Starting over for sons Vehicle due to wreck - Rangers vs Frontiers

[StuckInTheEast]

2.7 6-speed is one of the better drivetrain choices available in newer trucks, great choice

I think 2017/2018 is as new as your gonna find that combo. I dont believe the 6r80 was offered in any f series other than the base v6 model after that. So your newest option would still be an 8-9 year old truck.

 

[Stache Attack]

Frontier. Or older 5.0 f150(way better than little eco or big eco), 90s Silverado, 70s ford f250,60s power wagon?

Yeah I’d go frontier.

There are a few people around me with mavericks on some bigger A/T tires that drive more gravel than 90% of America and two of them love them. Maybe the ford would be good but the frontier market is affordable and are nice to ride in.

 

[Machingeaneer]

I think 2017/2018 is as new as your gonna find that combo. I dont believe the 6r80 was offered in any f series other than the base v6 model after that. So your newest option would still be an 8-9 year old truck.

This is true, hard to wrap my mind around those trucks being that old already. I think the 6-speed is probably the safest option but my personal experience with the F150 10 speed is that they're also quite good.

 

[StuckInTheEast]

This is true, hard to wrap my mind around those trucks being that old already. I think the 6-speed is probably the safest option but my personal experience with the F150 10 speed is that they're also quite good.

10spds are pretty iffy from my experience thus far up until '22 or '23 when they integrated the updated CDF drums into production to cure the bushing slip issue. Time will tell there. I wont own one yet.
Im not a fan of the 10 speeds in anything honestly. Having driven them all i just dont care for the drive characteristics. Always shifting, never uses 4 of the 10 gears in most driving conditions. 6 gears in a light duty truck of 1ton or under rating is more than sufficient and had proven reliable for all but GM with the disaster the 6L80 was.
As for the recommendations for Nissan products...Im not a fan there either. Nissan's market share and quality has been slipping for years and their long range product support is not great. The frontier has been pretty solid overall but the thing with Nissan is they are good till they arent and finding parts anywhere but Nissan can be challenging and expensive. They also arent high on my list of vehicles id consider easy to work on for the diy crowd. The Tacoma is still hard to beat for a compact pickup at least up till the redesign, I dont have enough info or experience with the newest rendition to have an opinion on those yet.
This is all beating a dead horse at this point though as OP already solved their problem with a pretty solid purchase from the look of it.