Advice on 2017 Raptor Purchase

[1Wolf]

Smurfslayer,

Thanks for the awesome advice and thank you kindly for taking the time to type that up. I'm a bit of a "new car" novice so that advice you offered on inspection and pickup will be invaluable. We'll be arriving when the dealer opens. I don't know if I'll have time to have them put it up on a rack as I'll be in a bit of a time crunch heading home. I'll definitely look under it and inspect it the best I can though. Obvious stuff like a "leak" or something that doesn't function I'd probably catch. Stuff that most of you guys who are more technically savvy would catch I'd probably miss. I'll have my wife there to "navigate" for me so hopefully we can find efficient ways to spend some time on backroads and some time on highways (while varying the speed) so that I can break it in good and still make it home in time.

I took your advice and found a copy of the manual online as well as the Raptor supplement and am currently working my way through it.


Micha,

Awesome! Do you have a preferred dealer that you take your Raptor to that you trust for service? Or are there any that you'd had a bad experience with and warn to stay away from? This is the first Ford vehicle I've owned since 1990 so I don't really have any first hand/word-of-mouth accounts of anyone who really liked a particular dealer. I just wanted to make sure that a good service department takes good care of the new monster.

ChevyChad,

You had mentioned using the paddles and "Blocking out the gears". I've never had a vehicle that had a "paddle shift" before. Everything I've had was either a run-of-the-mill automatic or a manual. So I'm not quite familiar with that term or how to do that. Forgive me but, what does "Blocking out the gears" mean and how does that help me? If its already spelled out in the manual, you can ignore the question and I'm just not that far into reading the manual yet so if its in there I'll get to it in the next few days.

 

[smurfslayer]

Don’t be in hurry either at the dealer, leaving the dealer or heading home. A lift will not take a lot of time, pre-clear it with the dealer.

If you’re in a time crunch, please - budget more time. You don’t want to overlook something on a $65K truck.

Tell the sales guy to have the truck PDI done, truck prepped and ready for a long test drive at opening. Plan on some breakfast with the salesbot or something. maybe find some railroad tracks and see if you all can get some air crossing them. Find a construction site and test out the locking rear and various drive modes. What the heck - dealer will clean it for you. Make sure you bring a camera and a bright-ass flashlight - at least 150 lumens with a good beam throw. Make sure you either get under the truck and look around or have the service department do it.

once done with the test drive, drive it right into the service lane. Put on the lift, have mechanic take some pics for you, maybe video. Make sure there’s no leaks, breaks, cracks or anything out of place. Will only take about 30 minutes. Will give you time to start filling out paperwork.

My test drive went smooth as silk. I must have spun 3 or 4 times, the poor sales lady was patiently tolerating my juvenile shenanigans.

I would not worry about the manual shifter or paddles, honestly, the truck does a better job at picking gears than we do most of the time. I’d suggest this:

put the truck in sport mode and select 4A. You can take off as hard as you want in 4A, or not as hard as you want, but the truck will keep the rpms up and not ‘bog’ or lug the truck. Sport mode only lasts the ignition cycle, so once you stop, you need to select it again, but 4A will remain selected.

You can drive in normal mode too, but the truck will jump to higher gears quick and you’ll be spinning 1100 rpms going up hill in 10th gear before you know it and that’s one of the things to avoid during break in. I would just remember to select sport mode / 4A.

You’ll probably like the truck a lot, but remember to check everything over thoroughly before you drive off. you have a long drive ahead of you.

keep us posted and remember:

Pictures. or it never happened.

 

[ChevyChad]

You want to vary the engine RPMs for a while to break in the piston rings. Varying the speed wont necissarily have the same effect. You could be going 30mph or 80mph at the same RPMs, so that doesnt help. Use the paddles to make sure that you are not at a constant RPM. You can be going a constant 70mph for an hour and toggle thru the gears to accomplish the varying that you want to break in the engine properly. Sport mode would help too as it holds onto gears longer than normal mode.

To block out gears, from a stop, pull on the left paddle and you will see the top gears on the tach start disappearing. IE- first pull of te paddle, #10 disappears. Pull it again and #9 disappears. That will stop the trans from shifting into those gears while driving. You can also toggle them on and off while driving as well. (This is different than manual mode where the computer puts it in the gear you select.)

 

[1Wolf]

Don’t be in hurry either at the dealer, leaving the dealer or heading home. A lift will not take a lot of time, pre-clear it with the dealer.

If you’re in a time crunch, please - budget more time. You don’t want to overlook something on a $65K truck.

Tell the sales guy to have the truck PDI done, truck prepped and ready for a long test drive at opening. Plan on some breakfast with the salesbot or something. maybe find some railroad tracks and see if you all can get some air crossing them. Find a construction site and test out the locking rear and various drive modes. What the heck - dealer will clean it for you. Make sure you bring a camera and a bright-ass flashlight - at least 150 lumens with a good beam throw. Make sure you either get under the truck and look around or have the service department do it.

once done with the test drive, drive it right into the service lane. Put on the lift, have mechanic take some pics for you, maybe video. Make sure there’s no leaks, breaks, cracks or anything out of place. Will only take about 30 minutes. Will give you time to start filling out paperwork.

My test drive went smooth as silk. I must have spun 3 or 4 times, the poor sales lady was patiently tolerating my juvenile shenanigans.

I would not worry about the manual shifter or paddles, honestly, the truck does a better job at picking gears than we do most of the time. I’d suggest this:

put the truck in sport mode and select 4A. You can take off as hard as you want in 4A, or not as hard as you want, but the truck will keep the rpms up and not ‘bog’ or lug the truck. Sport mode only lasts the ignition cycle, so once you stop, you need to select it again, but 4A will remain selected.

You can drive in normal mode too, but the truck will jump to higher gears quick and you’ll be spinning 1100 rpms going up hill in 10th gear before you know it and that’s one of the things to avoid during break in. I would just remember to select sport mode / 4A.

You’ll probably like the truck a lot, but remember to check everything over thoroughly before you drive off. you have a long drive ahead of you.

keep us posted and remember:

Pictures. or it never happened.

Thanks again Smurfslayer. Time is a bit of an issue but after reading your advice, and after searching these forums and doing some more reading there. Your right. Stupid call to worry about "time" so much that I can't do a good enough job of checking out a 65K truck. Especially after I've read some posts here (some of which you contributed to) about folks with oil leaks on brand new raptors. I've got a long drive home in unfamiliar territory (especially if I'm going to be trying to take a lot of suface roads instead of highways so I can break it in properly)...it would be bad bad bad if a problem occurred that could have been prevented. And at the very least the piece of mind to know that at least I did everything I could to catch a problem.

I was making the "dumb" assumption that just because something is new and expensive that it won't have problems. Thank you for setting me straight.

I'll still be in a time crunch getting home as I need to make it straight through with only stops for bathroom. I arrive in Alabama on Thursday night. Spending the night. Then I'll be at the dealer at opening on Friday. I won't skimp on time checking out the truck though. I intend to follow your advice, put it through a good test drive, check everything out, check under it and ask them to put it on a lift. I don't want to get 300 miles home and find out that things are dripping from where things should not be dripping from.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

Any thoughts on fuel? Manual says 87 octane, but recommends 91 octane or higher. What do you usually run? Any recommendation for what to run for the drive home?

Also, would you recommend I find a dealer on the route on the way home and stop for an oil change on the way home? At what mileage would you have that first oil change/inspection or can it wait until the 950ish miles when I get to my home area?

You want to vary the engine RPMs for a while to break in the piston rings. Varying the speed wont necissarily have the same effect. You could be going 30mph or 80mph at the same RPMs, so that doesnt help. Use the paddles to make sure that you are not at a constant RPM. You can be going a constant 70mph for an hour and toggle thru the gears to accomplish the varying that you want to break in the engine properly. Sport mode would help too as it holds onto gears longer than normal mode.

To block out gears, from a stop, pull on the left paddle and you will see the top gears on the tach start disappearing. IE- first pull of te paddle, #10 disappears. Pull it again and #9 disappears. That will stop the trans from shifting into those gears while driving. You can also toggle them on and off while driving as well. (This is different than manual mode where the computer puts it in the gear you select.)

Thanks for explaining that ChevyChad. Between that, and Smurfslayer's advice of putting it into 4A and Sport Mode and mixing it up with using the highways with local surface roads on the trip home...I'm hoping I should be good. Provided of course I don't end up with some awful oil leak or something else bad that I've read about here. I'd think its a rare thing but its one of those "ignorance is bliss" things. I wasn't worried about it until I ready about it

Thanks for the help

 

[wheelman76]

Based on raptor finder's tool, you're SOL if you can't find a listing link for the truck? Is there any way to locate what dealer the truck is going to from the window sticker?

 

[marmot99]

Agree, I paid over MSRP and do not expect to see that back on the back end, but I also paid $57k for my 2014 and sold it for $49k with 35,000miles, 3 dents in the tailgate and it lived life outdoors. That was a steal of a deal, I hope the Gen 2 I just bought holds its value equally as well

 

[Gary4lesmack]

i work for a dealer out of southwest wisconsin, we just got our new ordered raptor in today! 2017 Crew Cab 802A with the moonroof, Hood Graphics Package, Heated Wheel, Heated Rear Seats, and tailgate Applique, in Avalanche! priced at $2,500.00 over MSRP

 

[jwvdds02]

i work for a dealer out of southwest wisconsin, we just got our new ordered raptor in today! 2017 Crew Cab 802A with the moonroof, Hood Graphics Package, Heated Wheel, Heated Rear Seats, and tailgate Applique, in Avalanche! priced at $2,500.00 over MSRP

Over MSRP? Ridiculous. I ordered a 18 at MSRP.


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