived sluggishness of torque — subjective though it is — will irk anyone used to quick spool-up from smaller turbodiesels, and it may require a user to adapt their driving style around the plant’s torque curve. For buyers who plan to tow heavy loads, the Ranger’s engineering should inspire confidence because the spec sheet supports serious towing and off-road work, but Ridwan reminded me that spec numbers don’t replace real mounting points and habit: good tie-downs and smart packing still make up half the success of a heavy day.
In the end, combining my perspective as a seven-year reviewer and Ridwan’s lived pickup experience produced something more useful than a typical road test. The Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 is a technically impressive and well-equipped pickup that brings significant torque, a modern gearbox and a raft of useful features to buyers who need capability and some creature comforts. For everyday work it offers thoughtful touches such as bed lighting, power to the bed, convenient steps and anchor points that reduce improvisation and after-market spending.
For buyers who prioritise passenger comfort or want explosive, immediate throttle feel, the Wildtrak V6 may require a careful test drive and an honest consideration of what you will use the truck for day to day. Ridwan’s verdict, distilled down to practicality, was that the Ranger is a truck he would respect at work: it is built with details that make his life easier, even if it does not always feel like the fastest thing off the strip. If you want a pickup that balances modern tech, proper towing capability and real-world work features, the Wildtrak V6 should be on your short list, but take a long look at the rear seat layout and drive it with the load scenarios you actually do at 7 a.m. on a weekday.
Yusri Ng
