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My Review of the 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor


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As I’ve mentioned before a few times here in different threads, my dad ordered a 2017 Raptor a few months ago, and he took delivery 2 weeks ago. I’ve put together the following overview/review and pictures of it for you to read and enjoy, and I, of course, welcome any questions you may have about the vehicle, ordering process, etc. if you have any.

 

Ordering Process

 

My dad has had the same sales guy forever, so whenever he wants to get a new vehicle, he’ll go order what he wants with his sales guy – just an easy walk in and tell him what he wants to order, what options, color, etc. and that’s it; it’s ordered and the waiting begins. I know he ordered it a few months ago, though I don’t recall exactly when (I’ll ask him and edit this later). Thanks to Pioneer, I was able to find out that it was actually built in mid-November, however, he was not able to take delivery until a couple of weeks ago here in January. I’m still not sure what exactly caused that delay, but there were rumors/articles that it was related to refinement/calibration on the 10-speed transmission. Regardless of what caused the delivery delay, it finally arrived, and he’s enjoyed it thus far!

 

Overview/Introduction

 

One note before I begin - I will include some pictures here within my comments, but will also include a link to a Photobucket album that features all the pictures I took, as I took far more than I can reasonably post.

 

His Raptor is basically fully loaded, with the only exceptions being the hood stripe package, the carbon fiber interior trim package (he originally ordered this but was informed that would result in a further delivery delay, so he removed it from the order), interior accent package (that adds the orange in the seats), and the bed ramps.

 

It has Lightning Blue paint, which looks fantastic; the 802A package (includes things like 360-degree camera, LED box/side view lighting, remote start, pro-trailer backup assist, amongst many other things); exterior graphics package (“RAPTOR” script on the bed sides); technology package (blind spot, adaptive cruise, etc); bed divider; bed extender; tailgate applique; tailgate step; the standard 17-inch wheels; black leather interior; second row heated seats; twin panel moonroof; and the navigation system. All Raptors come with the high output 3.5L EcoBoost V6 paired with the 10-speed transmission and 4-wheel drive. I will include the full window sticker later in the “Pricing” section.

 

First Impressions

 

First impression of the vehicle as I walk up to it: awesome. It looks great in pictures, but it looks awesome in person. It’s an imposing vehicle given the extra height/width and much larger tires compared to the regular F-150. The original Raptor looked great, but this one looks even better – more refined, and it seems like the whole design is more cohesive and integrated than the original. Compared to this effort, the first generation almost seems like it was more hastily-designed “let’s do what we can to change it” attempt, rather than this more complete design. Now, I realize part of that has to do with the F-150 design it’s based on has more detailing to it to start, but it still seems like more of a visual change/effort than the previous version, with details like the slimmer bumper allowing the dual exhaust to nestle up higher against the bumper, a more refined/integrated grille design, etc.

 

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The grille is very large and imposing, as should be expected, and includes the integrated clearance width lights and the FORD block letters, surrounded by the excellent LED headlights (I don’t know what that low headlight rating it gets is about, they work great). For those that don’t know, the white surround of the headlights become the orange parking lamps at night. DRLs are just the top headlight. The grille also houses the front camera (with a washer) for the 360-degree system below the FORD script. Raptors do not have fog lights. Also, there is, of course, a giant skid plate under the front bumper, and it continues down the length of the vehicle on the drivers’ side, I believe to protect the gas tank. You can also see the suspension and massive tires in this image:

 

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Both the hood and front quarter panel vents are functional to extract heat from the engine bay:

 

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In that image, you can also see the puddle light (below the mirror) and side camera on the mirror mount. The light on the side of the mirror acts as both a turn signal and the optional sideview mirror spotlights (part of the 802A package).

 

Moving around to the sides/back, I like some of the detailing they’ve included, such as pressing the Raptor name into the running boards.

 

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The optional graphics package that is the “RAPTOR” script on the bed sides looks great, IMO, and the dark tailgate applique helps separate the Raptor further from the regular F-150s. Base Raptors have the regular body-colored tailgate with the Ford emblem in the center for reference.

 

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The bumper is notched up on the sides to let the huge exhaust pipes nestle up into that notch, as I mentioned before, for improved clearance angles without the exhaust hanging down on the passenger side in the last model.

 

A new feature for these trucks (I think the 2015s on got them, but it’s obviously new to the Raptor) is the remote release tailgate, which seems like a nice feature, as well as the integrated bed lighting.

 

--Video of remote release--

 

The redesigned tailgate step will definitely be helpful with the taller truck:

 

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He had a spray in bed liner put in by the dealer – they remove all the bolts, pray the bed liner, and put the bolts back on; he also had the inner wheel wells of the bed sprayed with the same bed liner, which was a good idea, I think, both looks and durability wise. The spray-in liner from Ford wouldn’t have been done this way, they’d just spray over everything, and wouldn’t do the wheel wells. You can also see the bed divider that last picture – it has at least two places you can lock it in to (another picture can be seen in the linked gallery). He has the bed extender taken out at the moment.

 

Moving to the interior...as previously mentioned, his truck has all of the bells and whistles to play around with, but I will get to those more in a minute. Interior materials were of a high quality. There’s a mix of soft touch and hard plastic pieces around the cabin, which is more acceptable in a truck than it would be in other types of vehicles. Important touch points – the dash, arm rests, etc., are soft touch, while parts of the console, air vent surrounds, glove box, etc. are of the harder variety for better durability.

 

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As previously mentioned, he didn’t get the carbon fiber package, which would have put carbon fiber in that channel on the passenger dash, the shifter, the storage bin in front of the shifter, and on the door trim. And really, the standard trim is not that dissimilar looking from the carbon fiber – it’s a black plastic with a sort of glossy pattern on top of it that gives a somewhat similar look to the carbon fiber. My opinion – unless you’re absolutely in love with carbon fiber, save the $995 and stick with the standard stuff. At this price point, I would’ve liked for the air vent surrounds and console trim to be real aluminum like the Platinum and Limited models have, but I understand why they went with a slightly textured gray plastic in this application as an off-road oriented vehicle.

 

The door sills have the “Ford Performance” text (see the picture in the gallery). The seats are comfortable and supportive as well, with 10-way power seats, as well as the heated and cooled functions (the latter very helpful down here in South Florida, especially with a black interior), and are embroidered with the Raptor logo. The steering wheel rim is covered in leather, with a thin red piece at the top of it (presumably a nod to it being a Ford Performance model). One thing I’m really impressed with is the paddle shifters – they are full real aluminum pieces. They look similar to the GT’s paddle shifters, but I’m not sure if they’re shared with it or not.

 

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All of the controls in the truck work as expected. Buttons control just about everything you’d need quick/regular access to, with other functions put within the SYNC 3 system, which I’ll discuss a bit later.

 

The rear seat is massive. Legroom is like a limo. Rear seat passengers get rear air vents, and a flip down arm rest; his has heated rear seats too. The sunroof is equally massive, covering the entire cabin, it helps to bring light into an otherwise dark cabin:

 

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The flat floor underneath the rear seat is also very handy for carrying things – there’s a huge space to put whatever you may need in the second row, and the seats just flip right up by pulling the seat upward – no latches necessary (you pull a lever to release it back down).

 

I am a huge fan of little details that show that attention to detail and extra effort to make something special. Though it doesn’t have a projected pony logo or Lincoln welcome mat (a Raptor emblem projection would’ve been cool, but would’ve been less useful for light that’s more needed here), it does have some cool graphics displayed on both the gauge cluster screen and center screen:

The “Built Ford Tough” logo is displayed in the gauge cluster, while “Raptor Ford Performance” is displayed on the center screen:

 

----Raptor video----

 

As with other new Ford/Lincoln vehicles, they’ve made the ambient lighting system switch to red on a particular door if you open it to show you it's open (obviously it doesn't work on red. Just a neat little touch that most probably won’t notice.

 

Driving Impressions

 

All Raptors get Ford’s new high output 3.5L EcoBoost V6 with 450-hp and 510-lb ft of torque with auto start/stop. This thing is quick, especially considering how heavy it is! A buddy of mine took a video of me accelerating, I’ll get him to send it to me to post here. The steering has 3 different modes you can set it to – Normal, Comfort and Sport. There is a noticeable difference between normal and sport (I haven’t used the comfort setting to really know how it behaves). Sport steering mode stiffens up the steering with a more weighted feel. Raptors have their own terrain management system with six modes – normal, sport, snow/ice, mud/rut, baha, and rock crawl. I’ve only used the first two modes. In normal mode, the ride is very comfortable and surprisingly quiet despite the big, knobby tires. Even on faster turns, body roll is controlled. The auto start/stop system doesn’t really bother me, but I know my dad turns it off when he gets in. Sport mode turns off the auto start/stop system. It also keeps the transmission in a lower gear in order to allow you accelerate more quickly as needed.

 

As expected, this thing goes over bumps like they’re nothing. Speed bumps – even at speed – are barely noticeable. I can definitely see how this thing could do very well offroading. The Fox shocks do a great job:

F71373F7-D3FC-4295-9890-F2DF6AEC8BC0_zps

 

On the mileage front, being a massive 4x4 that’s wide, tall and heavy, it's rated at 15/18. At the moment, the mileage calculator said in the mid 11’s when I last saw it. That includes both city and highway driving, as well as stepping on it from stoplights, and sitting in the car playing with the features and such. I believe that the mileage ratings may be achievable in this car, but it’s hard not to press that right pedal.

 

Unfortunately given I live in South Florida, I'm not able to test the off roading capabilities too much (I'll have to look into places around here that might work), so my comments are only about on-road behavior where it'll spend most of its life anyway, but I have no reason to doubt its off-roading capabilities.

 

Overall driving impressions were that it's a very capable and composed vehicle that is very fun to drive. My dad likes adding tunes to his vehicles, and he’s talked about adding one when they become available.

 

Electronics/Features

 

I decided to go ahead and give electronics their own section. SYNC 3 seems far better and more intuitive than MyFord Touch. Its setup is much closer to the previous Clarion system that I have in my Flex, and enjoy using. All major functions are easy to find, with their own sections at the bottom of the screen (ex. Climate, nav, media, settings, etc.). Despite its user friendliness, I did sit and spend 10-15 minutes to sit there and actually explore the various menus and submenus, and like anything, after that, it becomes much easier to navigate as you become familiar with where things are located. Obviously with the trucks, Ford is looking to allow people with gloves and stuff ease of use with controls, so the large physical buttons for features like the heated/cooled seats are great and eliminated the complexity/unnecessary steps that came with MFT. Overall, SYNC3 is MUCH better than the MFT system it replaced.

 

Moving onto other electronic gizmos and features....I mentioned above the helpful remote tailgate release. I wonder if a foot activated feature would be useful here too like the liftgates? Perhaps not “exciting,” but it’s nice to have keyless entry/push button start as opposed to having to use a key.

 

The Adaptive Cruise Control I have used before, and it worked the same in this application - it keeps the distance between you and the car in front of you, and will slow the vehicle down if necessary all the way to 15 or 20 mph before telling you to take over. VERY handy feature on road trips, I might add. The addition of the “stop and go” feature that takes you all the way to 0 and back up to speed again in the 2018 models would’ve been nice here, but oh well!

 

Lane Keep Assist - it has multiple settings - alert, aid, and alert+aid. The alert just vibrates the steering wheel. The aid (and alert+aid) will actually move the car back into the lane if you begin to drift. I tried it on multiple occasions, and it worked, though if you drift over too fast, it won't do it well. Also, in intersections where there are no lines, it obviously doesn't work. There’s a button below the shifter that allows you to quickly/easily turn it off.

 

The Raptor does not have park assist optional; I’m assuming because of the additional width and perhaps sensors, they didn’t want to have it in the Raptors.

 

The 360-degree camera is great; it comes up automatically when in reverse, but there’s also a button on the dash that allows you to turn the cameras on at speeds under 3 mph. They’re very helpful for checking clearance in tight spaces. I used it several times in tight parking garages to make sure I was clear. Using the button, there are several “settings” you can use – 1) the full 360 view with rear camera; 2) front camera; 3) front wide angle view; 4) rear wide angle view. The front and rear camera wide angle views are helpful when pulling out of spaces where you can’t see past the cars next to you.

 

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Raptors again have auxiliary switches, but they’ve been moved from the shifter area to the overhead console:

 

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His truck does have the ProTrailer Backup Assist feature. I haven’t had a chance to use it, but I was with him last year when he was able to test it at an auto show event. Basically, you rotate that knob the direction of where you want the trailer to go, and it will turn the steering wheel as needed to get the trailer where you want. My dad has pulled/parked plenty of trailers, so he likely won’t ever use it, but I can see its’ usefulness for those that may not have experience with trailers or just don’t want to deal with it.

 

I mentioned the LED headlights earlier, I think they work great; they also have the auto high beam feature. In my time driving the truck, I’ve only had it go on once or twice, even on some darker roads where I would’ve thought it would activate. I’m uncertain of the sensitivity of this system, and would need further use to better assess its’ usefulness. I do live in a populated area, though, so I can see it being handy in a more rural area where you may go from a populated area into a less busy area and back again.

 

Lastly on the technology front, I’ll mention the guage cluster. The screen in the gauges is configurable with different settings and things you can see, depending on what you’re doing at the time – for example, fuel economy, towing, off road, etc. Here’s one image of the off-road screen, there are pictures of the other screens in the linked gallery.

 

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Pricing

 

I forgot to take a picture of the window sticker at the time of writing this, so I’ll take one and post it this evening. As I said above, it had all of the options except for the hood stripe package, the carbon fiber interior trim package, interior accent package (that adds the orange in the seats), and the bed ramps and the bead locking wheels. The sticker was a bit over $67,000 (I’ll get an exact number for you with the window sticker image), and dealers are currently charging a fairly significant markup over that, which I won’t disclose here. 2017 models are all accounted for, and from what I was told, our dealer will only get 14 a year. While it’s a lot, competitors don’t offer anything like this with all the features and capabilities Ford puts into their trucks. Fully loaded Limited models come out to a thousand or so more than Raptors, so this isn’t the most expensive F-150 in the lineup.

 

-----Window sticker-----

 

 

Overall/Wrap-up

 

Overall, I’m really impressed with the vehicle. It drove very well, is very quick for how big and heavy it is, and looks fantastic – there’s nothing like it on the road, and got many looks while out in it (my dad has told me of multiple people asking him about it while out and about). Fit and finish/quality looked great as far as I could see. All the technology and options added to both the experience and pricepoint, but several could be left off the order sheet depending on what you want the truck for – as a daily driver, it’s nice to have all of the features on hand.

 

 

Here is a link to a gallery of pictures and videos I took of my experience with my dad’s 2017 F-150 Raptor:

http://s585.photobucket.com/user/rmc523/library/2017%20Ford%20F-150%20Raptor?sort=3&page=1

 

 

 

 

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about the Raptor and I'll try my best to answer them! Or if you have anything specifically you’d like me to take pictures of, feel free to request them.

Edited by rmc523
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Great write-up RMC, much appreciated. Now you really have me jonesing for the new one. I'm really looking forward to all the new Tech versus my current one. Can you comment on how the truck sounds, as I really love the sound of mine. It was a minor concern of mine.

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Great write-up RMC, much appreciated. Now you really have me jonesing for the new one. I'm really looking forward to all the new Tech versus my current one. Can you comment on how the truck sounds, as I really love the sound of mine. It was a minor concern of mine.

 

Oops! I forgot to mention the exhaust sound. It sounds fantastic! But also not overwhelming in everyday driving.

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Nice job! Great pics as well.

 

Just one comment: That "thin red piece" at the top of the steering wheel is there so that the driver can tell when the steering wheel is back on center. Something that is critical during spirited off-road driving, especially when airborne! ;)

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Nice job! Great pics as well.

 

Just one comment: That "thin red piece" at the top of the steering wheel is there so that the driver can tell when the steering wheel is back on center. Something that is critical during spirited off-road driving, especially when airborne! ;)

I thought I read back in the day that the red line had a purpose such as you suggest as well as it was an indicator of the SVT vehicle

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I thought I read back in the day that the red line had a purpose such as you suggest as well as it was an indicator of the SVT vehicle

 

The late Mark Donohue seems to get credit for being the first race car driver to use a bright colored stripe at the the top center of his steering wheel as an indicator of front wheel position.

 

As far as being an indicator of an "SVT" vehicle I have no idea if those are the only Fords that get the stripe. I did notice, however, that the base '15-16 GT350 Mustang gets an ebony (black) stripe while the stripe is red on the even more track focused GT350R. It's also interesting to note that the Focus RS does not have a stripe but it does have a short, flat section at the bottom of the steering wheel. Both versions of the GT350 also have flat bottom steering wheels.

 

BTW, I believe SVT is no longer a separate entity and was merged with Team RS and Ford Racing under the Ford Performance banner in 2014.

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Nice review. It's good that you mentioned about some of the truck parts. Too bad the pictures aren't loading properly.

 

Sorry about the pictures. Photobucket in its infinite wisdom, decided to take down every linked image on the internet and demand that you pay $400-something a year to have them work again or be able to host/link pictures. And that's not happening from me.

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Sorry about the pictures. Photobucket in its infinite wisdom, decided to take down every linked image on the internet and demand that you pay $400-something a year to have them work again or be able to host/link pictures. And that's not happening from me.

 

 

imgur.com

 

Yeah Photobucket fucked the past 15 year or so of photos posted to forums.

 

I know the big issue they had was with people using their service for Ebay/Amazon, which is understandable, but the scorched earth policy is crap with all the alternatives out there.

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imgur.com

 

Yeah Photobucket fucked the past 15 year or so of photos posted to forums.

 

I know the big issue they had was with people using their service for Ebay/Amazon, which is understandable, but the scorched earth policy is crap with all the alternatives out there.

 

Oh, I know, and have been putting new images on imgur, but this thread is so old, I'm not going to go through the effort of uploading them and relinking. Guess that's lazy of me...

 

What do you mean using them for Ebay/Amazon?

 

Yeah, they didn't think it through - I'll never log on again, there goes my ad revenue (the ads and popups had gotten ridiculous), and I'm sure most other people are the same way.

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What do you mean using them for Ebay/Amazon?

 

Yeah, they didn't think it through - I'll never log on again, there goes my ad revenue (the ads and popups had gotten ridiculous), and I'm sure most other people are the same way.

I don't know if Photosuckit has said it or if it's just speculation, but the reports in the tech press that I've seen/heard have indicated that they made the change because a large percentage of their bandwidth was being consumed by commercial users (i.e, people who were using the images in for-profit ventures). I don't blame them for wanting to make money from their service, but the way they did it (springing it on everyone with no warning) was exceptionally crappy.

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I don't know if Photosuckit has said it or if it's just speculation, but the reports in the tech press that I've seen/heard have indicated that they made the change because a large percentage of their bandwidth was being consumed by commercial users (i.e, people who were using the images in for-profit ventures). I don't blame them for wanting to make money from their service, but the way they did it (springing it on everyone with no warning) was exceptionally crappy.

 

Yeah, they should've figured out how to stop/charge just those people rather than everyone all at once.

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