Bought a Gen 1, but for a reason you might not expect

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NathanA

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Hi from the beautiful Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. I'm a gear head who's always drooled over Raptors since I first read about their stellar performance in the Baja 1000 back in 2008. At the time I was only about 15 years old and actually owning one of these trucks was only a pipe dream at best.

Fast forward to October, 2019 and, even though I'm a little late to the party, I'm finally a proud owner of a 2012 screw in Ingot Silver with 65,000km. But, now a days I'm too cheap to spend the extra money on a fancy Raptor when I could spend half the money on a regular half ton that would still do all the things I need it to do. So, why did I cough up the extra dough on a truck that I don't need? MO POWA BABY! Just kidding, the real reason I was drawn to these trucks again is simple. Resale! Gen 1 Raptors hold their value unlike any other newer truck on the market these days. If you compare the Gen 1 Raptor with a newer regular half ton of the same price over a five year ownership period, I'll be spending considerably less on depreciation when it comes time to sell. Long story short, I couldn't afford NOT to buy a Raptor. Maybe that's just my way of justifying the purchase but who cares, I've got one now and I love it!!


I searched far and wide and found myself a good example with low KM over in Airdre, Alberta. The icing on the cake was that the previous owner had purchased the 5 year Ford Premium Care extended warranty only one year ago. The great news is this warranty is transferable to a new owner. I figured I didn't have much to lose so I flew out to go pick it up and drive it home back to BC. When I got there I did my own quick inspection and saw that both front shocks were leaking fluid. Great, front shocks aren't covered under warranty. Luckily I managed to scrape $1500 bucks off the asking price for a total purchase price of 45k Canadian. Pretty fair price considering everything in my opinion.


By the time I got home and threw it on the lift I found a decent list of other things that were wrong with the truck, all covered under warranty thankfully. Took it to my local Ford dealer and they fixed everything with only a $100 deductible plus the cost of two new shocks (I asked them to set them on the middle perch position and I couldn't be happier). I got about $6500 in warranty work performed (mostly fixing oil leaks) which included a front cover reseal, new steering rack, new sway bar links, and a handful of other small things. Extended warranty is a great buy sometimes! Also, the truck had a nasty wobble between 80 and 120km/h that I figured was a tire imbalance. No luck there. It turned out to be the cheaply constructed Chinese Ginelles that were impossible to balance. I picked up some General Grabber ATXs and they're awesome, super smooth. One more problem I noticed was some corrosion on the rocker panel pinch welds that was getting bad enough to be a concern. I had them cleaned up, rust inhibited and undercoated at a local body shop for about 600 bucks. Money well spent.


Enough talk, I'm sure you'd like to see some photos. Here ya go:

The day I bought it:
IMG_0642.JPG

And a couple other randoms:

Pic Edit.JPEG IMG_1941.JPEG IMG_2561.JPEG

I realize now that I don't have too many pictures of it! I'll make sure I grab some more soon.

Cheers, and looking forward to being a part of the forum.

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zombiekiller

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I know there probably aren't a ton of Canadians on this site so I'm glad I can bring that number up by one!

we call the fellas from BC that came on an Exo run last year our "snow mexicans". those dudes were MONEY when it came time to getting stuff fixed and rippin again. so, you have a few raptor brethren up that way. Some of them have even raced the baja 1000 ( in a UTV).

welcome.
 
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NathanA

NathanA

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we call the fellas from BC that came on an Exo run last year our "snow mexicans". those dudes were MONEY when it came time to getting stuff fixed and rippin again. so, you have a few raptor brethren up that way. Some of them have even raced the baja 1000 ( in a UTV).

welcome.

"snow mexicans", I like it. Cool, I'll have to get in touch with them if they're nearby. I'd love to pick their brains about the baja, it's about as badass as it gets.
 
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