3 Popular Pickup Trucks Like The Ford Ranger With A Towing Capacity Of 7,500 Lbs

Full-size trucks are the most popular vehicles in America. They're capable of towing massive trailers, hauling all sorts of weight in the bed, and they're available with all sorts of luxury features to keep passengers comfortable. But recently, midsize trucks have gained some ground, offering many similar creature comforts, impressive off-roading, lower starting prices, and robust towing and hauling capabilities of their own. One of the freshest midsize trucks is the new 2024 Ford Ranger, redesigned and thoroughly modernized for its fifth generation. And while highly capable trims like the Ford Ranger Raptor grab the headlines, the standard truck is hard at work, offering some serious towing and hauling. With an optional towing package, the Ranger can tow as much as 7,500 pounds — an impressive for any midsize pickup truck.

Smaller car-based trucks like the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz top out at 4,000 and 5,000 pounds of towing capacity, respectively. Towing is capped at 5,000 pounds for the unibody Honda Ridgeline. Even a direct rival in the midsize segment like the newest Tacoma falls short of the Ranger's big towing numbers, topping out at 6,500 pounds of towing capability. The Nissan Frontier? Its maximum towing capacity is 6,640 pounds — respectable, but still not enough to keep up with the Ranger. So which midsize trucks can pull as much as (or more than) the Ford Ranger?

Designed to appeal to off-roaders, the Jeep Gladiator is one of the most rugged pickups in its class. There are a number of different trim levels to choose from, but every version of the Gladiator has serious capability when the going gets tough. Up front, you could easily mistake it for its platform-sibling, the Wrangler, but out back it offers a decent-sized bed and plenty of towing power – in fact, it's tied for the top ranking in its class.

While the Ford Ranger is available with multiple engines — a 270-hp turbocharged four-cylinder, a 315-hp turbocharged V6, and a 405-hp turbocharged V6 — the Gladiator, is only available with one powertrain. Under the hood, it uses Jeep's tried-and-true 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 engine, which provides 285 horsepower and 260 lb-ft of torque. With that one engine though, the Jeep Gladiator, when properly equipped, is capable of pulling 7,700 pounds — 200 pounds more than the Ford. Maximum payload is impressive too, with the Gladiator being capable of hauling around as much as 1,725 pounds, but the Ranger does have it beat there with a max payload of 1,805 pounds. It might be focused primarily on its off-road capability, but the Gladiator is a real-deal pickup truck. 

It might not have as much perceived off-road cred as the Gladiator, but the Chevrolet Colorado has some pretty serious off-road capability of its own, and it's no slouch in the towing department. Like the Gladiator, the Colorado is powered by just one engine, but it comes with different power ratings depending on the trim level you select. The engine is a 2.7-liter turbocharged four-cylinder and on base models it puts out 237 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque. The upgraded TurboMax version of the same 2.7-liter engine is available on more expensive trim levels and produces 310 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque — a big improvement. 

With all that power on tap, the Colorado is tied with the Gladiator for maximum towing capability with a maximum of 7,700 pounds. However, the Colorado trails behind the Gladiator and the Ranger when it comes to payload capacity, but only by a small amount — its maximum payload is 1,710 pounds.

The GMC Canyon and the Chevrolet Colorado are platform twins. Essentially, the Canyon shares most of its underpinnings and its engine with the Colorado, but with upgraded equipment and a unique design. They look slightly different and the GMC feels a bit more upscale (especially on the inside), but they offer nearly identical performance.

Like the Colorado, the Canyon is offered exclusively with the 2.7-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. In the Canyon though, it only gets the higher horsepower rating — 310 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque. Maximum payload for the GMC is slightly lower at 1,640 pounds, but that's still respectable for the class. The Canyon is also available in several different trim levels with respectable off-road capability, especially in the AT4X trim. Just like its twin brother, the Colorado, the GMC Canyon is locked in a three-way tie for top-of-class towing, with a maximum towing capacity of 7,700 pounds.

Pulling a 7,000-pound trailer with a midsize truck is possible with all three of the models listed above, but if you're towing a trailer that large on a regular basis, you'll likely want something a bit larger and a bit more powerful. The Toyota Tundra, Nissan Titan, Chevy Silverado, Ford F-150, and Ram 1500 all offer towing capacities that are far beyond what the Ranger offers and they do it without much fuss. The Toyota Tundra, for example, is capable of towing 8,300 pounds on the base SR trim, and on upper trims it can tow as much as 12,000 pounds. The F-150? Its minimum tow rating is 8,400 pounds (more than any midsize truck) and it's maximum towing capacity is over 13,000 pounds. 

Pulling a big trailer on a regular basis can cause extra strain on your truck's engine as well as extra wear-and-tear on the brakes and tires. It can also affect the speed at which you can comfortably travel, both on the highway and on city streets. Those effects are compounded when a trailer gets close to a truck's maximum tow rating. So, the bigger the trailer and the closer its weight is to your truck's maximum capability, the harder it will be to pull. They're a bit more expensive, and fuel economy ratings tend to be lower, but the driving experience will be much better with a full-size truck for those times when you're pulling a trailer. At the very least, you should consider the size of your trailer and the regularity with which you plan on towing before deciding on which new truck you're going to pull it with.