Bark beetle
Full Access Member
Yeah the truck is great going down the road but I personally didn't buy a Raptor to be a mall crawler. So here are some impressions a few might be interested in that plan to really use the offroad features or if you are thinking about buying one for these features.
I baptize all my trucks to the dirt within 24 hr of delivery to appropriately treat the paint with a special mineral coating to remove all delivery dust and protect the paint from all the UV it will be exposed to sitting outside in the rain, snow, dust, wind and sand for it's entire life with me.
With that out of the way here are my first offroad impressions from a mixture of slush, mud, water, embedded river rock, washboard, one big g-out and a few forest road erosion berms I hit last night after delivery.
It is the best factory offroad driving truck I have personnel had out of the box, no mods. It is not as good as my 07 Total Chaos long traveled Tundra. Build tread on Pirate 4x4 if you really care. Non are even in the same league as a RZR with shock tuning or a proper KTM 500 EXC. It is better than my mid-travel DCab Tacoma with Chaos UCA, Fox 2.5 resi coilover, rear bump and 2.0 bypass shocked truck by a fair bit and better than my friend's JK that had the Fox internal bypass shocks all the way around. All trucks and the JK have run this same piece of varied trail many times.
While the springs haven't settled yet, the ride is pretty stiff completely empty which is promising because I never go on real offroad trips empty. This is very noticeable on the rear as it did tend to kick around and was true on the others when empty as they were not tuned to run that way either. Disclaimer, I did not check the tire pressure from the dealer and this can contribute to some harshness, especially on the embedded river rock. I also noted the door to cab movement when going through the embedded rock that was called out in one of the media reviews. I need to lower the tire pressure and run it again. Handling on the washboard was comparable to my other trucks, especially the Tundra with the same size tires.
The shocks handled the g-out and erosion berms very well and stayed composed without any surprises. The truck is still too heavy for 13/14" of wheel travel and I already wish I had more travel and 37's. Can there ever be enough? This was also the reason I never bothered with a Gen 1 as I already had a truck with more travel and adequate power. My 97 reg cab F350 powerstroke also suffered from being too heavy and It had 12"F/14"R but did have 37's. This is the ultimate reason why the Tundra was still better as it had 16" all the way around. The Taco had 9.5"F/11"R and 32" tires.
Width and visibility on the trail felt identical to my Tundra and both are very close. Maneuverability felt much more like the Dcab Taco (127") with only 6" more wheelbase. This is a very good thing and the reason while I sold the Tundra and went back to a Tacoma. It was a true beast and is the same basic size as the Raptor SCREW. Unfortunately the Tacoma has pathetic power while the Tundra's 5.7, 6 speed combo let it shred the corners and everything in between. I need to figure out the 10 speed, it seems best to manually shift it with the paddles or the buttons on the side of the shifter but the truck is so quiet you have to rely on the tach to know your shifts. I will give on this one because I don't want a loud truck cruising down the highway anymore. Immediately had the fake sound turned off. Too much computer wizardry for my taste on the modes and settings. Give me manual locking hubs, a gated shifter, a mechanical locker, a t case lever and be done.
Mud spray is moderate and gets on the door handles as well as covering the running boards. Not a big deal to me as all my trucks end up being messy to get in and out of. Hitting mud water at moderate speed sent it over the complete truck and completed the baptism to the offroad life. Will have to slow down quite a bit if running an area where you need to actually see after hitting the water.
The bit of sand I ran shows promise of great fun with the power but power is not instant like it was on the Tundra, not getting into a turbo lag debate here. I was not running baja mode last night nor do I expect to in most situations due to the rapid fuel draining effect it looks to have. Already short on fuel with the SCAB and many trips I take require substantial range between gas stations. Time will tell.
So besides the awful experience with Ford and the factory forgetting to put the skidplates back on after they fixed the tranny and forgetting to install the subwoofer on my truck, the truck looks promising. Who knows if I will end up keeping it stock, modding it, or selling it in a few years and going back to the philosophy of real offroad trucks have to be built not bought. My wife is getting tired of it after 25 something years and pushed me to just buy a Raptor and leave it alone. No truck has survived stock more than one year around this house.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
I baptize all my trucks to the dirt within 24 hr of delivery to appropriately treat the paint with a special mineral coating to remove all delivery dust and protect the paint from all the UV it will be exposed to sitting outside in the rain, snow, dust, wind and sand for it's entire life with me.
With that out of the way here are my first offroad impressions from a mixture of slush, mud, water, embedded river rock, washboard, one big g-out and a few forest road erosion berms I hit last night after delivery.
It is the best factory offroad driving truck I have personnel had out of the box, no mods. It is not as good as my 07 Total Chaos long traveled Tundra. Build tread on Pirate 4x4 if you really care. Non are even in the same league as a RZR with shock tuning or a proper KTM 500 EXC. It is better than my mid-travel DCab Tacoma with Chaos UCA, Fox 2.5 resi coilover, rear bump and 2.0 bypass shocked truck by a fair bit and better than my friend's JK that had the Fox internal bypass shocks all the way around. All trucks and the JK have run this same piece of varied trail many times.
While the springs haven't settled yet, the ride is pretty stiff completely empty which is promising because I never go on real offroad trips empty. This is very noticeable on the rear as it did tend to kick around and was true on the others when empty as they were not tuned to run that way either. Disclaimer, I did not check the tire pressure from the dealer and this can contribute to some harshness, especially on the embedded river rock. I also noted the door to cab movement when going through the embedded rock that was called out in one of the media reviews. I need to lower the tire pressure and run it again. Handling on the washboard was comparable to my other trucks, especially the Tundra with the same size tires.
The shocks handled the g-out and erosion berms very well and stayed composed without any surprises. The truck is still too heavy for 13/14" of wheel travel and I already wish I had more travel and 37's. Can there ever be enough? This was also the reason I never bothered with a Gen 1 as I already had a truck with more travel and adequate power. My 97 reg cab F350 powerstroke also suffered from being too heavy and It had 12"F/14"R but did have 37's. This is the ultimate reason why the Tundra was still better as it had 16" all the way around. The Taco had 9.5"F/11"R and 32" tires.
Width and visibility on the trail felt identical to my Tundra and both are very close. Maneuverability felt much more like the Dcab Taco (127") with only 6" more wheelbase. This is a very good thing and the reason while I sold the Tundra and went back to a Tacoma. It was a true beast and is the same basic size as the Raptor SCREW. Unfortunately the Tacoma has pathetic power while the Tundra's 5.7, 6 speed combo let it shred the corners and everything in between. I need to figure out the 10 speed, it seems best to manually shift it with the paddles or the buttons on the side of the shifter but the truck is so quiet you have to rely on the tach to know your shifts. I will give on this one because I don't want a loud truck cruising down the highway anymore. Immediately had the fake sound turned off. Too much computer wizardry for my taste on the modes and settings. Give me manual locking hubs, a gated shifter, a mechanical locker, a t case lever and be done.
Mud spray is moderate and gets on the door handles as well as covering the running boards. Not a big deal to me as all my trucks end up being messy to get in and out of. Hitting mud water at moderate speed sent it over the complete truck and completed the baptism to the offroad life. Will have to slow down quite a bit if running an area where you need to actually see after hitting the water.
The bit of sand I ran shows promise of great fun with the power but power is not instant like it was on the Tundra, not getting into a turbo lag debate here. I was not running baja mode last night nor do I expect to in most situations due to the rapid fuel draining effect it looks to have. Already short on fuel with the SCAB and many trips I take require substantial range between gas stations. Time will tell.
So besides the awful experience with Ford and the factory forgetting to put the skidplates back on after they fixed the tranny and forgetting to install the subwoofer on my truck, the truck looks promising. Who knows if I will end up keeping it stock, modding it, or selling it in a few years and going back to the philosophy of real offroad trucks have to be built not bought. My wife is getting tired of it after 25 something years and pushed me to just buy a Raptor and leave it alone. No truck has survived stock more than one year around this house.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
