Regarding dealers seeming to always deliver the truck with ≈50 psi in the tires, I'm pretty sure I recall reading that the Raptors are shipped with their tires inflated to this level to help stabilize them in transport, since at the normal inflation, the combination of the tall sidewalls and soft suspension allows the weight of the truck to pendulum its mass around a little too much when on a train car or trailer. With a whole load of the Raptors packed together, you've got a bunch of 3T weights sloshing about independently, which can supposedly add up to problematic levels. Now, why the dealers don't deflate the tires back to the recommended inflation upon delivery, I couldn't tell you. Considering how much less stable the truck feels at 50 psi (I remember driving home from the dealer and finding that the back roads near our house, which are straight and level, but have a wavy surface from settling, the truck started to feel a bit unstable above around 65-70mph. At 35-38 psi, it feels solidly planted up to about 85 mph, and if you go down to ≈28-32 psi on those same roads, the tire pressure is no longer the limiting factor for stability. I would definitely have been even more impressed on my test drive had the tires been properly inflated, but perhaps the Raptors sell themselves well enough at 50 psi to bother…still, it would take less than 5 minutes for dealers to drop the tire pressures on delivery. Perhaps most dealerships aren't aware that they arrive with over-inflated tires, but if Ford is sending them out with tire pressures well above their recommended specifications, you'd think that they'd include reducing the pressure to recommended levels in the delivery notes.
Additionally, almost every shop seems to go with the maximum tire pressure from the sidewalls over Ford's specification, as well. Maybe they ignore the specifications from the door jam because they assume the larger all-terrain tires are aftermarket and assume the factory spec might not be applicable?
Be sure to double-check that you're not running 40-50 psi before bombing down gravel roads in excess of highway speeds, especially if someone else has worked on the truck recently – unless you happen to really enjoy patching tires. In my experience, puncture rates rise exponentially as the tire pressure increases. In my experience (which includes getting my first irreparable tear at 4k miles, and having completely ruined all 6 (the original 5, plus the 4k mile replacement tire) tires by 11k, via a mixture of not picking low enough pressures early on, driving the majority of those miles off-pavement, and never passing up an opportunity to go around a turn sideways, all carrying a lot of weight nearly all the time – I replaced the tires with Load Range E KM3s (moving to the higher load range because we're virtually always carrying a bunch of extra weight – and the move to mud terrains made a lot of sense for us since we live in an area with clay soil and lots of mud, and all-terrains are effectively racing slicks after about 5 seconds in clay mud), and have stuck with using lower pressures whenever going anywhere other than only paved roads, and after another 11k miles, I still have juuust shy of 1/2" of tread depth left all around (the KM3s started with ≈0.55-0.6" of thread, whereas the stock KO2s started around 0.515", if I recall, so they had a little more tread to start with (if that seemed absurd to have only used up nearly zero tread life, that's why). That is despite maintaining the high cargo loads and the regular (off-pavement) wheel spin – don't expect much tire longevity if you're doing burnouts on asphalt all day, haha). I haven't needed to patch a single one of the KM3s yet, either (when I retired them, two of the KO2s had a literal
dozen patches in them, and the others weren't too far behind
).
Basically, I've found that when in doubt, go with the lower end of the pressures you're considering. Lower pressures don't only help prevent punctures, but significantly reduce tire wear when driving off-pavement, particularly with regard to 'chunking' (i.e. large pieces of the tire tread breaking off all at once). Maybe don't rock 12 psi tires on the interstate, haha, but I've experimented fairly extensively, and have never seen the tires come anywhere becoming getting too hot, nor experienced any significant loss of stability, when running pressures down to the low-to-mid 20s (and on highways in poorer condition, the truck was more stable when running lower pressures), even on mountainous and curvy freeways, or on Texas' freeways with posted 80 & 85mph limits (i.e. a typical actual traffic speed around 85-95mph). Sure, you will not get quite as good of fuel economy (a Raptor is not the best choice if fuel economy is a high priority, regardless, haha), and your normal tire wear rate will likely be slightly faster, but if you're driving a route that transitions back and forth between unpaved and paved roads, and you don't want to stop and inflate or deflate your tires every few minutes, I've found it best to go with the pressure would be ideal for whatever the toughest terrain you'll be facing on that drive happens to be (unless that terrain is deep mud/sand/etc. where you might want pressures in the teens or below, then maybe get it back up to at least 20 before any longer stretches on the road
).