$35K Modified F150 VS $70K Ford Raptor What's the better value

Next to me I have two Ford pickup trucks, although they are very different. They might look pretty much the same, but one is a $70,000 2018 Ford Raptor. Now this truck right here costs half the price. It is $35,000. It's a 2015 Ford F-150 XLT, and in today's video I guess we're going to do a comparison to see what you actually get for $70,000 versus $35,000, and at the end of the video if you're looking at getting one of these trucks or a truck like this, maybe you won't have to spend $70,000 on an actual Ford Raptor. So a lot of people ask me, Mike, why do you have two trucks? Isn't it enough with just one? And you might be right about that, but this one here is actually my wife's. For those of you who follow my channel, you're pretty familiar with both these trucks already. However, when I was looking for a new daily driver, long story short, I ended up keeping this truck that we initially leased and make it my own. This was my wife's daily driver before she got the Ford Raptor. Now it's mine and it looks completely different from what it did two months ago. So what I thought we would start by doing is talking about each specific truck and what you actually get, starting with the 2018 Ford Raptor, as this truck is pretty much the benchmark and the truck to get in today's market. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with that, but yeah, there's nothing quite like a Ford Raptor. As you might be able to tell, it is a full four-door truck called Crew Cab in Ford language. And if you know anything about Ford and how you spec them and their equipment packages, you know that there are many of them. This one has the highest equipment package you can get on a Ford Raptor. It is the 802A package. So basically means that it is fully loaded with every feature available for an F-150 today, except for a couple things that are still options. I know it's complicated. So the only thing missing on this truck is the black forged wheels. You can also get a spray-in liner from the factory, which we did not have. I actually put in a drop-in liner in the truck because, believe it or not, we don't really use the bed all that much, and that is not a dead body. You know what? What is this, by the way? Looks like old flower pots and stuff. My wife must be throwing this away here soon. But anyhow, you can also get something called a box link system where you actually get ramps that come with the truck. Let's say you want to load your quad up to the bed of the truck. You can get actual ramps as an option from the factory. As we walk around here and take a look inside, another thing that is missing is carbon fiber in the interior. You can get it here and then also this whole panel around the touchscreen and then also around the gear selector here. So those are the only things missing in this Ford Raptor. Other than that, it is fully loaded and my wife is head over heels in love with this truck. So am I, although I don't really drive it very often because I have that. Now, being a Raptor, it of course has its Baja heritage to live up to. I mean, this is the sand king right here, or at least it's supposed to be. So you do get Fox racing shocks, which is standard on all Raptors. It is an extremely comfortable and soft ride. We don't look at this truck as some kind of dune buggy hopping Baja king. You know, it is pretty much a pavement princess, although we have done some off-roading in it. Now, if you compare the two from the front, besides the aftermarket Ford Raptor style grille that my F-150 has, a Raptor is six inches wider than a regular F-150. You can basically see this here on where the fenders start versus a regular F-150. Not as wide, although I have fender flares that make it look a little wider, but we'll get to that later. Now, another big difference is the power plant. For 2017 and the new generation Raptor, Ford decided to put a twin turbocharged six-cylinder in the Raptor. Now, many people were disturbed about this decision, including myself. The first gen Raptor had a 6.2 liter V8 that sounded absolutely menacing. So the sound came along with the way the Raptor looks. That is no longer the case. But with that being said, this six-cylinder is definitely not a slouch. It is the high output EcoBoost engine. It produces 450 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque. It is extremely powerful. It is a very, very fast truck for its size. It does about 0-60 in five and a half seconds. Not that it's really meant for that, but that is extremely impressive. Now, we will be taking both these trucks out on the road and do a comparison in regards to power, ride quality, sound, and so on. But for now, we will at least do a startup so you guys can hear it. Now, it is currently warm. On a cold start, it actually doesn't sound half bad for a six-cylinder with two turbos. But that being said, it is extremely quiet for a menacing-looking truck like the Ford Raptor. At least that is my opinion. Now, before we start talking about the modified F-150 here, we will of course do a comparison real quick since we just started up the Raptor. And yes, it is an aftermarket exhaust on this truck. It is a Borla ATAK. But still, in stock format, a five-liter V8 F-150 sounds a whole lot better than the Ford Raptor. Let's take a look inside here. We have a full leather interior. Raptor badging in the seats. Now, this isn't going to be an in-depth review and that kind of thing. We don't have time for that today. But we are going to cover the features that you actually get in this truck for the price tag. Now, we have the 10-speed transmission with big paddle shifters on the side of the steering wheel. It is the new transmission co-developed with GM. And I don't know if I'm going to save this for a separate video, but 10 speeds in a transmission, I just feel like it is a little overkill. Now, the manufacturer will of course go on and on and on and say how good it is for fuel economy. But from owning a truck like this and having driven it, I can promise you that the fuel economy is not great. And keep in mind, it is a six-cylinder with two turbos. It's supposed to be better fuel economy. But anyhow, we have adaptive cruise control. We have a lane-keeping system. And we also have the eight-inch productivity screen in the middle here with tons of millions of features. SYNC 3 infotainment system. We have Apple CarPlay. We have a front camera or 360 camera, I should say. This is an absolutely awesome feature. I love it. Once you get a vehicle with this feature, you'll never want to live without it. And what we have here is a panoramic view. You can actually see my truck in the corner right here. And then we have heated and cooled seats. Cooled seats is probably one of the best inventions ever. Dual climate control. Now, the Raptor has the console shifter, which is a very nice feature in my opinion. No longer do you have it here on the column. We also have the trailer backup assist. Never used this feature. I don't know if I ever will use the feature, to be honest with you. As we move along here, we also have a heated steering wheel for winter times. Very, very nice. Now, several different driving modes as well with it being a Raptor. We have normal, sport, weather, mud, sand, where it shifts to four-wheel drive. And then we have Baja mode and also rock crawl mode, where it shifts to four low. And then you also get the very nice full panoramic moonroof, which goes all the way back. Push button start. Now, pretty much everything in the truck is power. So we have a 10-way power seat. The Raptor does not come with massaging seats. So that is a missing feature from, let's say, a Platinum or a Limited or even a King Ranch trim level F-150. Steering wheel is power tilting as well. We have three different memory settings for the seats. And this isn't a feature specific to the Raptor at all, but this is a crew cab. You have amazing room back here. Now, we also get two USB ports back here, full power plug. We have a 12-volt as well. And it's just very nice for people sitting in the back, which is mainly my nine-year-old stepdaughter and her little friends. Now, there are a couple of things that we've done different to this Raptor since we got it. One is powder coating the wheels black. This truck came with the cast wheel option, which, in my opinion, looks horrible. It looks 10 times better with the wheels powder coated in black. I already mentioned the bed liner that we put in. We also got a tonneau cover. Very nice tonneau cover. Had some issues in the beginning, but it is working just fine now. It, of course, has the big Ford Raptor grille, LED daytime running lights. The front bumper is Raptor-specific with a big skid plate underneath, BFGoodrich tires. So, before we jump in and take it for a drive, we'll start talking about the other Ford F-150 we have in the family, my 2015 Ford F-150 XLT. Now, just by looking at them, they are pretty similar from the front, although this grille here is an aftermarket grille. And that is actually the only modification I've done to this truck that I actually tried to make it look like a Raptor. I love that grille. I think it looks absolutely awesome. Now, also, I mentioned it cost $26,000 when we got this truck, which is pretty cheap. And I put about $8,500 into it. So, I'm not going to spend big parts of this video talking about every modification, but I'll walk around the truck real quick and point them out. If you want to see more in-depth videos about the mod series of this truck, there are several videos. I have a full playlist on my channel if you're interested in knowing. Now, initially, this truck had a lot of chrome. So, there's been a lot of removing and chrome deleting on this truck because I wanted it to be all black. So, we started with the grille, which really isn't black. I mean, this is more of a dark gray. The Ford letters have been wrapped in black. The front bumper has been wrapped. That was chrome. We changed out the headlight unit to an Ansel switchback headlight. So, you get the very nice daytime running light strip around the headlights, which you do not get for an XLT F-150, which this is. You have to get a Lariat trim level or above. Now, we have LED projector headlights, LED projector fog lights. We have a ReadyLift leveling kit. It is a three and a half inch leveling kit. So, the truck definitely sits a little higher than it did stock. We also got new wheels and tires. These are Fuel Stroke wheels sitting on Nitto Ridge Grappler tires. We have fender flares. We switched out the F-150 emblems on each side. They are now black. We got some vent shades here as well. And I don't know what the heck this is sticking out. That's the first time I'm seeing it. Well, well, you're supposed to be like that. Now, while we have the doors open here, this is a super cab. And being an XLT trim of the F-150, you get a cloth interior. You don't have the same features as in the Raptor. Although, this is a 302A equipment package of an XLT, which is the highest equipment package you can get for this trim level. So, you get remote start. You get a power sliding rear window. 8-inch infotainment system. Heated seats is an option. And you have a full power plug as well. There's no front camera. Although, there is a backup camera. But there's no lane keeping system. There's no heated seats. There's no adaptive cruise control. There's no memory settings for the seats. There's no cooled seats. There's obviously no leather and so on. So, there's a lot of stuff, technical features, so to speak, that you're missing out on when you buy an XLT trim level F-150. So, basically, when you get a Raptor, it's a luxury truck. It has, you know, every feature you can think of. It is absolutely amazing. Which brings us to the power plant of this truck, which is very different from the Ford Raptor. This truck has the 5 liter V8, which is an absolutely awesome engine. It produces 385 horsepower and 387 pound-feet of torque. Now, we also went ahead and added a Roush cold air intake, which supposedly is supposed to add around 10 horsepower to its already 385. But I'll be completely honest with you guys, when we put these wheels and tires on, and I haven't weighed them, but I can promise you they weigh at least a hundred pounds each. So, instead of making the truck slightly faster, it's made it slightly slower with this wheel setup. But I don't have this truck to, you know, take it to a drag strip and race it and that kind of thing. I don't really care if it feels a little more sluggish. I love the way this truck looks. Now, in 2015, when this truck was brand new, it was stickered at around $43,500. And with discounts and rebates, it went down to probably around $36,000. We leased it for three years. When the lease was up, decided to keep it. The buyout price was $26,000 and some change. So, with $8,500 in mods, this is what we have right here. Now, we've talked about mainly the equipment and sort of what you get and what you pay for and looks. Now, all that's left is, I guess, to drive both of these trucks. And we're going to start with the Ford Raptor. So, yeah, like I said, the one thing that is missing from this Ford Raptor is definitely the sound. It is very quiet. Although, that is nice if you're just planning on cruising along on the highway. But when you stomp on the pedal, it is very, very quiet. Although, it makes up for it in performance. This truck is, as I mentioned already, extremely fast. The 450 horsepower and the 510 pound-feet of torque gives this big vehicle unbelievable performance. And also, in regards to the ride, the Fox Racing shocks makes this truck extremely, extremely comfortable. And it's like driving a Cadillac. Oh yeah, we have a collision warning system in the truck as well. Now, the percentage of people that actually buy a Ford Raptor and then they go out and drive it the way it is made to be driven, I think, is very, very small. Most people are going to use this truck as a means of transportation to get from A to B and maybe utilize the bed, of course, with it being a pickup. So, my opinion of the Raptor is that it's actually more of a luxury vehicle than an off-road king and a Baja desert conqueror. Like we pointed out already, it has every thinkable luxury feature that you could want. The only thing really missing is the massaging seats in this truck. And we all know it looks extremely menacing, although it doesn't sound like it. But this truck does. This Borla ATAK system on this F-150 makes the truck just scream and it sounds like, in my opinion, a truck should sound like, that looks like a Raptor. Now, I've mentioned in a previous video that I am dissatisfied with this leveling kit that we put on the truck because it basically just stretches out the suspension that you already have on the truck and it makes the ride very, very stiff. So, in the future, I will actually be getting another lift kit and possibly putting some Fox Racing shocks on the truck. As you might be able to tell, it's very, very bumpy on these roads. In this truck, you don't get that eloquent feeling you get in a Raptor, although I'm not sure that you're supposed to have that feeling in a Raptor, but you do. This truck is just very, very raw. It's not as powerful as the Raptor, but it sounds a whole lot better. And with me having modified this truck, it's become more personal to me. So, I just, I love it. It is a different experience and feeling having a modded vehicle versus a vehicle that you've bought from a dealership and it's pretty much still the same. So, in this video, I guess I pretty much am just doing a comparison between a fully loaded, you know, luxury truck, the Ford Raptor versus a mid-range Ford F-150 that I have put some time and money into to make it look sort of unique, I guess. A lot of people thought that I initially wanted to make this truck just be another Raptor with a V8. That was never really my intention, except for the grille. I love how that looks. This truck has a lot more personality now, and I can honestly say that I like this more than the Ford Raptor. And I guess that I hope that for someone that's watching this video and they're looking at getting a new truck and they're on the fence, if they want to get something, you know, brand new that costs a whole lot more money, or if they want to get something that is used that they can get for a whole lot less money, put some money into it and make it their own. That is, of course, something that you yourself would know better than anyone else. But why don't we ask my wife what she thinks because she's driven both of these trucks. You didn't think I was going to film, huh? No. So you currently drive the Ford Raptor. You drove this for three years, although this is very different now. What is your take on what's the main difference? The ride? Yeah, this one is bumpier. Dislike it, but sitting next to it or in front of it. So it's like bigger and neat. So it looks nice. All the features. That's what it is. The Raptor is a luxury vehicle. It really is. I was saying earlier in the video, I don't think many people who buy a Raptor, they're actually going to, you know, use the truck for its, you know, intentions, which is, you know, a Baja King, like a desert race truck, pretty much. Still going to be a pavement queen, driven from A to B and maybe throw something in the bed every now and then. And it costs them $70,000. Notifications is $35,000. All right, so there we have it. Twin turbocharged V6 fully loaded Ford Raptor, $70,000 versus five liter V8, $35,000 as it sits. 2015 Ford F-150 XLT. There's no question that the Ford Raptor is a better truck, but are you willing to spend the money to get it versus something like this? Let me know which one of these trucks is your favorite. And to end this video, we are, of course, going to have a rev battle. All right, now we're done. I hope you guys enjoyed the video.