A couple of months ago a class-action lawsuit was filed by angry Ford Ranger owners against the American automaker over supposedly deceptive fuel economy ratings. The lawsuit stated Ford "deliberately miscalculated and misrepresented factors used in vehicle certification testing." Although we don't have an update on that lawsuit's status, Yahoo! News has reported about another class action lawsuit, only this time it was filed on behalf of both Ranger and certain F-150 owners.

A law firm called Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP (BFA) filed the suit against Ford alleging, once again, that the company overstated fuel economy ratings for those trucks from model years 2017 to 2019. Generally speaking, it sounds nearly the same as the first class-action lawsuit in that it accuses Ford of manipulating fuel economy testing to procure higher fuel economy results.

Customers bought these trucks based on, at least in part, those figures. BFA claims they ended up paying higher fuel costs than the miles per gallon disclosed by Ford at the point of sale. But how exactly would Ford go about "manipulating" testing parameters? That's not entirely clear but the lawsuit alleges Ford miscalculated the "road load" used in fuel economy testing. Those numbers were between 3 percent and 19 percent higher than the actual fuel economy the trucks achieve.

The law firm also points out that Ford is under a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice over emissions and fuel economy certification procedures.

Where this lawsuit will go next remains unknown, but BFA is inviting Ford Ranger and 2017-2019 F-150 owners to call them if they also believe their trucks are not achieving the promised fuel economy ratings. We've reached out to Ford and a company spokesperson replied quite clearly "We do not comment on pending litigation." Given that pickup trucks, specifically the F-150, make up a substantial bulk of Ford's sales, class-action lawsuits such as this should be taken quite seriously.