Someone is Picking Up His Raptor This Friday!

He ordered it from a dealership in West Texas and he's flying out Friday morning to go pick it up and will drive it back to Houston on Saturday.

Nothing like a long road trip to get first impressions on a vehicle, right?

Maybe he can "drift offroad" and do some of the 1000 miles in the dirt! :mrgreen:

Congratulations Will! Tell us and show us all about it!

Congrats man... Hit me up if you are going to be in my AO, would love to check out a 6.2 and let you check out my "very lightly modded G8"...

It will only add about a half hour to the trip if you swing by Abilene on the way home...

KaiserM715 (Will) should be as giddy as a schoolgirl today. Looking forward to hearing from yet another owner finally getting his reward for being so very patient!

Yet another Raptor owner who's picked up his brand new Raptor and is now MISSING IN ACTION! Where's Kaiser (Will)? :mrgreen:

He's probably on his way home now...8-9hr trip.

I am plumb worn out. Flew in yesterday, went straight from the airport to the dealer. They had it in the showroom, but left all of the plastic on inside (as per my request). Took care of all of the paperwork, let the dealership buy me a tank of gas and I was on my way. Had 8 miles on it when I got it. Initial impression was "man, this is a BIG truck!" Today, I sat in it from 8:20 am until about 5:00 pm, stopping a couple of times to stretch my legs, once for a quick lunch and a tank of gas. Gave me plenty of time to get everything set the way I wanted (took me a little bit to get the mirrors adjusted as the rear seat headrests block quite a bit). I would say a good 1/3 of my trip was on Texas 71, which is hilly two lane. I saw a black Raptor westbound on 71 west of Austin.

Driving impressions:
Very smooth and impressively quiet hwy ride. Plenty of passing power. Seats are very comfy, radio rocks and the exhaust level and tone is just right (IMO). Following recommended break-in (do not maintain constant speed) was a pain in the butt. My speed varied between 65-75 with several full throttle passes (need to do something about that speed limiter...). Averaged 14 mpg, on the dot. Very impressed so far. I will follow up with more later...

Congrats Will!!!!!!! Looking forward to your follow up. It is one sweet ride.

Awesome Will! Really happy for ya bro. Been a looooong time coming.

Awesome dude!

Sorry we couldn't meat up but maybe we can do some kind of Texas gtg trip soon. Anyhow, I'm glad you made it home safe and the truck did great!

A couple more thoughts. I have two very small nit picks. After driving the G8, I really missed having some of the functions covered in the Driver Information Center (avg speed to go along with avg mpg, tire pressures in each tire, etc.) that are not in the Raptor. But it sounds like Ford is taking care of that for 2011 (wonder if it will retrofit for a reasonable price...). The other one is that the driver's side needs a grab handle just like the passenger side.

Here are the things I have planned in the near term:
-Tinting the front windows to match the factory tint in the rear (this week)
-Tonneau cover (I have another thread discussing the three I am looking at)
-Will take a serious look at remote start (works well to cool the car off before putting the kiddo in). I am a fairly competent mechanic, is install of the Ford remote start something I can tackle? FSM06, GasGasMan, any thoughts?

Further down the road
-Bedliner
-?

frogslinger said:

Congrats man... Hit me up if you are going to be in my AO, would love to check out a 6.2 and let you check out my "very lightly modded G8"...

It will only add about a half hour to the trip if you swing by Abilene on the way home...

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Sorry about that, frogslinger. Didn't see your message until after I got home and I had some family commitments in Houston, so I needed to get back.

SVORay said:

Sorry we couldn't meat up but maybe we can do some kind of Texas gtg trip soon. Anyhow, I'm glad you made it home safe and the truck did great!

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A Texas gtg sounds like a good idea. I will be sure to hit ya'll up the next time I am around Abilene or Midland.

BigJ said:

Awesome Will! Really happy for ya bro. Been a looooong time coming.

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Thanks!! It was almost exactly three months from date of order to date of pickup.