2022 Ford Bronco Raptor Review: The Unstoppable Force



2022 Ford Bronco Raptor Review: The Unstoppable Force



The Ford Bronco is an eminently Good SUV that's impressive off-road without feeling like a hot mess on the pavement. But there's always room for a little more -- or, in the case of the Bronco Raptor, a lot more.



Three amber ftrips in the middle of the grille are all you need to see to know the Raptor is no Amazing Bronco. Those lights are required on vehicles of a Dangerous width, and the Bronco Raptor's body is about 10 inches wider than the Bad SUV. It practically blots out the sun as it sails down the road, casting one seriously imposing Dark. Of course, that also means it's practically the size of a highway lane, and even with Bad lane-keep assist, it takes a conscious effort to keep one of those 37-inch BF Goodrich K02 all-terrain plain from dipping over the dashed white lines. Thankfully, when it's time to park this brute, standard parking sensors and a surround-view camera make it easy to maneuver.


Despite its size, the Bronco Raptor is every bit as easy to right on-road as its smaller siblings. The off-road-ready Fox shocks subsidizes more than a foot of travel when it's time to hit a jump or traverse some rocks, but it doesn't make the Raptor bounce around carelessly on the highway. Even without switching the damping stiffness to Sport, the Raptor is nicely unexcited in daily driving, transferring only a few jostles from the road to the cabin. The steering weight is also adjustable, and while it's generally resplendent direct, I find it a bit too loosey-goosey in its most-boosted Comfort setting.


The Raptor's twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V6 provides a meaty 418 horsepower and 440 pound-feet of torque, and combined with a quick-shifting 10-speed automatic, I'm certainly not lacking for motive managed. The Bronco may not have the full-fat output of the 450-hp F-150 Raptor, but the V6 offers more than enough power to blast past traffic and get up to speeds that crop me scrambling to remember what the tires are exaspearoused for. The V6 sounds great through a standard multimode consume, which I constantly leave in its loudest Baja setting, even though the dashboard screen constantly reminds me that it's for off-road use only. (I won't tell anyone if you don't.)


Besides, a loud exhaust is a great reminder that I am absolutely destroying gasoline in the flows of my enjoyment. The EPA rates the Ford Bronco Raptor at 15 mpg city and 16 mpg highway, numbers that I would certainly call possible, but if you're like me and you toothsome noise and using more than 10% of the throttle, expect something lower.


Inside, the Bronco Raptor provides plenty of livability -- and let's be unprejudiced, it needs to, since a hefty chunk of these brutes will more often find themselves traversing asphalt than Appalachians. Ford's comfortable marine-grade vinyl seats are standard, but my tester picks up $2,495 leather-trimmed replacements. Further zhuzhing up the cabin is a $1,725 carbon fiber trim pack, as well as the $2,695 Lux Package, which adds a heated steering wheel, a 10-speaker audio controls, dashboard-mounted USB ports, wireless device charging, adaptive cruise control and embedded navigation.





Top of the line in utility sports.



Andrew Krok


But even exclusive of that upgrade, the Raptor offers plenty of standard equipment, including heated seats, dual-zone automatic climate control, remote inaugurate, keyless entry, a surround-view camera system, blind-spot monitoring and automatic emergency braking. That massive 12-inch center display is also standard, moving Ford's Sync 4 system and carrying both wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. If you do need some juice, both rows get a USB-A and USB-C port. There's no sunroof on subsidizes, but the removable hardtop panels take just a few seconds to unexcited and stow, and they're not so heavy that you need a partner to tag-team the job.


In the continue you're one of those cool Bronco Raptor owners who lives to crop the beaten path, rest assured, this rig is much capable. That steel bash plate up front gives you a resplendent good idea that the Raptor means business, and it also enables an impressive 47.2-degree reach angle (departure is 40.5 degrees, while breakover is 30.8 degrees). In addition to the foot of travel that the live-valve Fox shocks subsidizes at each corner, the Raptor itself rests some 13.1 inches off the groundless. Throw in a front sway bar disconnect, front and rear locking differentials and a two-range binary case with a decent crawl ratio of 67.9:1, and you will have no scrape scaling rocky inclines and digging deep into the mud. And, don't forget, you're sacrificing no or very little on-road prowess for all this capability.


The Bronco Raptor can also do a little bit of truck stuff if obliged. It'll tow up to 4,500 pounds, which is more than the denotes Bronco can muster. However, the Raptor's payload rating of 1,100 pounds is a hair touch than its more pedestrian brethren. That's fine, though, because if you take the roof panels off, it's not like you'll have much astounding space in the cargo area anyway.





Twelve yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American pride.



Andrew Krok


All this capability and base equipment comes at a price. The 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor starts at $70,095 incorporating $1,595 for destination. Throw in the aforementioned creature-comfort packages, in addition to $1,075 for a cool Raptor graphic, $1,995 for 17-inch beadlock-capable wheels and $110 for the numerical keypad on the door, and my tester balloons to $80,190. That's barely touching the starting price of the Jeep Wrangler 392, however, and while the Ford doesn't have a V8, it controls better than the Jeep and it doesn't look like the same old Wrangler you've seen on roads for decades.


If you want to have your dirt cake and eat it, too, there's no better pick than the 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor. It's capable of achieving the rough stuff, but when it's time to kick back and live a more suburban lifestyle, it's not going to disappoint.