HUGE Decision

[dkfc13]

Drive both and see which is most comfortable for you. Personally I think the Raptor is more comfortable on-road so it is my daily driver.

 

[Ruger]

You ask a very practical question, and a lot of money is at stake. If I understand your approach properly, the practicality and cost of the two vehicles is more important to you than your reputation for owning one or the other or your self-image for being the owner of one or the other.

If that's true, then the only meaningful way to answer the question is to consider what kind of off-road terrain your chosen vehicle will be exposed to. The FX4 is a capable off-road truck and is useful for jeep trails and dirt roads, low traction conditions, and anywhere 4x4 capability capability is valuable. It will go almost anywhere a Raptor will go, but perhaps not as fast. The Raptor is optimized for high speed off road travel, and was tested in the dessert. Since there isn't much dessert in North Carolina, it does put the extra expense of a Raptor in question.

To get the nearly 12 inches of wheel travel a Raptor has, longer A-arms are used. That makes the Raptor 7 inches wider than an FX4. If the your conditions in North Carolina would be better served by a narrower vehicle and if you do not highly value traveling through those conditions at high speed, then it would seem that an FX4 would be a perfectly practical vehicle for your intended use of it, and that the Raptor would not perform markedly better given where and how you intend to use it.

Remember that the ownership cost of a vehicle involves much more than the purchase price or the monthly payments. Ownership cost also includes fuel economy, maintenance costs, insurance, and tag/license fees. The FX4 would save you money in every one of those categories and would do everything you want it to do if the assumptions I've made are representative of your situation.

How's that?

 

[Yukon Joe]

^ damn reasoning! Lol....

Yukon Joe
www.RUNRAPTORRUN.com

 

[Hazzard]

For resale value get the Raptor, but yes make sure you drive both.

 

[Ruger]

I'll mention something else about the width of the Raptor:
- It can get awfully tight in parking garages. I hate parking garages now.
- Drive-up ATMs take extra care or you may damage a mirror.
- If you have a single-car garage or a double-car garage with a supporting post in the middle, you won't be able to fit much else in the garage with your Raptor and parking it in the garage will take extra care. Before I bought my Raptor I measured my garage's interior and had a major redesign of my shop to do.
- Every once in a while you'll cut a right turn too close and drive your right rear wheel over the curb.
- And finally, if your wife isn't a really good pilot of large vehicles... I own a 2011 with nearly 50K miles on it, and my wife has never driven it once. There's a reason.

 

[Raptor911]

If you decide on the FX4 then wait for the 2015. When the 2015 comes out the 2014 f-150s value will plummet. The Raptor value will hold steady until Ford decides to release Raptor v2.

 

[Captain Awesome]

I had a 2011 FX4 now I have a 2013 Raptor enough said.

 

[PGHTerrain]

^^ Very similar for me too...

Had a 12 FX4 and ordered my (2014) Raptor in 2013 after 16 months of owning the FX4.

Don't be fooled though, the FX4 is a great truck, it's just not a Raptor...

 

[MajorAR]

Based on what you need....the clear answer is FX4.

 

[Jordan@Apollo-Optics]

Based on what you need....the clear answer is FX4.

Normally, I'd agree. But my situation was very similar to the OP and I ended up getting a Raptor and loving it. When I first thought about getting one, I thought I would offroad a handful of time, say it was a great experience, and relegate the truck to street duty only.

After owning the truck for a year, I've been offroading at least once a month, been to TRR, and try to find an excuse to hit the dirt. It's a fun truck but I do make sacrifices to drive it. Gas mileage sucks and costs a lot more than an EcoBoost FX4 would've cost me. But, my SPG (smiles per gallon) are much higher than what they would've been in the FX4 IMO.

I am an individual that gets very bored with vehicles. In the past 6 years I've owned a 2005 Mustang that was whippled, a 1999 Lightning that was ported, long tubes, and full modified, a 2003 Cobra with a 2.2KB on it, and now the Raptor. I have no plans to sell the Raptor at this point. It's much more fun to drive than the other vehicles and the Raptor owners are the best group of owners I've dealt with. They will literally go out of their way to help you out with anything if you need it (not just Raptor related, either). The friends I've made in the year of ownership has made the price worth it, to me.