Recently Ford has released some amazing new models to the public that has swayed many new buyers to take an interest in the company. In fact their new line of cars has an extreme or performance version in almost every model line-up. From the turbo charger equipped Taurus to the Super charger equipped Raptor their line-up is sporting some pretty amazing credentials now. While the Taurus is more of a wolf in sheep clothing the raptor has nothing subtle about it, in fact even in the adds it is shown jumping through the desert. The problem is most of the buyers are not reading the manual.
While the Raptor may be a mean off road truck made to take more abuse then most people can throw at it, there are limits to its ability. More and more claims of frame damage have been flooding into Ford’s SVT division and the amazing thing is it’s not fords fault. It is understandable that people would be mad about breaking a $50K truck but there has to be some responsibility taken when you break something. These trucks use a suspension travel of about 14 inches and can take some serious hit but when you hit a jump that for says can be done at 60MPH at 90…well that’s a different story. The suspension will max out on the landing and then the bump-stops are the last line of defense to stop the trucks energy. Once the Bump-stops are maxed, the chassis begins to take the brunt of the force and it will bend to release the pressure. Lawsuits have sprung up under this issue and it doesn’t look like they will get very far. If you are going to claim you were going to fast is to make sure your buddy was not filming from behind you and putting the video up on Youtube. So far SVT’s official statement points out the obvious, if you broke it…you fix it. That may sound harsh since every one of us wants to get out and thrash one of these trucks right to the limit. This whole issue wraps back to an old saying in the racing world “if ya can’t afford to fix it , you can’t afford to race it” and this holds very true for this whole situation.
