2017 Ford F-150 Raptor - Road POV Test Drive & Review

**Full Article: The 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Review**

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### Introduction

"Hey, what's going on, everyone? Great day here, Chris O'Sullivan from Winding Road Magazine. Today, I have the superhero of pickup trucks—this is the 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor. Take a look at this thing; it’s a real-life Tonka truck. First things first, you notice how absolutely striking it is. It's a big truck but not overdone, not totally bro'd out, not totally jacked up—it's wide, tough, but also very functional. Just look at these wide fenders—they've given it the wide-body treatment over the regular F-150."

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### Design and Styling

"You quickly notice that most of the cars we review are quite clean and pristine, but this one? Not so much. This one has had a lot of fun with it—it’s dirty. This is the condition your Raptor should be in, and it's only fitting that we do our walk-around here off the pavement because it would be a shame if it didn't get a little dirty."

"Being the second generation of the Ford Raptor, it is a muscled-up version of the mainstream F-150 based on the newest version of the F-150. It incorporates many of the functional upgrades that the F-150 itself has received, namely the aluminum body structure that has saved hundreds of pounds over the outgoing version."

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### Powertrain

"In terms of what the body structure accounts for in the overall weight of the vehicle, we also have huge changes in the powertrain department over the original F-150 Raptor. The original Raptor was available in two V8 trims, with the larger being a 6.2-liter unit backed by a six-speed automatic transmission. Now, for this updated Raptor, we have a 3.5-liter EcoBoost, which makes more power and torque through its twin turbochargers than the V8 ever did."

"With this new truck, we are at 450 horsepower and a staggering 510 pound-feet of torque, and that's backed by a ten-speed automatic transmission—yes, that's not a misspeak. The transfer case is also updated: instead of a simple locking two-wheel drive/four-wheel drive/four-wheel drive low, we also have the addition of a 'All-Wheel Drive for Auto Mode,' which is a more user-friendly option than the simple locking four-wheel drive transfer case of old."

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### Suspension and Handling

"Still have absolutely massive BFG Ta Ko2 tires on beadlock-inspired wheels with a functional or non-functional accent here—which looks like a locking hub, kind of like an '82 Bronco but it's just for decoration. Tires are pretty massive: 315 millimeters of width, 70-series cross-section on a 17-inch wheel—boy, big, big tires."

"You see the turbocharger peeking in there from the passenger-side bank. Don't get a good view here; maybe we can crouch down. Absolutely massive aluminum lower control arms there! We have Fox internal bypass reservoir shocks, which are really the jewel of the F-150's suspension tuning. So, in addition to the other upgrades we've mentioned over the first-gen Raptor, we also have more suspension travel front and rear."

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### Interior Features

"There you can see the external reservoir on the Fox shock here; what that does is adds a little bit more volume to the overall system, helps with heat management, helps with the shock not fading when you're going over bumps at high speeds—and really warming up the suspension components. It allows them to stay more constant and not pack down over time."

"We've got a damped liftgate back here; being an F-150, we've also got this nice step capability here to go ahead and get this step to come out—there we go! Super handy for getting in and out of the bed. We have a factory-installed bed liner option, which is cool."

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### Performance

"Full LED headlight treatment; we've also got the marker lights, which are required as the width of the Raptor over 80 inches wide unlike the regular F-150—so it's a striking truck. I absolutely love this styling—I love the look, I love the functionality—it is my favorite pickup."

"Go ahead and get inside by step boards on the side here—they feel very substantial; feel like they'd be up to some punishment, which they may encounter driving off-road. You're greeted with a Raptor splash screen there—Ford Performance nice engaged setup here: very sporty, very legible. Nothing new from the updated F-150 and F-250—you know all of the nice things I like about those trucks are directly carried over into the Raptor."

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### On-Road Usability

"So I'm going to go ahead start it—'Built Ford Tough.' Of course, 3.5 liters rumbles to life. So let's get this out of the way—it's not a V8; doesn't sound like a V8. People love the V8 sound; V6 is can be hit or miss. This sounds good for a V6—it's just different. You have to align your expectations with the fact that it's not maybe going to get that burble and that deep rumble you get out of the 6.2-liter, but it has its own charm."

"They've done a really good job of tuning the induction noise on this turbocharger setup; so if you admit rpm and you kind of tip into the throttle a little bit—the turbo spool and the boost builds—you get a really lovely induction noise as the turbos are doing their work."

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### Off-Road Capabilities

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### Conclusion

"So bottom line—what do I think of the 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor? I'm gushing over this thing—and for good reason. I love this truck. I think all of the improvements for it is made for the latest generation F-150 electronic and driver assistance upgrades, aluminum body structure, stiffer chassis—they've taken that all and translated it over to the Raptor. Taking the proven formula—the first-gen Raptor added some improvements: better suspension, better capability, more robust powertrain—and this is a recipe for success."

"This truck does exactly what Ford wants it to do while having a bandwidth that allows it to be comfortable and smooth, and livable. And it's really not a one-trick pony—you need to understand the limitations of a truck this big. This is not a truck that's going to go chasing Jeep Wrangler in Baja boot mode or anything like that."

"But if you get this thing out—on some twisty roads? It's just fun. And I think the bandwidth this car has, if this truck has in terms of what you can have fun doing with this thing—is it's just about unparalleled."

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**Final Thoughts**

"Raptor is awesome—if you have the means, I highly recommend checking it out."

"Chris O'Sullivan here from Winding Road Magazine. Really enjoy doing this review for you guys. If you like the reviews, if you like the point-of-view drives—like the content—please subscribe; check out my personal channel; we'll be bringing more forward to you. Thanks for watching. Tune in next time and talk to you later."

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This article captures the entirety of the provided transcription, ensuring that no part is condensed or summarized. It maintains the original tone and details while presenting them in a structured, readable format.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on everyone great day here Chris osburgh winding road magazine today I have the super hero of pickup trucks this is the 2017 Ford f-150 Raptor take a look at this thing it is a real-life Tonka truck first thing you notice is how absolutely striking it is it's a big truck but not overdone not totally bro doze not totally jacked up it is wide it is tough but it is also very functional just look at these wide fenders they've given it the wide body treatment over the regular f150 as you quickly notice here most of the cars we review are quite clean and pristine and well detailed this one not so much this one we've had a lot of fun with it is dirty this is a condition your Raptor should be in and it's only fitting that we do our walk around here off of the pavement because it would be a shame if it didn't get a little dirty so being the second generation of the Ford Raptor it is a muscled up version of the mainstream f-150 based on the newest version of the f-150 it incorporates many of the functional upgrades that the f-150 itself has received namely the aluminum body structure that has saved hundreds of pounds over the outgoing version in terms of what the body structure accounts for in the overall weight of the vehicle we also have huge changes in the powertrain department over the original f-150 Raptor the original Raptor was available in two v8 trims the larger of the two being a 6.2 liter unit backed by a six-speed automatic transmission now for this updated Raptor we have a 3.5 liter EcoBoost which makes more power and torque through its twin turbochargers than the v8 ever did so with this new truck we are at 450 horsepower and a staggering 510 pound-feet of torque and that's backed by a ten speed automatic transmission yes that's not a misspeak ten speeds pretty impressive transfer case is also updated instead of a simple locking two-wheel drive four-wheel drive four-wheel drive low we also have the addition of a quote all-wheel drive for auto mode that's a more user friendly than the simple locking four-wheel drive transfer case of old still have absolutely massive BFG ta keo two tires on beadlock inspired wheels with a functional or non-functional accent here which looks like a locking hub of Ford Fords of you're you know kind of like an 82 Bronco but it is just for decoration at this point tires are pretty massive so we have 315 millimeters of width we have 70 series cross section on a 17 inch wheel boy big big tires take a look we also have um you see the turbocharger peaking in there from the passenger side Bank don't get a good view here maybe we can crouch down absolutely massive aluminum lower control arms there we have Fox internal bypass reservoir shocks which are really the the jewel of the f-150 is the suspension tuning so in addition to the other upgrades we've mentioned over the first gen raptor we also have more suspension travel front and rear there you can see the external reservoir on the Fox shock here and what that does is adds a little bit more volume to the overall system helps with heat management helps with a shock not fading when you're going over bumps at high speeds and really warming up the suspension components it allows them to stay more constant and not pack down over time let's see we've got a damped lift gate back here and being an f-150 we've also got this nice step capability here to go ahead get this step to come out there we go super handy for getting in and out of the bed we have a factory installed bed liner option which is cool spring a bed liner got Ford's modular system for mounting different racks and fixtures in the back of the truck so you've got all the fun in the Raptor but you're not compromising the overall usefulness of the pickup truck so I can't overemphasize how useful these step systems are I'm doing it the wrong order we got two one two it's easier to use that I'm making it out to be here and three go ahead close that tail big beefy tow hooks back here for getting you stuck or more likely getting your buddies out of getting stuck because they got wrapped or stuck you really got to work at it also have nice big dual exhaust here the original raptor only had exhaust on one side of the rear end of the truck so it's a aesthetic upgrade that i do like go ahead pop the hood of this beast there we go Ford performance no longer calling an SVT 3.5 litre unit twin turbochargers one turbocharger for each bank got a nice high mounted air intake system over here so you can go through deep water sands and whatnot and not worry about your engine getting full of junk engine does the job you needed to do it's a nice powerplant got torque all over the place not much lag anything over about two thousand rpm and it really moves you with authority so full LED headlight treatment we've also got the marker lights which are required as the width of the Raptors over 80 inches wide unlike the regular f-150 so it's a striking truck I absolutely love this styling I love the look I love the functionality it is my favorite pickup so let's go ahead and get inside by step boards on the side here they feel very substantial feel like they'd be up to some punishment which they may encounter driving off-road you're greeted with a raptor splash screen there Ford performance nice engaged set up here very sporty very legible nothing new from the from the updated f-150 and f250 you know all of the nice things I like about those trucks are directly carried over into the Raptor so I'm going to go ahead start it built Ford Tough of course 3.5 liter rumbles to life so let's get this out of the way it's not a v8 doesn't sound like a v8 people love the v8 sound v6 is can be hit or miss this sounds good for a v6 it's just different you have to align your expectations with the fact that it's not maybe not going to get that burble and that deep Rumble you get out of the 6.2 liter but it has its own charm so they've done a really good job of tuning the induction noise on this turbocharger setup so if you if you admit rpm and you kind of tip into the throttle a little bit the turbo spool and the boost builds you get a really lovely induction noise as the turbos are doing their work so I'm hoping that sound it's captured on the drive as we go through here so I'm not going to spend too much time on the typical things here the sync 3 system is it's greatly improved at this point it works decently well there sometimes especially with navigation when you're trying to navigate very trying to work around this map screen that you can get a little bit confused on what you need to press in order to get back to a regular screen or get back to the marker following your path what overall usability system of the system is pretty good so we're going to go ahead and hit the home button here we've got your audio that your climate which is backed by physical knobs and buttons here phone settings radio usability is quite good I like having a tune up as well we have a Sony branded premium audio system which works pretty well a little bit muddy but it's got decent frequency responses that's good basis adequate volume it's not an audiophile level system but I think your vehicle rocks and tunes in here as you're off-roading a raptor and be pretty happy about it functionally though it's got some nice things it's got two USB ports down here apple carplay and ER dotto of course it's got our four-wheel drive knob here which you'll be well-acquainted with so typically you're going to be driving around two-wheel drive high unlike the previous Raptor you cannot engage the rear locking differential in two-wheel drive high what you really don't need to because it does have a it's lit type differential in the back so even when it's not fully locked you're still getting some locking capability when you're driving on the road so for auto as I explained is more of an all wheel drive system that engages four wheel drive on demand for high locks new center transfer case which will appropriate 50/50 front and rear at all times as those four low with a reduced gear ratio overall on the transmission so nice things 420 watt inverter built right in that's pretty sweet we also have trailer backup mode which you can actually steer your trailer via this knob here steer the entire truck isn't backing up and monitoring the system here in the display well will test that functionality at some point just the raptor is not we're focusing on other raptor aspects not to the trailer join in this review so as with all of the modern Fords the gauge cluster has a plethora of information that you can access via the center display here as well as a very much full gauge system I'm a big fan of these Ford gauges they look good functioning functionally well laid out and you've got all the information you need a bunch of buttons here you have your active cruise control settings on this side you've got your steering wheel modes over here you've got your driving modes for the Raptor your normal your sport which sharpens up the throttle and transmission response you've got your weather which is well suited for snow and rain you can see it switched to for a and actually put us right into the all-wheel-drive core on cold mode put it into mud or sand which is going to take me down to four high also adjust the traction control stability control as necessary and it also locked the rear differential for me automatically bah-ha mode is when you want to fly across a desert so it's a little bit of a high-speed power oriented work for high we've unlocked a rear differential last but not least we have Rock Calling it's going to put me right into four-wheel drive low which does require a shift in neutral but if you're going slow through a rock crawling type situation it's going to set the car up for that the throttle response is going to be appropriately progressive to help control yourself a little bit more in tricky off-road environments and it's kind of nice how the whole car is integrated and whole truck is integrated into these drive modes and it knows exactly what the best setting is going to be for all of the systems so select the terrain mode pre conditions not many I didn't put it in neutral I couldn't make in the four low so it's not going to be happy with that so I'm going to put it back to normal and we're going to go ahead and take this thing for a spin because that's really what you guys are all waiting for here so I really like the steering wheel it's nice and chunky discus nice thumb recesses here it's got nice magnesium shift paddles otherwise organ ah mcclee it's a pretty good setup so let's put that 10 speed automatic into drive I started this review near a gravel road just because I knew I'd want to play with this thing a little bit so we're going to go ahead we're going to turn that advanced track stability control completely off ten speeds very close ratio lots of performance minimal leg the engine you're off the line and you're on your way steering response is actually pretty good all things considered considering the size of the truck sidewall of the tires it has a sporty feel for a pickup you've got have been a Christmas on turnin and the truck feels it feels very responsive for what it is pavement and exact they don't sign you want to see when you're out driving a raptor this power train offers a lot of performance it really gets up and goes there 260 time is quoted to be in the low fives which for a truck this thing downright scoots I think they'll be very little complaints in terms of overall performance in this power training package and you can really feel it the car kind of swap squats down gets back on its haunches and just wants to go and just like that we reach 60 miles per hour so this review is going to focus more on the on-road usability of the Raptor we will have a full review of this thing off-road but if you're going to be driving this thing on the pavement which let's be honest most people will spend most of their time driving these things in the real world even if they play with it on the weekends when they can and civility and usability of this truck is Franklin's really oppressive so the massive suspension system long travel it really leads to a nice ride and you it doesn't feel like the brute that you kind of expect it to be it's not a difficult truck to drive it's not a difficult truck to manage to maneuver has a driver assistance systems like the 360-degree top view camera and it has front and rear cameras which are intelligently designed to come on when you're indifferent let's say off-road situations and it knows your steepness of the terrain you're driving on and it turns on the right camera just when you need to see on the front of the rear it's a you can tell there's a lot of forethought put into this truck and how these people or how people are going to be using the truck under what conditions trying to demonstrate that lovely induction noise you get on high load throttle tippet when you get about 20-30 percent throttle dialed in there is a bit of fake piped in artificial generated noise from this engine and it's kind of like the fusion sport we drove it's it's noticeable but some people are going to be annoyed with it I'm not personally bothered by too much because the noise is pretty accurate in terms of what the truck sounds like coming outside is not totally fake noise it's unrepresentative how the truck sounds but it it'd be kind of nice if it could make its own noises much like the v8 did but you know this is the future how we will be focusing on lower displacement downsized engines and going to performance applications we have to live with we have to live in this environment so I'm going to go ahead and launch it for hi here or for auto sorry make sure we get maximum traction let's do a full 0-60 launch even with half of the truck on raffle I expect it's still going to hook up quite nice as I said basically any time you put your foot in it ten speeds will get you right into the perfect rpm for that EcoBoost engine to get up in fork band and accelerate very quickly downshifts of the same way 10th here very little hesitation go ahead and put it back into two-wheel drive hi kind of a cool feeling when you're putting the power down on two wheel drive and you can feel it massive rear axle back there and wheel and tire package just kind of shifting and undulating to get the power down to the pavement got a little bit of bouncing it's not in a bad way but it just feels like a massive tool that you're that you're wielding to to conduct a Orchestra of chaos and awesomeness although a start/stop system feels a little bit out of place in a raptor I understand why they have to do it but once again not too many of Raptor owners are interested in a staving fuel I don't think the feature the customers actually asked for now I really think the biggest surprise with the new Ford Raptor is nothing to do with his off-road ability I think people expect that it's going to be absolutely amazing off-road and it really is but the biggest surprise is just how livable and refined it is to use in normal driving the ride quality is is excellent and the truck just doesn't feel as big as it looks or as big as it really is it's just a easy truck to drive and that super supple suspension with long travel and off-road tires the BFG ta keo 2 s with huge sidewalls it just eats up the road and I live here in Michigan where you can clearly see from my videos the quality of the roads out here leaves a lot to be desired there's a lot of potholes and a lot of broken pavement and I I'm just amazed how well this thing drives out here I mean I guess if you think about it you shouldn't be too surprised but it's hard to believe that something that can be so capable off-road and in a harsh environment can also be friendly and livable on a daily basis and combined with the 10 speed transmission in the EcoBoost engine it just works really well it's smooth it's quiet it's reasonably economical for what it is and believe it or not it's kind of fun to drive in the corners to has a unique handling characteristic it's not as sloppy and uncontrolled as you would think a vehicle with this kind of suspension travel would be it's actually fun to kind of toss around in the corners and going pretty slow right now but if you get this thing out and some twisty roads I mean it's not sports hard not carving corners with it but it's simply fun to drive and I think the bandwidth this car has if this truck has in terms of what you can have fun doing with this thing is it's just about unparalleled out there all right in this vehicle with the 3.5 liter EcoBoost v6 is also we could with a start/stop system which on a raptor honestly I don't think any Raptor owner is going to be interested in saving fuel at idle and it's it's an OK system but it's not the best it is kind of it's a little bit of true Civ so when the engine comes back on there's a bit of a bump there's a lot of starter noise it is a system that I would be inclined to switch the off button right here and just keep the engine on but it's there if you want if you want to use it if you want to save a little bit of fuel in your Raptor you have the option of utilizing the system all right since we're stuck behind traffic it might as well take the opportunity to demonstrate the radar-guided cruise control as well so right here on the steering wheel arm the system by pressing on press the set button set it at 50 miles per hour set our following distance believe it or not you can just sit back and let your Raptor control its speed its distance all by itself as you can see it's not a complete stop and go system for the radar-guided cruise control so as we came to a stop the system beeped and disengaged and the driver is ultimately responsible for stopping the vehicle and starting again the 10 speed automatic transmission really does a good job of keeping the 3.5 liter EcoBoost right in the meat of its power man so this engine has quite a wide spread of torque it doesn't have a lot of lag once you get it up to about 2,000 rpm onwards it's got plenty of pull and it doesn't have much of a taper at the top-end heater so it really has a nice broad plateau of torque and this transmission you know that's the base manager ten speeds is you have enough ratios and they're closely spaced enough to just keep it in the sweet spot of the power man especially down shipping is basically whatever speed you're at when you punch it it can pick a ratio that's going to put it right in the meat of the torque band and it makes the truck feel that much more responsive fortunately the transmission is decently adaptive quick to downshift at any point sometimes when you have a lot of ratios the transmission takes a while to downshift because you can't it can't figure out quickly enough or can't sort itself up Oh quickly enough to put it in the right ratio on a downshift request but this transmission does a pretty good job so you can see where a ninth gear right now just a little thing along and I'm gonna punch it just straight no hesitation at all for a first generation of this transmission or a new development I'm pretty impressed so typically when you have a new powertrain right when it comes out it may work well but you're going to discover minor issues with the programming and the logic and every once in a while it will do annoying things and usually takes auto manufacturer the model year or two to sort out the fine-tuning on new powertrains but for the first effort and Ford's done a pretty good job of this especially considering the performance intention of this thing you'll put up with any little idiosyncrasies that setup hats which aren't too many but while we're on that topic manual mode could use some work so we have this really nice shift paddles but manual mode leaves a lot to be desired the quickness in the dollar shift and up shift requests is not very good this definitely like and the bummer is if you ever kiss the rev limiter the transmission takes a long time to recover so here's first gear I'm gonna go ahead and run it out and if I'm a little slow on the uptake shift weight one two three and a pilot ship so it holds gears the red line which is fine but the problem is if you shift just an instant too late and the truck ends up on that rev limiter it takes a long time for the next up shift requests to register and the truck actually up shift again so the manual ends up ultimately not being all that useful sitting there waiting for the truck options anyway as I was saying the manual mode ends up being not all that useful because the truck does a better job of managing the upshifts all by itself you know you can use the manual capability let's say if you're off-roading and you want to downshift preemptively - you know - engine break down a steep hill but in terms of straight-line acceleration there's really nothing to be gained by using the manual mode selection so Ford could go back and revise that a little bit and make it a little bit more useful in a performance sense if they could improve the timing of the manually requested upshift and downshift it could add some add some improvements to the manual capability but honestly the transmission does a great job when left to his own devices and when it chooses to shift by itself that I don't see that as a huge drawback it'd be nice if they would change it but the transmission does a great job when you just leave it in Drive so steering in addition to the steering modes or in addition to the overall driving modes you also have three levels of steering feel so right now I'm normal sport kind of firms it up a little bit doesn't feel like it changes the overall ratio at all and comfort you know makes it easier to steer so that it turns up the steering assist personally I like it on normal I'm just fine with that it's a really good balance between steering half during field effort and it's considering considering the massive componentry and wheel and tire that you have out front on that front axle but it has pretty good steering feel that's a good job of feeling responsive and giving you a little bit of feedback and that feedback usually is a feeling of absolutely massive wheels and tires up front just getting pounded when you're just blasting through the ruts offroad and it makes you feel like Ivan Stewart but you know I guess that's the whole point right driving this thing really make you feel like a superhero because it's just just so it's just so badass so the Raptor comes equipped with BFG ta keo two tires which in my personal opinion are the best all-around truck tires in existence so I personally run these tires on a number of trucks including my own and they give you just a awesome blend of general off-road capability they work great with snow that were great in the sand and they are much better on the road than you'd expect looking at them so they look pretty aggressive they look pretty tough but they're still pretty smooth and quiet and you can you can drive them out in the highway and it's not vibrating it's not loud and buzzing there's a little bit of elevated tire noise compared to a regular car but it's much more reasonable to expect and actually last a long time too if you're not you know beating on them too hard it happened this past week I they are by far my favorite truck tire now there are some caveats it's not the tire you want to use if you do a lot of mud because the the tread will pack down with mud and it doesn't work that well at that point but generally if you go to a mud oriented tire it's going to be much poorer driving in snow on the road and the wet etc so that's really the only drawback as the ko2 uses they're not a good mud tire but anything else so dry off-roading sand snow in fact they're they're a severe service winter rated tire so even though it's not you know it's not like a winter tire like a blizik it is I would say eighty or ninety percent is capable in most wintertime conditions as a full snow tire so in terms of a tire that you can use all year round in your truck that looks good that drives good look no further than the ko2 and ford knows it's what they put in the raptor it's it's absolutely a fantastic tire no complaints at all there and when you get them this big on the Raptor what you get them spinning or sliding it makes a really cool howl so you you just it's a fun tire to push her out and it's fun to sing this engine to the rest there's something to be said about short gearing that's tightly spaced it it really adds to the enjoyment of just you know pointing and shooting the car around town a lot of high-performance cars these days are getting longer and longer during which I understand that the technical reasons why they do it when you have an extremely high-powered special rear-wheel drive car you can't give it super short gearing otherwise you can have major traction issues but when you have something that sort of shortly geard let's run it to ears and get through dirt here you know by 70 miles an hour just it's a good feeling it adds to the visceral experience of driving a car so I intentionally chose this route today it's got the pavement that's an absolutely terrible condition it's almost humorous how well this thing eats up the road just not it just floats along so you have that initial bit of travel from the suspension that really takes the hard edges off of everything and it's a do you live in Detroit man this is the thing to have this is a variety one and to be honest I'm starting to warm up a little bit to the v6 exhaust note I think it's good done a good job of doing the best they can v6 turbo engines are really hit and miss in terms of exhaust notes and won't sound pretty good some of them sound not that great under full load being just to see how they sound once people start putting aftermarket exhausts on them people have to be careful that they don't end up with a raspy system or system that has a lot of drone as v6 can often have when you go to an aftermarket exhaust system the v8 is of course nice of 6.2 is a great sounding engine if the lack of v8 too the only thing holding you back from the drafter I think I think that's take this nice sweeping corner here at speed oh this truck would get me in so much trouble so here's that smooth highway ride I was telling you about you get it up a 10th gear and just let it loaf along a little bit of wind noise but not too bad the tire noise isn't bad either you could really take this car comfortably on longer trips I keep calling a car kind of an insult records definitely a truck so bottom line what do I think of the 2017 Ford Raptor I'm gushing over this thing and for good reason I love this truck I think all of the improvements for it is made for the latest generation f150 electronic and driver assistance upgrades the aluminum body structure stiffer chassis they've taken that all and translated it over to the Raptor taking the proven formula the first-generation raptor added some improvements better suspension better capability more robust powertrain and this is a recipe for success this truck does exactly what Ford wants it to do while having a bandwidth that allows it to be comfortable and smooth and livable and it's really not a one-trick pony you need to understand the limitations of a truck this big this is not a truck that's going to go chasing jeep rubicon in pipe backwards operating situation this is a truck you want to get out in the sand dunes in the deserts in over open off-roading situations rough road rough terrain or just mooning around because this thing that loves the roost I love the truck I love usability I love the fact that you can still drive it daily and have been comfortable and reasonably efficient and smooth and you can just take it on the weekends and beat the snot out of it and it's not going to complain at all it is a hooting machine so there are a few drawbacks you know what I want to get this cool relief you're kind of fast so second there's that howl I was telling you about brake pedal is a little spongy in terms of driving dynamics that's another minor complaint is that the braking feel isn't all that great you get a little bit of sponginess at the top of the pedal if Ford could tighten up that brake pedal feel a little bit make a little bit firmer and more progressive this thing would be darn your perfect dynamically it's pretty close so in any case the mixture of driving performance and usability quality ruggedness image everything it is definitely one of my all-time favorite vehicles and I am dying to get a chance to get one for myself so that's it man raptor is awesome if you have the means I highly recommend check it out so Chris osburgh here whining Road Magazine really enjoy doing this review for you guys if you like the reviews if you like the point-of-view drives like the content please subscribe check out my personal channel and we'll be bringing forward to you so thanks for watching tune in next time and talk to you later see ya youwhat's going on everyone great day here Chris osburgh winding road magazine today I have the super hero of pickup trucks this is the 2017 Ford f-150 Raptor take a look at this thing it is a real-life Tonka truck first thing you notice is how absolutely striking it is it's a big truck but not overdone not totally bro doze not totally jacked up it is wide it is tough but it is also very functional just look at these wide fenders they've given it the wide body treatment over the regular f150 as you quickly notice here most of the cars we review are quite clean and pristine and well detailed this one not so much this one we've had a lot of fun with it is dirty this is a condition your Raptor should be in and it's only fitting that we do our walk around here off of the pavement because it would be a shame if it didn't get a little dirty so being the second generation of the Ford Raptor it is a muscled up version of the mainstream f-150 based on the newest version of the f-150 it incorporates many of the functional upgrades that the f-150 itself has received namely the aluminum body structure that has saved hundreds of pounds over the outgoing version in terms of what the body structure accounts for in the overall weight of the vehicle we also have huge changes in the powertrain department over the original f-150 Raptor the original Raptor was available in two v8 trims the larger of the two being a 6.2 liter unit backed by a six-speed automatic transmission now for this updated Raptor we have a 3.5 liter EcoBoost which makes more power and torque through its twin turbochargers than the v8 ever did so with this new truck we are at 450 horsepower and a staggering 510 pound-feet of torque and that's backed by a ten speed automatic transmission yes that's not a misspeak ten speeds pretty impressive transfer case is also updated instead of a simple locking two-wheel drive four-wheel drive four-wheel drive low we also have the addition of a quote all-wheel drive for auto mode that's a more user friendly than the simple locking four-wheel drive transfer case of old still have absolutely massive BFG ta keo two tires on beadlock inspired wheels with a functional or non-functional accent here which looks like a locking hub of Ford Fords of you're you know kind of like an 82 Bronco but it is just for decoration at this point tires are pretty massive so we have 315 millimeters of width we have 70 series cross section on a 17 inch wheel boy big big tires take a look we also have um you see the turbocharger peaking in there from the passenger side Bank don't get a good view here maybe we can crouch down absolutely massive aluminum lower control arms there we have Fox internal bypass reservoir shocks which are really the the jewel of the f-150 is the suspension tuning so in addition to the other upgrades we've mentioned over the first gen raptor we also have more suspension travel front and rear there you can see the external reservoir on the Fox shock here and what that does is adds a little bit more volume to the overall system helps with heat management helps with a shock not fading when you're going over bumps at high speeds and really warming up the suspension components it allows them to stay more constant and not pack down over time let's see we've got a damped lift gate back here and being an f-150 we've also got this nice step capability here to go ahead get this step to come out there we go super handy for getting in and out of the bed we have a factory installed bed liner option which is cool spring a bed liner got Ford's modular system for mounting different racks and fixtures in the back of the truck so you've got all the fun in the Raptor but you're not compromising the overall usefulness of the pickup truck so I can't overemphasize how useful these step systems are I'm doing it the wrong order we got two one two it's easier to use that I'm making it out to be here and three go ahead close that tail big beefy tow hooks back here for getting you stuck or more likely getting your buddies out of getting stuck because they got wrapped or stuck you really got to work at it also have nice big dual exhaust here the original raptor only had exhaust on one side of the rear end of the truck so it's a aesthetic upgrade that i do like go ahead pop the hood of this beast there we go Ford performance no longer calling an SVT 3.5 litre unit twin turbochargers one turbocharger for each bank got a nice high mounted air intake system over here so you can go through deep water sands and whatnot and not worry about your engine getting full of junk engine does the job you needed to do it's a nice powerplant got torque all over the place not much lag anything over about two thousand rpm and it really moves you with authority so full LED headlight treatment we've also got the marker lights which are required as the width of the Raptors over 80 inches wide unlike the regular f-150 so it's a striking truck I absolutely love this styling I love the look I love the functionality it is my favorite pickup so let's go ahead and get inside by step boards on the side here they feel very substantial feel like they'd be up to some punishment which they may encounter driving off-road you're greeted with a raptor splash screen there Ford performance nice engaged set up here very sporty very legible nothing new from the from the updated f-150 and f250 you know all of the nice things I like about those trucks are directly carried over into the Raptor so I'm going to go ahead start it built Ford Tough of course 3.5 liter rumbles to life so let's get this out of the way it's not a v8 doesn't sound like a v8 people love the v8 sound v6 is can be hit or miss this sounds good for a v6 it's just different you have to align your expectations with the fact that it's not maybe not going to get that burble and that deep Rumble you get out of the 6.2 liter but it has its own charm so they've done a really good job of tuning the induction noise on this turbocharger setup so if you if you admit rpm and you kind of tip into the throttle a little bit the turbo spool and the boost builds you get a really lovely induction noise as the turbos are doing their work so I'm hoping that sound it's captured on the drive as we go through here so I'm not going to spend too much time on the typical things here the sync 3 system is it's greatly improved at this point it works decently well there sometimes especially with navigation when you're trying to navigate very trying to work around this map screen that you can get a little bit confused on what you need to press in order to get back to a regular screen or get back to the marker following your path what overall usability system of the system is pretty good so we're going to go ahead and hit the home button here we've got your audio that your climate which is backed by physical knobs and buttons here phone settings radio usability is quite good I like having a tune up as well we have a Sony branded premium audio system which works pretty well a little bit muddy but it's got decent frequency responses that's good basis adequate volume it's not an audiophile level system but I think your vehicle rocks and tunes in here as you're off-roading a raptor and be pretty happy about it functionally though it's got some nice things it's got two USB ports down here apple carplay and ER dotto of course it's got our four-wheel drive knob here which you'll be well-acquainted with so typically you're going to be driving around two-wheel drive high unlike the previous Raptor you cannot engage the rear locking differential in two-wheel drive high what you really don't need to because it does have a it's lit type differential in the back so even when it's not fully locked you're still getting some locking capability when you're driving on the road so for auto as I explained is more of an all wheel drive system that engages four wheel drive on demand for high locks new center transfer case which will appropriate 50/50 front and rear at all times as those four low with a reduced gear ratio overall on the transmission so nice things 420 watt inverter built right in that's pretty sweet we also have trailer backup mode which you can actually steer your trailer via this knob here steer the entire truck isn't backing up and monitoring the system here in the display well will test that functionality at some point just the raptor is not we're focusing on other raptor aspects not to the trailer join in this review so as with all of the modern Fords the gauge cluster has a plethora of information that you can access via the center display here as well as a very much full gauge system I'm a big fan of these Ford gauges they look good functioning functionally well laid out and you've got all the information you need a bunch of buttons here you have your active cruise control settings on this side you've got your steering wheel modes over here you've got your driving modes for the Raptor your normal your sport which sharpens up the throttle and transmission response you've got your weather which is well suited for snow and rain you can see it switched to for a and actually put us right into the all-wheel-drive core on cold mode put it into mud or sand which is going to take me down to four high also adjust the traction control stability control as necessary and it also locked the rear differential for me automatically bah-ha mode is when you want to fly across a desert so it's a little bit of a high-speed power oriented work for high we've unlocked a rear differential last but not least we have Rock Calling it's going to put me right into four-wheel drive low which does require a shift in neutral but if you're going slow through a rock crawling type situation it's going to set the car up for that the throttle response is going to be appropriately progressive to help control yourself a little bit more in tricky off-road environments and it's kind of nice how the whole car is integrated and whole truck is integrated into these drive modes and it knows exactly what the best setting is going to be for all of the systems so select the terrain mode pre conditions not many I didn't put it in neutral I couldn't make in the four low so it's not going to be happy with that so I'm going to put it back to normal and we're going to go ahead and take this thing for a spin because that's really what you guys are all waiting for here so I really like the steering wheel it's nice and chunky discus nice thumb recesses here it's got nice magnesium shift paddles otherwise organ ah mcclee it's a pretty good setup so let's put that 10 speed automatic into drive I started this review near a gravel road just because I knew I'd want to play with this thing a little bit so we're going to go ahead we're going to turn that advanced track stability control completely off ten speeds very close ratio lots of performance minimal leg the engine you're off the line and you're on your way steering response is actually pretty good all things considered considering the size of the truck sidewall of the tires it has a sporty feel for a pickup you've got have been a Christmas on turnin and the truck feels it feels very responsive for what it is pavement and exact they don't sign you want to see when you're out driving a raptor this power train offers a lot of performance it really gets up and goes there 260 time is quoted to be in the low fives which for a truck this thing downright scoots I think they'll be very little complaints in terms of overall performance in this power training package and you can really feel it the car kind of swap squats down gets back on its haunches and just wants to go and just like that we reach 60 miles per hour so this review is going to focus more on the on-road usability of the Raptor we will have a full review of this thing off-road but if you're going to be driving this thing on the pavement which let's be honest most people will spend most of their time driving these things in the real world even if they play with it on the weekends when they can and civility and usability of this truck is Franklin's really oppressive so the massive suspension system long travel it really leads to a nice ride and you it doesn't feel like the brute that you kind of expect it to be it's not a difficult truck to drive it's not a difficult truck to manage to maneuver has a driver assistance systems like the 360-degree top view camera and it has front and rear cameras which are intelligently designed to come on when you're indifferent let's say off-road situations and it knows your steepness of the terrain you're driving on and it turns on the right camera just when you need to see on the front of the rear it's a you can tell there's a lot of forethought put into this truck and how these people or how people are going to be using the truck under what conditions trying to demonstrate that lovely induction noise you get on high load throttle tippet when you get about 20-30 percent throttle dialed in there is a bit of fake piped in artificial generated noise from this engine and it's kind of like the fusion sport we drove it's it's noticeable but some people are going to be annoyed with it I'm not personally bothered by too much because the noise is pretty accurate in terms of what the truck sounds like coming outside is not totally fake noise it's unrepresentative how the truck sounds but it it'd be kind of nice if it could make its own noises much like the v8 did but you know this is the future how we will be focusing on lower displacement downsized engines and going to performance applications we have to live with we have to live in this environment so I'm going to go ahead and launch it for hi here or for auto sorry make sure we get maximum traction let's do a full 0-60 launch even with half of the truck on raffle I expect it's still going to hook up quite nice as I said basically any time you put your foot in it ten speeds will get you right into the perfect rpm for that EcoBoost engine to get up in fork band and accelerate very quickly downshifts of the same way 10th here very little hesitation go ahead and put it back into two-wheel drive hi kind of a cool feeling when you're putting the power down on two wheel drive and you can feel it massive rear axle back there and wheel and tire package just kind of shifting and undulating to get the power down to the pavement got a little bit of bouncing it's not in a bad way but it just feels like a massive tool that you're that you're wielding to to conduct a Orchestra of chaos and awesomeness although a start/stop system feels a little bit out of place in a raptor I understand why they have to do it but once again not too many of Raptor owners are interested in a staving fuel I don't think the feature the customers actually asked for now I really think the biggest surprise with the new Ford Raptor is nothing to do with his off-road ability I think people expect that it's going to be absolutely amazing off-road and it really is but the biggest surprise is just how livable and refined it is to use in normal driving the ride quality is is excellent and the truck just doesn't feel as big as it looks or as big as it really is it's just a easy truck to drive and that super supple suspension with long travel and off-road tires the BFG ta keo 2 s with huge sidewalls it just eats up the road and I live here in Michigan where you can clearly see from my videos the quality of the roads out here leaves a lot to be desired there's a lot of potholes and a lot of broken pavement and I I'm just amazed how well this thing drives out here I mean I guess if you think about it you shouldn't be too surprised but it's hard to believe that something that can be so capable off-road and in a harsh environment can also be friendly and livable on a daily basis and combined with the 10 speed transmission in the EcoBoost engine it just works really well it's smooth it's quiet it's reasonably economical for what it is and believe it or not it's kind of fun to drive in the corners to has a unique handling characteristic it's not as sloppy and uncontrolled as you would think a vehicle with this kind of suspension travel would be it's actually fun to kind of toss around in the corners and going pretty slow right now but if you get this thing out and some twisty roads I mean it's not sports hard not carving corners with it but it's simply fun to drive and I think the bandwidth this car has if this truck has in terms of what you can have fun doing with this thing is it's just about unparalleled out there all right in this vehicle with the 3.5 liter EcoBoost v6 is also we could with a start/stop system which on a raptor honestly I don't think any Raptor owner is going to be interested in saving fuel at idle and it's it's an OK system but it's not the best it is kind of it's a little bit of true Civ so when the engine comes back on there's a bit of a bump there's a lot of starter noise it is a system that I would be inclined to switch the off button right here and just keep the engine on but it's there if you want if you want to use it if you want to save a little bit of fuel in your Raptor you have the option of utilizing the system all right since we're stuck behind traffic it might as well take the opportunity to demonstrate the radar-guided cruise control as well so right here on the steering wheel arm the system by pressing on press the set button set it at 50 miles per hour set our following distance believe it or not you can just sit back and let your Raptor control its speed its distance all by itself as you can see it's not a complete stop and go system for the radar-guided cruise control so as we came to a stop the system beeped and disengaged and the driver is ultimately responsible for stopping the vehicle and starting again the 10 speed automatic transmission really does a good job of keeping the 3.5 liter EcoBoost right in the meat of its power man so this engine has quite a wide spread of torque it doesn't have a lot of lag once you get it up to about 2,000 rpm onwards it's got plenty of pull and it doesn't have much of a taper at the top-end heater so it really has a nice broad plateau of torque and this transmission you know that's the base manager ten speeds is you have enough ratios and they're closely spaced enough to just keep it in the sweet spot of the power man especially down shipping is basically whatever speed you're at when you punch it it can pick a ratio that's going to put it right in the meat of the torque band and it makes the truck feel that much more responsive fortunately the transmission is decently adaptive quick to downshift at any point sometimes when you have a lot of ratios the transmission takes a while to downshift because you can't it can't figure out quickly enough or can't sort itself up Oh quickly enough to put it in the right ratio on a downshift request but this transmission does a pretty good job so you can see where a ninth gear right now just a little thing along and I'm gonna punch it just straight no hesitation at all for a first generation of this transmission or a new development I'm pretty impressed so typically when you have a new powertrain right when it comes out it may work well but you're going to discover minor issues with the programming and the logic and every once in a while it will do annoying things and usually takes auto manufacturer the model year or two to sort out the fine-tuning on new powertrains but for the first effort and Ford's done a pretty good job of this especially considering the performance intention of this thing you'll put up with any little idiosyncrasies that setup hats which aren't too many but while we're on that topic manual mode could use some work so we have this really nice shift paddles but manual mode leaves a lot to be desired the quickness in the dollar shift and up shift requests is not very good this definitely like and the bummer is if you ever kiss the rev limiter the transmission takes a long time to recover so here's first gear I'm gonna go ahead and run it out and if I'm a little slow on the uptake shift weight one two three and a pilot ship so it holds gears the red line which is fine but the problem is if you shift just an instant too late and the truck ends up on that rev limiter it takes a long time for the next up shift requests to register and the truck actually up shift again so the manual ends up ultimately not being all that useful sitting there waiting for the truck options anyway as I was saying the manual mode ends up being not all that useful because the truck does a better job of managing the upshifts all by itself you know you can use the manual capability let's say if you're off-roading and you want to downshift preemptively - you know - engine break down a steep hill but in terms of straight-line acceleration there's really nothing to be gained by using the manual mode selection so Ford could go back and revise that a little bit and make it a little bit more useful in a performance sense if they could improve the timing of the manually requested upshift and downshift it could add some add some improvements to the manual capability but honestly the transmission does a great job when left to his own devices and when it chooses to shift by itself that I don't see that as a huge drawback it'd be nice if they would change it but the transmission does a great job when you just leave it in Drive so steering in addition to the steering modes or in addition to the overall driving modes you also have three levels of steering feel so right now I'm normal sport kind of firms it up a little bit doesn't feel like it changes the overall ratio at all and comfort you know makes it easier to steer so that it turns up the steering assist personally I like it on normal I'm just fine with that it's a really good balance between steering half during field effort and it's considering considering the massive componentry and wheel and tire that you have out front on that front axle but it has pretty good steering feel that's a good job of feeling responsive and giving you a little bit of feedback and that feedback usually is a feeling of absolutely massive wheels and tires up front just getting pounded when you're just blasting through the ruts offroad and it makes you feel like Ivan Stewart but you know I guess that's the whole point right driving this thing really make you feel like a superhero because it's just just so it's just so badass so the Raptor comes equipped with BFG ta keo two tires which in my personal opinion are the best all-around truck tires in existence so I personally run these tires on a number of trucks including my own and they give you just a awesome blend of general off-road capability they work great with snow that were great in the sand and they are much better on the road than you'd expect looking at them so they look pretty aggressive they look pretty tough but they're still pretty smooth and quiet and you can you can drive them out in the highway and it's not vibrating it's not loud and buzzing there's a little bit of elevated tire noise compared to a regular car but it's much more reasonable to expect and actually last a long time too if you're not you know beating on them too hard it happened this past week I they are by far my favorite truck tire now there are some caveats it's not the tire you want to use if you do a lot of mud because the the tread will pack down with mud and it doesn't work that well at that point but generally if you go to a mud oriented tire it's going to be much poorer driving in snow on the road and the wet etc so that's really the only drawback as the ko2 uses they're not a good mud tire but anything else so dry off-roading sand snow in fact they're they're a severe service winter rated tire so even though it's not you know it's not like a winter tire like a blizik it is I would say eighty or ninety percent is capable in most wintertime conditions as a full snow tire so in terms of a tire that you can use all year round in your truck that looks good that drives good look no further than the ko2 and ford knows it's what they put in the raptor it's it's absolutely a fantastic tire no complaints at all there and when you get them this big on the Raptor what you get them spinning or sliding it makes a really cool howl so you you just it's a fun tire to push her out and it's fun to sing this engine to the rest there's something to be said about short gearing that's tightly spaced it it really adds to the enjoyment of just you know pointing and shooting the car around town a lot of high-performance cars these days are getting longer and longer during which I understand that the technical reasons why they do it when you have an extremely high-powered special rear-wheel drive car you can't give it super short gearing otherwise you can have major traction issues but when you have something that sort of shortly geard let's run it to ears and get through dirt here you know by 70 miles an hour just it's a good feeling it adds to the visceral experience of driving a car so I intentionally chose this route today it's got the pavement that's an absolutely terrible condition it's almost humorous how well this thing eats up the road just not it just floats along so you have that initial bit of travel from the suspension that really takes the hard edges off of everything and it's a do you live in Detroit man this is the thing to have this is a variety one and to be honest I'm starting to warm up a little bit to the v6 exhaust note I think it's good done a good job of doing the best they can v6 turbo engines are really hit and miss in terms of exhaust notes and won't sound pretty good some of them sound not that great under full load being just to see how they sound once people start putting aftermarket exhausts on them people have to be careful that they don't end up with a raspy system or system that has a lot of drone as v6 can often have when you go to an aftermarket exhaust system the v8 is of course nice of 6.2 is a great sounding engine if the lack of v8 too the only thing holding you back from the drafter I think I think that's take this nice sweeping corner here at speed oh this truck would get me in so much trouble so here's that smooth highway ride I was telling you about you get it up a 10th gear and just let it loaf along a little bit of wind noise but not too bad the tire noise isn't bad either you could really take this car comfortably on longer trips I keep calling a car kind of an insult records definitely a truck so bottom line what do I think of the 2017 Ford Raptor I'm gushing over this thing and for good reason I love this truck I think all of the improvements for it is made for the latest generation f150 electronic and driver assistance upgrades the aluminum body structure stiffer chassis they've taken that all and translated it over to the Raptor taking the proven formula the first-generation raptor added some improvements better suspension better capability more robust powertrain and this is a recipe for success this truck does exactly what Ford wants it to do while having a bandwidth that allows it to be comfortable and smooth and livable and it's really not a one-trick pony you need to understand the limitations of a truck this big this is not a truck that's going to go chasing jeep rubicon in pipe backwards operating situation this is a truck you want to get out in the sand dunes in the deserts in over open off-roading situations rough road rough terrain or just mooning around because this thing that loves the roost I love the truck I love usability I love the fact that you can still drive it daily and have been comfortable and reasonably efficient and smooth and you can just take it on the weekends and beat the snot out of it and it's not going to complain at all it is a hooting machine so there are a few drawbacks you know what I want to get this cool relief you're kind of fast so second there's that howl I was telling you about brake pedal is a little spongy in terms of driving dynamics that's another minor complaint is that the braking feel isn't all that great you get a little bit of sponginess at the top of the pedal if Ford could tighten up that brake pedal feel a little bit make a little bit firmer and more progressive this thing would be darn your perfect dynamically it's pretty close so in any case the mixture of driving performance and usability quality ruggedness image everything it is definitely one of my all-time favorite vehicles and I am dying to get a chance to get one for myself so that's it man raptor is awesome if you have the means I highly recommend check it out so Chris osburgh here whining Road Magazine really enjoy doing this review for you guys if you like the reviews if you like the point-of-view drives like the content please subscribe check out my personal channel and we'll be bringing forward to you so thanks for watching tune in next time and talk to you later see ya you\n"

2017 Ford F-150 Raptor - Road POV Test Drive & Review

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