2023 Ford Ranger Raptor (inc. 0-100) detailed review: The toughest ute/bakkie/truck on sale!

CarExpert

I've finally driven it! And, I bloody love it! This is the 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor and it's the same colour and spec that I have on order. Paul Maric tests out the all-new fire-breathing twin-turbocharged V6 petrol Ranger Raptor.  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Ford content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford More Ford Ranger content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford/ranger  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:48 Interior: 06:15 Infotainment: 07:41 Features: 09:19  Practicality: 10:12 On the Road: 13:23 0-100km/h: 20:22 Off the road: 26:24 Verdict: 34:57  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #ford #ranger #review #raptor

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. I'm so excited to drive this today. It's the new Ford Ranger Raptor. It's priced at just under

00:05 $86,000. I've kind of teased you all with vision of this doing off-road stuff, doing crazy things,

00:11 but today it's all about living with it, driving it on a sealed road and also doing a little bit of light

00:16 off-roading as well. Now, it doesn't really have any competitors, but Nissan would like you to think that the

00:21 Navara Pro 4 X Warrior is a competitor and Toyota the Rugged X, which is going to be replaced with something that

00:27 more directly competes with this. I'm excited to see what they come up with. Today we're going to do a detailed

00:32 review of the new Ranger Raptor, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the

00:36 time codes on the screen or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:40 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, that way you'll get

00:44 notified every time I have a snotty nose. Let's talk exterior. So you've got eight external colors

00:50 to pick from. All but white is going to cost you $675 extra. This color here, Conquer Gray, is the same

00:57 color that I've ordered my Raptor in, which is just around the corner and exciting stuff. Now, down the

01:02 front here, big Ford lettering there, so this is unique to Raptor. Look, I know it's a bit gaudy and all that

01:08 sort of stuff, but I actually think it looks pretty cool. It's quite menacing in person there and it

01:12 really stands out nicely. Just on that front camera too, you've got a little washer there, so if you do

01:17 some off-roading and it does get dirty, that'll blitz that for you. Down the bottom here, you have a set of

01:22 rated recovery points, and then beneath here as well, you have a 2.3mm thick steel plate there to

01:28 protect your engine. If you look under here, you've got little louvers there to open and close as

01:33 cooling is required. This of course uses the EcoBoost V6 engine, so it's a meaty, meaty thing, and I'm

01:40 keen to see whether this feels as quick on the road as it did off the road when we drove out.

01:44 Now, this over here, Matrix LED headlights come standard. You get the daytime running light in that

01:51 C-clamped shape up the top there, LED fog light down the bottom here too. What you'll notice down

01:56 the bottom here is spacing here between the front bar and the body. That's so you can have

02:00 independent flexes this car's driving fast or going off-road or stuff like that, and it means

02:05 you're not damaging the body because they are separated there. Now, around the side here,

02:09 actually before we get to the side, have a look how wide this is. Now, you may think to yourself,

02:13 "This looks bigger than a standard Ranger." Well, you'd be right because this is over two metres

02:17 wide, so it is about 100mm wider than a standard Ranger, and you do notice that when you are

02:21 parking and stuff like that. It is big. In terms of height, it's over 1.9 metres tall as well, so

02:27 there's a car park near my shopping centre that I can't get into with this because

02:31 there was 1.9 restrictions, so keep that in mind as well. Yes, this has grown, and it's going to

02:36 mean that you can't drive it in some places in the city. Come around to the side here. So, this is

02:42 unchanged from the previous generation of Ranger Raptor, so you've got a set of BF Goodrich KO2

02:47 tyres, 285mm wide on all four corners, 17-inch alloy wheel there as well, brakes are unchanged

02:52 as well. Now, you'll notice here this car doesn't have the beadlock-capable rims, but I've ordered

02:56 my car with the beadlocks. Why? I don't know. I just think they look pretty cool. Of course,

03:01 beadlocks you can't drive on road, so they're only for off-road use, and the way they work is by

03:07 securing the tyre to the rim, and it means if you are doing off-road driving where you do drop the

03:11 pressure, there is no chance virtually of them slipping off the actual rim, which would cause

03:17 you endless headaches if you are off-road. Now, the suspension is really interesting too. I'm

03:20 going to go through that when we do go for a drive, but you will notice here that this sits

03:24 higher than a standard Ranger too, so ground clearance of just over 270mm. Big wheel arch

03:29 flares there. You've got these vents along the side here because you do actually have a gap

03:33 through here for cooling. Unfortunately, Raptor doesn't have the ability to fit a second battery

03:38 beneath the bonnet. That's only Everest and Ranger with V6 or four-cylinder. You can't actually do

03:43 that, so that is a little bit disappointing. They couldn't make that packaging work. Up the top here,

03:47 you've got body colour on the top of that wing mirror. Down the bottom, you've got a camera

03:50 just there. This also has the zone lighting package, which means you've got a high-powered

03:54 LED here that shines around the car, and you can configure those zones if you want to go camping

03:59 or other fun stuff like that. Indicator built into the wing mirror there. Love these sidesteps.

04:03 So, the rest of the Ranger's sidesteps are really not that good. This, on the other hand, is right

04:09 where it needs to be. They're solid, and you can hear they're sort of metallic to the touch, so

04:14 pretty awesome setup. Privacy glass comes standard, and then work your way to the back.

04:18 Now, you'll notice around the back here, you have Raptor sticker here, but you can actually get an

04:21 optional decal package. This hasn't been fitted to this car, but it adds more Raptor-style stickers

04:27 to it. You'll also notice here there is no sidestep like you do find on other Ranger variants. They

04:32 couldn't make that work with the exhaust and the packaging that comes with that exhaust, so

04:36 a little bit disappointing, but I guess it is what it is. Come around to the rear.

04:40 So, at the back here, you have a set of LED taillights. This also integrates the blind

04:45 spot monitor that can also take into account your trailer length. So, if you do have a vehicle

04:50 entering your blind spot while you do have a trailer, you get into the length of the trailer,

04:53 and it will tell you when that vehicle is within that blind spot. Big Raptor badge just there.

04:58 Black badge here too, so the standard Ranger gets a blue badge, Raptor gets a black badge.

05:02 Ranger embossed in this bottom section. Another set of two recovery points there,

05:07 and then dual exhaust outlets. These also have a bimodal function that'll run you through when

05:11 we go for a drive. Tone capacity, it is pretty limited, 2,500 kilos, so it's a ton down on a

05:16 standard Ranger. Now, let's talk about the tray. I'll crack this open. So, this gets your ruler

05:22 built into the top section. You also have these little slots here for clamps. Over to the side,

05:26 you have a 12-volt outlet. There's no power set up there, unfortunately. Australian design rule

05:32 requirements mean you can't actually have a power board there, which is a great shame.

05:35 You have tie-downs within the bed. This also comes standard with the spray-in bed liner.

05:39 Now, in terms of your dimensions, your load length is just over 1,500 mil. You have at least

05:43 1,200 mil between the wheel arches. Your payload is down on a standard Ranger, only 717 kilograms.

05:50 GCM 5370 and GVM 3130 kilos. So, yes, this is down on standard Ranger when it comes to load

05:57 carrying capacity, but if you do need somewhere to pop your shopping or a gym bag, this is the

06:01 ideal space for it. You have a torsion bar here to make this close a little easier, and that is

06:06 your Raptor load carrying capacity. So, let me know in the comments section below, what do you

06:10 think of the design? Did I choose the right colour for my Ranger Raptor? Let me know what you reckon

06:15 down there. So, we're inside the Ranger Raptor. We will start off with the keys. So, you have unlock,

06:20 lock, then on the back you have Raptor under that sticker there. It's a proximity sensing key,

06:26 so you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside, you have a push-button start just on this

06:30 side, just over here. So, design-wise, it looks very much the same as the rest of the Ranger range,

06:36 which I think is great. Raptor, though, picks up some of these highlights and include the red stuff

06:40 around those air vents. You get the red centre stitching here on the steering wheel. Raptor

06:44 there, love these sort of metal paddle shifters. You can actually feel them in the hand as well,

06:50 which is pretty cool. Then the seats are embossed with Raptor up the top, red stitching and then red

06:55 piping as well on the edges. So, it does look sort of unique enough to make it, I guess, a

06:59 unique proposition. So, love that. Now, in terms of, I guess, how this compares to the rest of

07:05 the dual-cab utes in this segment, like that is a huge infotainment screen. Unlike the rest of the

07:11 Ranger variants, this actually gets a full display ahead of the driver too. So, now, what about your

07:16 touch points? So, that is nice and soft, soft on the door too. How soft are they? Well, we've got

07:22 our durometer, we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car

07:26 compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description. Build

07:30 quality, hopefully good given I've ordered one. Actually, all feels pretty decent, I reckon. And

07:36 door slam. Sounds good. Okay, infotainment. So, let's start off with the basics. 12-inch display,

07:46 WildTrack and Raptor get the bigger display, everything else gets a slightly smaller version,

07:51 but they all get SYNC 4. It is enormous, it looks really cool, it's super high resolution.

07:56 After spending a lot more time with this in a number of different Rangers now though,

08:00 it's not amazing. It is a little difficult to use some of this stuff while you're moving,

08:04 and these buttons in particular, they're shortcut buttons. I don't know, just sometimes you go to

08:09 press them and it's sort of, see there, how it just doesn't really respond, just randomly does

08:15 different things. So, yeah, that is a little frustrating. Hopefully, they'll be able to fix

08:19 that with an over-the-air update because it will just be a software glitch as opposed to something

08:22 hardware related, but it does the job. In terms of radio, you have AM, FM, DAB, digital radio,

08:28 it's all plumbed through a 10-speaker B&O Play sound system. Sound system is pretty good,

08:32 it's better than any other sound system I've heard in a ute before, but if you do love your sound,

08:36 you'll probably want to get some aftermarket speakers, but for the most part, it is perfectly

08:40 fine. Get inbuilt satellite navigation and smartphone mirroring comes in the form of

08:43 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like. So, there it is

08:49 there. What you can also do is adjust the size of CarPlay there as well, depending on how big you

08:53 want your shortcut buttons to be. And this is what Android Auto looks like. So, again, full screen,

08:59 you can adjust the size of that as required, and both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are wireless,

09:03 which is pretty awesome. Now, ahead of the driver I mentioned earlier, Raptor is the only one to get

09:08 the big 12.3-inch display, and this looks so much better than what you get in the WildTrack. So,

09:13 love the way this looks, really cool animations when it switches on and definitely sort of adds

09:17 that value to the car. Now, let's talk about safety tech. So, thankfully this time around,

09:21 you don't compromise on any, I guess, safety features. So, you have autonomous emergency

09:26 braking with pedestrian detection, you've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror,

09:30 blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror, you have a lane departure warning,

09:34 lane keeping assistant, you have radar cruise control, rear cross traffic alert,

09:38 and then on the parking front, you have both front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera,

09:42 and I'll show you what that looks like. So, there it is there, that is looking out the front,

09:46 that's your 360 view. It's really not very good, that is because we just did some off-roading and

09:51 it's just like, yeah, the front has a washer on it but the back doesn't, so just, you have to get

09:56 out and manually wash that, but you can select finite views there, so you've got your ultrasonic

10:01 sensors, you also have a better view out the front there, which looks pretty good, and then

10:06 your view out the back, which you can see is clearly covered in mud and all that sort of stuff.

10:10 So, yeah, good but not amazing, I reckon. Let's talk about practicality, and we'll start off with

10:14 your connectivity. So, you've got a USB-C port, USB-A port, one USB-A port up the top here for a

10:20 dash cam, and then a 12-volt outlet here in the centre console, and then where are you going to

10:24 store your phone? Well, the phone can live down the bottom here, you've got a wireless phone

10:27 charger, you've got plenty of places basically that you can put your phone. You have a chip

10:32 holder up the front here, we showed you that when we did our WildTrack review. You have a coffee cup

10:39 holder that is good enough for any size coffee, and you can see a symbol down there for everything

10:44 that this little hole supports. Fits my little cup perfectly, you've got teeth on the side there as

10:49 well, plus in addition to that WildTrack and Raptor get your cup holders inside the dash as well.

10:55 Strangely, they're just blank holes in other variants. Bottle also fits in there without any

11:00 problems, and then in terms of the door, it all fits inside the door. Let's try our big bottle.

11:06 Yes, that fits in as well, no dramas there. Other storage, you've got a centre console here with a

11:11 little coin tray up the top. You have a glove box there that's reasonably sized,

11:17 a little bit of storage here, plus that slot up the top and sunglasses holder up here. It's also

11:23 where you're going to find your auxiliary switches too if you want to run some other stuff off the

11:27 car, you can activate those features up here. Now, before we get to comfort, I thought I should also

11:32 mention that the Raptor comes standard with an integrated brake controller, which is excellent,

11:36 means you won't have to go faff around with anything. And then in terms of the rest of your

11:39 comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control, headed seats for your front row,

11:43 seat adjustment, so it's electric, you can go forwards, backwards, backrest can go forwards,

11:47 backwards, you can lift the front of the seat, the back of the seat, and then you have electric

11:51 lumbar adjustment as well. The seats are fantastic, they are really comfortable,

11:56 they hug you in nicely, and they're just great to sit in for a long distance drive.

12:00 And then steering, you have both tilt and reach adjustment now, and then on our reach test,

12:05 all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving. Now, before I hop into the back,

12:09 let me show you what all this looks like. So under here, you have a couple of little storage slots,

12:14 they're for storing your valuables so no one can see them from the outside.

12:18 Front of here, you've got little storage slots as well for a phone and bits and pieces.

12:22 Up the back here is where you're going to find your jack, the subbie for the B&O sound system,

12:26 and also two top tether points. Let's clamber on in. Grab handles, what is leg room like?

12:33 Not great. It's actually interesting, I feel like I had less leg room here than I did

12:39 in the last Ranger that we drove. So you do have cutouts here, but maybe it is because this is a

12:44 sports seat. I do have my seat pretty far back, but my driving position hasn't changed since the

12:49 last Ranger that we drove. Toy room is okay, headroom is not too bad. In terms of other creature

12:54 comforts, you've got air vents here, USB-C port, a USB-A port, two map pockets, and then you have

13:00 a centre armrest, you've got to lift up and pull down, two cup holders, bottle fits in there without

13:06 any dramas, and then bottle fits inside the door as well, and then you have two ISOFIX points that

13:12 match those two top tether points. Now what about our window test? Ugh, not auto down or up,

13:19 but it does go all the way down, so that is at least one good point.

13:23 So we've just hit the road in the Raptor. I'm so excited to drive this because, you know,

13:30 I've got one on order and I really haven't had a chance to drive it outside of, you know,

13:35 the off-road terrain and part of the development driving, so having a chance to now actually drive

13:39 it on the road is, yeah, it's just exciting for me. So let's start from the top. So this obviously

13:44 differs massively from the outgoing Raptor because instead of a 2.0-litre diesel, this now uses a

13:48 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6 petrol engine. It is called the EcoBoost and it produces just under

13:55 300 kilowatts of power and just under 600 newton-metres of torque. It is an absolutely

14:01 ridiculous amount to be cramming through a ute, which I think is pretty unreal, especially when

14:06 it's riding on those K02s. Now it's all mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission that has

14:12 a bespoke calibration here specifically for the Raptor, and the interesting thing is you can drive

14:17 it in terms of the mechanical modes. You have 2 high, 4 A, which is 4 automatic, 4 high and 4 low.

14:25 If you do drive it in 2 high, which I'll engage now briefly just for the sake of fun and then you

14:30 get stuck into the throttle, it will just start going sideways. So it means that if it is dry,

14:37 you can drive it in 2-wheel drive to have some fun with it, and regardless of whether it's dry or

14:42 wet, you can still sort of enjoy it by throwing it around in the wet, but yeah, it is just not a

14:48 high traction zone on those tyres, especially in 2-wheel drive, so I'm going to leave that in

14:53 4-wheel drive auto, and on top of that as well, when we shot our XLT V6 video, I actually

14:58 demonstrated the difference there between the 2 high and the 4 A modes, and you can have a look

15:02 at that on the screen now. Now what does it all feel like behind the wheel? If I get stuck into

15:06 it here in 4 A, it pins you beautifully back into the seat. You get a stack of exhaust note as well,

15:14 because this now has a bimodal exhaust. The exhaust has 4 different settings that you can

15:18 run through, so you can go from quiet, which is what the car starts in, to normal, to sport and

15:23 to Baja, which is the loudest mode, and in Baja, it actually tells you that you need to consult

15:29 the owner's manual and that it's for off-road use only, because it's going to piss your neighbours

15:33 off. Steering as well, you can adjust between normal, comfort and sport, and then in addition

15:38 to that, you can adjust the suspension between normal, sport and off-road, and I'll run you

15:42 through what the key differences are between those in a sec. Okay, let's talk about something just a

15:46 little bit funny, and that is fuel consumption, because Ford claims that it uses a little under

15:51 12 litres per 100km. I am currently sitting on 24 litres per 100km, but I do have some explaining

16:00 to do. When I picked this up, I was somewhat addicted to the exhaust sound, so I was driving

16:06 it like an idiot, then we did some highway driving to get here to the track, and today we filmed a

16:10 drag race, which if it's live, you can click up there to watch that. We've done a whole bunch of

16:15 other silly driving as well, and as a result of that, it's quite high. When I wasn't driving

16:19 silly though, I was sitting on around 14 litres per 100km, so still well and truly above the figure

16:25 Ford claims, so please do keep that in mind. If you're buying this thinking that it should be okay,

16:30 it is going to use a fair bit of fuel, so don't be too shocked when that happens. It's also worth

16:34 pointing out on fuel as well, that this will run at peak power and torque when it's fed with 98

16:39 ROM fuel, so you can run it on 91 if you want, but it won't achieve the outputs that it can when it

16:46 is running the top quality 98 ROM fuel. Now let's, if you sort of look beyond the mechanical drive

16:52 modes, let's talk about your actual drive modes. So you've got normal, sport, slippery, mud ruts,

16:58 sand, Baja, rock crawl, a little bit of everything there. So I'm going to pop this into sport mode,

17:04 go for a little fang around our circuit. Of course, it has just started raining, so...

17:08 Even though it is slightly damp, this is holding on impressively well,

17:16 and it sounds unreal when you get up it.

17:26 It is making all kinds of noises, and part of the reason you hear so much inside the cabin as well

17:34 is because of where they've put that bimodal exhaust. So it sort of sits closer to the cabin

17:39 as opposed to the back of the car, and that means when you are sitting inside here, you're hearing

17:44 everything that's going on. Far out. It should not be going this fast. It is ridiculous,

17:51 especially with it being a little bit damp. It is remarkable how much traction it has. It is just

17:57 unreal. When it is wet, though, it's a different story because it is kind of just throwing you all

18:03 over the place, and that is because the K02s don't have a huge amount of traction in the wet. Let's

18:07 see what it's like on our back straight here. Roll into that throttle. Sounds so good. Yeah,

18:14 look, it's actually got a pretty decent mid-range through there as well. Slow it up a bit before we

18:19 get sent off the road. Far out. This is way more dynamic than I thought it was going to be.

18:24 This is built for off-road driving, but if you get a dry stretch of road, even a lightly wet one like

18:30 we have now, it actually holds on really well. You have so much communication through the steering.

18:36 There is plenty of life in the brakes as well, which really surprised me. I was expecting them

18:39 to get spongy and not really like the torture session, but they are holding up really well.

18:43 The ride is fantastic as well. So in sport mode, it sits sort of flat enough for a vehicle this

18:49 size and you just don't feel its weight. It is just unreal how they've been able to make this

18:53 perform. So yeah, I am so damn impressed with it. Now, I'm not going to drive it in Baja mode on

18:59 sealed surface because it actually switches to four-wheel drive high range, but I want to show

19:02 you a feature that it has here if I do switch over to Baja. It actually has anti-lag and it's for

19:08 three seconds in total, and this is pretty cool tech as well because this is linked to rally

19:13 heritage. The way that it works is if I lock this into third here and get on the throttle,

19:18 then get off the throttle and back onto the throttle, there is no lag. That's why they call

19:24 it anti-lag. And the way that it works is in a typical turbocharged car, when you get off the

19:28 throttle, you're no longer feeding the turbocharger or turbochargers with exhaust gases, which is what

19:33 they need to spool. And the second you start feeding them again, they have to re-spool and

19:37 there's a delay in delivering that torque. Anti-lag, on the other hand, like they've set it

19:41 up here, is able to keep feeding those turbochargers with air, and that means that for up to three

19:47 seconds after you let off the throttle and then get back onto the throttle, your turbochargers

19:52 are spooled. And you can actually notice it here. If I get on it, get off it and get straight back

19:57 on it again, there is no lag at all. Whereas if I go back into normal mode, for example,

20:03 and I put this back into manual and I get on the throttle in third, get off the throttle,

20:09 get back on the throttle, there's a noticeable lag there. So you do actually feel the difference.

20:13 And if you are going to be using this to do some silly driving off-road, that is the kind

20:18 of feature that is going to make a whole bunch of difference getting out of corners with pace.

20:22 Okay, so 0-100, Ford doesn't have a claimed time for Ranger Raptor, so we'll give this a shot and

20:30 see how we go. I'll run this in Sport mode first and then I'll try Baja mode as well and we'll see

20:36 if that makes any difference at all. I'll put traction control off as well. I'll leave it in

20:41 4A and we'll see what happens. So I'll dial up a few revs here and give it a crack.

21:00 All right, let's pull that up. So I actually went to 120 because I want to see

21:06 what that sort of overtaking zone is like. Oh, nice! 5.9 seconds, 0-100,

21:12 which is pretty awesome. So sub-six second for Ranger Raptor, which I love. Let's have a look

21:17 at our 80-120, 3.9 seconds as well. So it's got a decent mid-range too. So really impressed with

21:23 that. They've really sort of engineered that nicer to take off, especially here when it is a little

21:28 bit damp. Okay, let's give this one more crack. I'll pop this into Baja mode. So in Baja mode,

21:34 it switches from 4A to 4H, so that means it is basically locking this into four-wheel drive

21:40 mode, sending 50% of torque to the front, 50% to the rear. See if it makes any difference here

21:45 for our 0-100. Here we go. Oh, I feel perky off the line there. All right.

21:58 All right, let's pull that up. Oh, nice! 5.8 seconds. That is pretty good. I reckon there's

22:12 probably a little bit more in that as well. I think you'd be able to get this down to 5.7 with

22:16 a little bit more effort. So really impressed with that. We'll see what our 80-120 was. 3.8

22:22 seconds. So yeah, pretty impressed with that. Okay, time for arguably the most important test,

22:27 which is how fast it'll go in reverse. So pop that into reverse. I'll go into sport mode.

22:32 Let's see what happens.

22:41 All right, there it is. 46 kilometres an hour. Not too bad.

22:46 Okay, let's quickly chat about the suspension, because the suspension outside of the other

22:52 stuff, like the engine and whatever, is what makes this car so unique. So beneath the skin,

22:56 they use Fox Racing 2.5-inch live valve suspension. So that's a mixture of coil springs at the rear

23:05 and also that Fox damper. The Fox damper has an internal bypass and it's electronically

23:10 controlled. And the way that it works is there's a middle zone in the damper that allows variations

23:16 of flow between it. So as you are driving, it can provide you the comfort that you would expect from

23:20 a much more plush suspension setup. But if you do go off-road and you are thumping it or jumping,

23:25 which this car is designed to do as well, it actually has two additional zones, one at the

23:29 top and then one at the bottom. When your damper goes into that top or bottom zone,

23:34 it's able to restrict the flow. And that's important because if you do get this in a point

23:38 where you hit a spoon drain or something and there's a sudden massive compression, if it was

23:43 to be soft throughout the entire travel, you hit the bump stops and you would fly out of that spoon

23:48 drain like there's no tomorrow. This, on the other hand, will make that entire process progressive.

23:53 And because it's electronically controlled, they've been able to be really clever with it. So

23:56 when it is in the comfort mode, if you do stand on the throttle, just like a G63, it wants to lift

24:02 the front end. And that's not really something that you want if you are driving off-road at pace

24:07 across a Baja track or something like that. You really want it to be composed. So the way that

24:11 they've engineered it is that if it detects that sudden lift due to acceleration, they can rein

24:16 in that by adjusting how much flow you get through the damper. So it is just incredible suspension

24:21 technology. This alone is worth its weight in gold, and it is what makes this car so unique

24:26 and drive so uniquely as well. It really just makes this feel totally different to any other

24:30 ute on the market. Okay, so with this fancy suspension, let's dial this up to 130 for our

24:35 sine waves and we'll see what it feels like across those. That is really good. That is really,

24:44 really good. So look, that suspension makes a world of difference because when we have driven

24:49 over that in Ranger utes with leaf spring suspension, you do notice the difference

24:53 there with this live valve setup. Really just keeps it nice and flat, and especially as you

24:57 transition through those different suspension modes. Worth calling out as well with the

25:01 suspension, this actually uses a different EPAS, so electrically assisted steering rack, to the

25:05 standard Ranger, and they had to do that because of the type of driving that you'll be able to

25:09 achieve in this car. In the previous gen of Ranger Raptor, it shared a steering rack, and the

25:14 steering was potentially one of its weak points, whereas here the steering is actually, the steering

25:18 feel rather is really strong, and it kind of just adds to the dynamic character of the car.

25:23 Now just on the weight of the car, weighs just under 2,500 kilos. It is enormous. It is slightly

25:29 heavier than the V6 Wildtrak as an example, so yeah, it is worth keeping that in mind. Equally

25:35 turning circle, not great either, it's 13 metres, which is kind of big, so driving it in and around

25:40 the city could be a little bit tricky. And what's your visibility like? So it's interesting, this

25:44 car is wider than a standard Ranger, so as a result of that it does feel bigger out on the

25:48 road, and I love that you can see those air vents on the bonnet there, but visibility is great down

25:52 the front there, the wing mirror is a huge, visibility out the back is good, and you have

25:55 that excellent 360 camera for parking in and around other people. Now what's noise like?

26:00 Obviously we've spoken about exhaust noise, but what is tyre noise like, and road noise?

26:05 There is a fair bit of tyre noise that comes into the cabin, as far as I can tell as well,

26:10 they've removed the active noise cancellation, and that means that you are getting that all-terrain

26:14 tyre noise that infiltrates the cabin when you're doing 100km/h or more, so yeah, a little bit

26:18 disappointing. It's not the end of the world, but it is pretty droney in here, and you do notice

26:22 that tyre noise at times. Okay, time to do some light off-roading, and I'm going to place a lot

26:29 of emphasis here on light, because it has bucketed down today, and it is so muddy out here. I'm

26:36 looking forward to watching someone do some extreme off-roading in this, and maybe the 4x4 24/7 guys

26:41 will do that, but today it is all about light off-roading, running through all the basics.

26:45 Now, in terms of the specs, so you've got two-wheel drive high range, four-wheel drive

26:49 automatic, four-wheel drive high range, four-wheel drive low range, not only do you have a rear diff

26:53 lock, you also have a front diff lock as well. You've got a stack of different drive modes,

26:58 in addition to crawl control, which will allow you to vary the speed from like just under 1km/h

27:04 all the way up to something like 30km/h, so we'll test that later on, and it basically then gets you

27:09 through all the different terrain, and in terms of your approach and departure angles, you have

27:12 a 32 degree approach angle, so that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit anything,

27:16 and a 27 degree departure angle, keeping in mind that is reduced if you do add a tow bar,

27:20 and I mentioned earlier ground clearance of just over 270mm. Now, if you do want to get a better

27:26 understanding of how to use all this stuff, have a look at this video that we shot previously that

27:30 goes through four-wheel drive controls, and why it's important to not use four-wheel drive high

27:33 range on sealed surfaces. Let's get started. So I'm going to start off in two-wheel drive

27:37 high range. I know that seems a bit silly, but the purpose of that is to see how well the

27:41 traction control system works on our offset mobile, and what our wheel articulation is like.

27:47 We're going to get it into a position here where we have that rear wheel lifted off the ground,

27:51 and then we're going to force the traction control system to do its best there. So

27:54 you can see the articulation is not too bad, it seems about the same as a regular Ranger.

27:59 There it is. Ah, that is impressive, it got over that without any dramas at all.

28:08 Drop it down on this other end. Far out, that is really good. So that is traction control

28:16 systems doing a great job of just feeding the car out of the situation that it's in.

28:20 Now it is so muddy here, so I'm going to switch stability control off just to make

28:25 sure I can get out of this. I'll just give it a little bit of throttle.

28:33 Sorry, I kind of did that on purpose just to have a bit of fun. Okay, let's go back again.

28:38 This time I'm going to put it into four-wheel drive high range, and we're going to see how it

28:44 goes with our offset mobile in reverse. In reverse it's a little bit harder, so I want to see,

28:49 I think it was with the XLT Ranger that we drive here, I had to lock the rear diff to get it over

28:53 because it just kept slipping sideways. So pop this into four-wheel drive high range. I'll

28:58 actually go to mud mode as well. So it has a mode here specifically for mud. What that's going to do

29:05 is basically tailor the stability control. Oh, now I forgot to mention as well, so I've engaged

29:08 this screen here not only to disable the parking sensors, but this is our off-road display. So

29:14 we can see what's going on with the car. That shows you whether your rear diff's locked,

29:18 and also whether you have hill descent control locked or front diff locked as well. So

29:21 let's give this another shot here. Oh my god, it is so muddy here.

29:28 All right, so four-wheel drive high range. Let's see how it goes just with some light throttle

29:33 here. So we're going to get it crossed up here, so we have two wheels off the ground.

29:37 I can hear the traction control working there. A little bit of steering lock on. Wow, there you go.

29:44 That's just done it all on its own. So we're crossed up now, we have two wheels off the

29:47 ground. I'll just roll out of the brake. That is so good. That is awesome. So it does show you that

29:55 the additional clearance you have here, the KO2s, all of this in unison with the gearbox and

30:02 stability control calibration in these off-road modes means you can get over simple obstacles

30:07 like this without having to go too crazy. I didn't have to lock the rear diff there, so that is

30:12 awesome. So let's head over to our hill. Okay, time for our muddy hill. It has been bucketing

30:16 down here, so the ground is like non-existent in terms of traction. So what I'm going to do,

30:22 I've left it in mud mode over here, but I'm going to lock the rear diff and we will try climbing

30:30 this to see how it goes. Then I'm going to come back again and stop halfway up. I'm going to lock

30:34 everything else and we'll see if that makes any difference. So here we go, heading up here. This

30:38 is also in high range. That's the other cool thing, you can lock the rear diff in high range.

30:44 You don't have to be in low range like you do in a lot of other utes. This is climbing without

30:50 any problems at all. A little slip there, that's all right. It's sorting itself out. The traction

30:55 control is doing a really good job there. As it starts raining, we've got a mud bog up the top,

31:00 so I'm just going to send it through that. I do love this camera, by the way, because as you

31:04 crest, you can see everything that's going on there, and it means that I can see what condition

31:09 this is in before I jump into it, which is pretty awesome. Okay, let's try our hill descent

31:15 control. So this actually has a feature called crawl control. So it allows you to do ascent

31:19 and descent. It really just sort of caters for the novice. So you flick that on,

31:24 says trail controlled enable, use set to set speed. So that is this function just here. You

31:31 can see down the bottom there, it is telling me what speed it's going to set. So all I do now is

31:35 just roll out of the brake and I can feel it accelerating there to 4km/h. As we come down our

31:42 descent here, look at that, piece of cake and really damn impressive. So easy to use as well.

31:49 I love that. Okay, I've got our other mud bog here. Let's kill that for a second.

31:53 I'm going to send it through here.

31:54 This car is so much fun. Okay, so let's go back to our hill again. This time, what I'm going to

32:03 do though, just for fun, I'm going to put this into four wheel drive low range. So you can see

32:07 the shift in progress just there. Once that is done, it switches stability control off. I'll

32:13 also lock our front diff because, you know, when in Rome, keep in mind that you don't want to have

32:18 the front diff locked and the rear diff locked unless you're on an unsealed surface. And it also

32:23 massively increases your turning radius because you're changing, well, effectively, you're forcing

32:29 your outside wheel to turn at the same rotational speed as the inside wheel, and that just causes

32:34 it to push wide. So I'm going to go halfway up here, stop, and then just see if we can get all

32:39 the way up. So let's see how we go. So this was the section that was scrabbling out before, so

32:43 I'll stop there. It has a hill hold so I can roll out of the brake and onto the throttle.

32:47 This is so simple. Wow. It literally just crawls up that. I'm not even joking, it has been

32:57 bucketing down and the ground is so soft here, but that was no dramas at all. So

33:02 really, really impressed with that. As the rain starts properly falling, let's give our rocks a

33:07 crack. I'm keen to see how this feels because it has different suspension to all the other cars

33:12 we've driven here before. What I've done is kept this in low range, and I've mentioned this in

33:16 other videos. I rode the brake with the throttle just to control speed over it. I did actually see

33:23 a video of the Bronco Raptor doing this exact thing, but I won't do it because I'll probably

33:27 destroy the car. But it was going over these rocks at a decent pace, and I feel like the

33:33 suspension could probably handle it. It is so cool. It is so comfortable over this. You barely

33:38 even feel like you're driving over rocks. Throttle control is excellent despite it being a petrol.

33:43 I don't know. I'm really fighting it hard to fault this thing. Now time to attack our water crossing.

33:51 It is very high today, so I'll be interested to see how it goes. To get there, we've got to go

33:56 through our bog just here. Now this has an 850mm wading depth, so it is much bigger than,

34:07 oh, slightly bigger than the standard Ranger, and it should see you get through this sort of stuff

34:12 without any dramas. What are we at? Just under 700mm today, so let's see how it goes. Hopefully

34:18 it doesn't stop. Fingers crossed. Oh, that feels, that feels nice and deep. Doesn't look deep on

34:25 video, but when you hear water lapping around you, it is deep. All right, I'll climb out of here.

34:30 We'll see what this feels like. Yeah, no dramas at all. I mean, what can I tell you? I was expecting

34:38 this to be good off-road, but it is just next level, and I know I've said this before. This

34:42 is not a hard off-road course, but I think if someone actually did jump behind the wheel of

34:46 this to go proper off-roading, this thing would be an absolute beast. It has all of the hardware

34:52 that you need to actually go do an off-road, Baja-style safari. So the Ranger Raptor. This is

35:01 probably the most fun I've had behind the wheel of a car this year, and I've driven a stack of cars

35:07 this year. It is such a smile maker. It makes this awesome sound. It is just so much fun to drive.

35:13 It's very comfortable. It's a sporty car. It does great off-road. You can have fun with it in

35:18 two-wheel drive. It is just really impossible for me to fault. You can fault it on things like the

35:23 towing capacity and the payload, but that's all by design, and obviously if you need that stuff,

35:27 you're not going to buy this. And look, fuel economy is not great either, but again, if you

35:32 do need fuel economy, you'll go for a V6 diesel or even the four-cylinder if you need it. This is

35:36 head and shoulders above every other unit in this segment in terms of dynamic engagement and the

35:41 breadth of talent that it actually has. Now, before you all think that I'm being paid to say this,

35:46 I'm buying this with my own money. Ford isn't doing any sweetheart deal for me because I'm

35:50 a journalist. And fun fact, there's actually three other journalists that have bought one as well,

35:55 and I think that is a good indication of just how impressive this thing is. So let me know what you

35:59 reckon in the comments section below. Do you like this thing as much as I do? Have you got one on

36:03 order? When is yours coming? I'm keen to hear what you think. Let me know in the comments down there.

36:07 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it. Please make sure you share it with your

36:11 mates, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.

36:15 But until next time, take it easy.

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