2022 Ford Bronco Raptor Snow and Ice Test Hill Challenge

foreign Bronco Raptor defeat our winter test Hill we're going to find out right now on driving sports TV [Music] the Ford Bronco raptor is bigger beefier and more powerful than a standard Bronco today we're going to find out if all that extra capability pays off in icy conditions as we attempt to conquer our winter test Hill the goal get to the top but it's not going to be easy to succeed the Bronco Raptor will first have to Traverse our main lines these consist of two hills and a level connector these sections have been plowed to give the Bronco a fighting chance but it's still very rough with several inches of compact ice and snow if it's successful Conquering the main lines then we can move on to an unplowed section of the hill this is over a foot deep of snow and it's compressed compact icy and very thick I'm not talking about the winter wonderland style of fluffy white snow now this is Northwest concrete made of ice so will the Bronco Raptors succeed let me just say that I did come out here yesterday with my Ford Ranger Tremor on the Standard General Grabber tires and I couldn't get up anything so it's going to be a real challenge for the Bronco Raptor before we start let's check out what Ford sent us under the hood is a twin turbocharged 3-liter V6 that produces up to 418 horsepower and 440 pound-feet of torque it's mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission and it Powers all four wheels with Fords on demand automatic four-wheel drive system the body is 9.8 inches wider than a base Bronco thanks to massive fender flares and big meaty tires our test vehicle included 17-inch alloy wheels wrapped in 37-inch BFG ko2 all-terrain tires in a 12.5 R17 fitment for suspension the Raptor features the Haas 4.0 system that includes fox live valve internal bypass semi-active dampers it also has standard underbody protection recovery hooks front stabilizer bar disconnect as well as front and rear lockers prices you see it here along with a few extra options 74 425 US Dollars including destination of course it is important to take a look at the conditions before we drive out here now what we're dealing with is compact ice and snow on top of mud it's been probably around 28 to 32 degrees overnight and now we're at 33 so it's right around freezing we're not getting that nice hard freeze which would actually improve Traction in certain places instead we get ice on top of slimy mud so this is going to be interesting now the Ford Bronco raptor is equipped with ko2 tires they're in all terrain they're fairly aggressive actually they are very aggressive for an all-terrain and they are Peak rated which should help with these conditions but the only way to really find out is to do it so here we are behind the wheel of the Bronco Raptor again I love this thing uh it is just so crazy we're gonna start here in four Auto because that's what most people are going to use and then as we need more capability we'll layer on the features and honestly this this Bronco Raptor has a lot of features um I think the first thing for Auto let's just do it most people at this point would say oh it's slippery conditions so let's go ahead and switch goat mode which is the goes over any terrain system too slippery okay we're in Slippery that didn't change anything we're still in four Auto and what that should do is it should optimize the traction control system to deal with slippery conditions like the name says okay as we continue up now I don't want to get too aggressive with the throttle wheel spin will just ice up under the tires let's go ahead and turn on the trail cam now I can kind of see what's right in front of me below oh the problem is I don't see my angle anymore let's toggle over to an angle to a View okay so my angle right now is at eight degrees this is a nine degree nine degree climb which you know is something you would find in the real world absolutely that is an acceptable grade for most roads in fact it is the reason this has a nine degree grade is so that fire trucks can get up here this is one of the required access roads it started to get into a muddy section there and I lost traction so now I'm just going to continue on oh boy I lost momentum and so I've kind of lost the plot here let's back up a little bit the important thing here is surface you want to be on a Surface I can get you moving if you're dead in in the water in space and move just spinning tires you're not going to have any success because you need to use momentum to keep you moving forward but you also have to watch out for momentum because it can throw you off track okay so in Slippery mode with the goat mode uh this did fine now it's just a matter of turning around up here so this thing has a lot of things that are really good going for it as we need them we have front and rear lockers we have these massive ko2s that we can air down if we have to but so far it is getting us through normal stuff so if you're trying to you know can I get to the cabin on a plowed Road yes you can we have now answered that if you're a little concerned about a hill like this because you don't know if there's ice underneath or something you can always go into Trail control mode and then you basically hit a button down here and you hit set on the Wheel and then you can basically do Hill descent control both downhill and uphill and what this does is it optimizes individual wheel braking as well as throttle to be able to keep you moving safely through tricky conditions I am just tracking perfectly straight down here I don't have my foot on the brake I don't have it on the throttle the vehicle is basically taking care of everything except steering now if I want to of course I can always put my foot on the brake Trail control is still enabled I just release my foot and what it did is it took us from three mile per hour down to one mile per hour as I did that because it thought hey you put your foot on the brake obviously it's a treacherous situation now that we did the climb like Grandma would do it it's time to try the fun way to see what's the difference here right so that was all basically in just four automatic and slippery mode so now let's just punch it over to off-road which will give us more wheel spin I'll put it into drive it's locked the rear diff automatically says it's for off-road use yes this qualifies and it's in four highs so we're going to get a lot of wheel spin so this is now that we've shown you can do it and what it takes to get up there this is really just for fun before we move on to the next test and here we go this is the momentum technique uh yeah snow blower oh oh ditch ditch ditch ditch ditch ah out of the ditch that was close so that was a lot more fun and it was successful yes I also chewed up my road a little bit more and for before those of you say dude you just chewed up the road for the next person we own this hill this is our hill we built these roads there are roads so if you are in the real world beware of damaging Trails but if you own your own Road that's a good way to do it really if you're thinking about what vehicle would you want in weather conditions like this I think a Bronco Raptor rates pretty high up there whether you're into flinging the back end out or if you just want something that's you know capable enough that you feel really safe okay what we have here is a very sharp turn so I'm going to use the term control system which will apply breaking to the inside Tire I don't know if this is a good idea on snow or not but let's give it a try so it's now on trail turn assist is what they call it that'll break the inside wheel and help me almost spin on the spot what that is amazing okay I got turned turn that off and then drive out in theory there we go okay let's get ready for this hill climb oh this is going to be interesting so far very impressed with what this Bronco Raptor can do and you kind of expect it I mean for the money and for the just the insane specifications of this vehicle it should do quite a lot so right now I'm just in four high ah and I'm plowing into the berm that's a problem don't want to get too deep into a problem now the issue here just like on the other Hill is there's a lot of moisture under this snow and that's creating exceptionally slippery conditions it's also difficult to find the line because it just wants to just go off oh okay this is deeper now okay this is obviously where they lifted the plow a little higher that was maybe back a little too far go go go a little momentum okay still just in four high I think I'm gonna actually lock my rear diff and because this is a Ford I can just hold it up here and it'll turn on and oh we're making it it's not without issues though The Contours of the ground kind of want to send me other directions then my wheels are pointing so I gotta now now that I'm aware I gotta over compensate kind of get through there okay and then recorrect nice we are doing it so this is just four high with the rear Locker ah whoa whoa whoa whoa if I get in that ditch it's potentially game over it doesn't matter how capable this vehicle is we do have a recovery vehicle but it'll have to get up here which could be its own set of problems oh man this is uh this is a little challenging but it's actually doing really good ah getting bogged down in that ditch okay I'm having a lot of problems here with that Contour of the ground so I don't want to go too far to the right because there is a large drop right there and I don't want to of course go off the edge oh now my butt is going down into the ditch okay this is uh whoa this is problematic ah okay we're having some issues here I have half the vehicle in a ditch yeah so uh let's go ahead and what most people will do at this point we'll switch it into slippery mode um what are we gonna get with that it puts it into four Auto it's also going to optimize wheel braking for this kind of situation and then I'm also going to use the paddle shifter here and switch into second gear so I have less power see if that can get me through nope nope oh boy can I get I feel like I'm just getting deeper into the hole come on can I get out okay now I need to charge it the second gear slippery is not working so let's switch it oh yeah thanks auto start stop just kicked in so we're gonna go to for high I'm gonna turn on the front camera here because I like a front camera and let's see if we can get out of this oh I think we're gonna have to use some little gravity turn drive out through the thick stuff back in line okay I think we're back on the road ah [Music] boy everything just wants to send me into that ditch like we can do this though this is where the vehicle kind of is having its way okay shift a little I'm gonna try to charge it out use gravity use the hill to get back on track okay we are back on the road let's try to stay there this time okay this is obviously very very complicated so I am going to air down the tires and see if that improves uh this section so to air him down I could just stick my finger into the little nozzle but I have a better way of doing it so what this tool does is that it removes the little valve from the inside of the stem so basically can air down as quickly as possible with no resistance and then also has a PSI gauge so I can hit my target pressure and for these conditions I'm first just going to try about 18 PSI [Music] so the whole point of airing the tire down is to actually create a wider footprint it's going to be mushier and be able to grab snow better it's not perfect in all conditions but I think given the textures and the materials we're working with here on this particular road that it will give us an advantage so if you've ever heard of something called a bead Locker that allows you to take this all the way down to practically zero PSI if you want a super floppy Tire but without a bead Locker 18 is usually pretty safe okay now that we got the tires aired down let's see what the truck says our pressures are 20 all around so you know either this is a little off or my gauge is a little off but still close enough they're definitely a lot squishier than they were before of course it's warning me that I have low tire pressures that's the point uh I don't want to spin the wheels I want a little bit more control over the throttle so I'm not just spinning I want to kind of go a little bit slower so I'm going to go down into four load it's also going to amplify torque that's not why I'm doing it I'm doing it just so I have a more easy throttle I do have to shift into neutral to do that back into drive so four low traction off let's go ahead and lock the rear diff and also I'm going to lock the front diff now I don't have to disconnect the sway bar because I'm not having any issues with reach so let's go and see how much more control we have here I'm trying to make sure that I don't fall into that ditch on the left which it just kept sucking me into and oh um okay remember all that struggle it's gone no more struggle whoa whoa whoa whoa spoke too soon okay the the course can still have its way with me backed up a little bit we're back on the course uh we have front and rear Locker we have lower tire pressure we kind of got everything going on right now um but you know I'm sure somebody at this point is going to say well maybe that was just the lockers and the lower tire pressure doesn't change anything so let's go ahead and we'll just keep it in four low because that's not going to make a huge difference but I'm going to turn off my lockers and see if I can continue on here sure why not let's turn that down I gotta stay all the way to the right here physics still applies apparently oh okay [Music] let's keep it spinning keep it spinning momentum is good yes oh whoa you know with momentum like that you can also get in over your head pretty quickly but I have to say the tire pressures are helping here I really feel like I have a lot better grip than I had before because like right now no lockers and I am still moving ah man these uh these undulations are really tough to deal with I also want to see what kind of an angle are we dealing with here this is only a six degree seven degree but it's very very bumpy and the snow is deeper ah look at that it's a challenge but we can definitely do it yeah okay well this is not the only challenge because now we got one more and that's to see if we can get up ah not fall off the cliff and that's to see if we can get up [Music] uh a completely unplowed section that is even steeper I do think we hit about 12 degrees there on the most extreme incline shift a little move forward boom through it uh now the section we're in right now is not really truly plowed it's where the plow tried to turn around and got stuck just to give you an indication of how tough this is okay come on let's see if we can get that momentum I want to get aligned here there we go there we go are we aligned are we aligned it's making it an inch at a time okay we are aligned and ready I think almost ready I think I want to air down just a little bit more because yeah this is gonna be nuts so I'm just taking a short break before doing that final climb and I'm noticing that down here where I kept sliding into the ditch it's because this is about a foot thick ice over here it's much softer and that's probably probably because of water flowing underneath it's keeping the temperature a little lower so what's happened is because this is a shelf the vehicle drives up hits the ice just slides right over let's finish this okay now that we got all four of the tires down to about 12 PSI let's take a look at the conditions we're dealing with here and then give it a try come on over here so as you can tell this is about a foot of snow this is where we uh started and then backed off to reset the vehicle so this is light fluffy snow on top but there's only an inch of that under that that's like that's ice and then below that we have soft mud this isn't even Frozen so we're dealing with three very very treacherous uh surfaces all in one we got the tire pressures lowered let's see what the car says car says 13 all around again pretty close I'm currently on a five degree pitch and a four degree angle okay so I got the tire pressures down I'm just gonna gun it I just want to see like full bro mode what can the Raptor do uh so we're gonna turn on front Locker because why not right live a little Okay so we've got front Locker we got rear Locker I'm in Drive I'm going to start in second gear let's see what this does into the deep I'm just gonna keep the throttle in and see if we can do this now I've seen tons of video on Facebook and YouTube where people are talking about how awesome the Raptor is in the snow with the ko2s yeah but they don't do it on Hills they do it on um flat parking lots Hills are a massive challenge breakthrough and what do we get oh we're doing it we're at 10 degrees a slight tilt there okay so we're about 10 degrees I am pausing for a moment before putting in reverse because you don't want to like shock the system this has enough horsepower where you could you know if you're jamming it while the engine bits are still spinning yeah you can cause damage there okay floor it oh yeah we're making it we're making we're just using power to get up come on power Ed me home take me home okay that's 14 degrees we are making great progress here and the snow I think is actually getting deeper yeah that's some pretty deep snow there and of course like I said there's mud underneath it which just makes it even more difficult to get up punch through so I don't want to like you know hit this at the I don't want to go all the way to the bottom and just charge it because at that point you run into the issue of having too much momentum and then if you hit like a thing of ice or you get your momentum kind of off kilter Boop you're off the side so you know this is like a conservative charge I think yeah can we do it can we do it take me home and that is the Ford Bronco Raptor this thing can it go anywhere yeah yeah it can we just did that we're driving sports TV I'm Ryan douthit thanks for watching be sure to like subscribe share videos we make them for you and I hope you enjoy them I think today was one of the more enjoyable days for me that's for sure love it [Music] foreign [Music] yes [Music] at

Channel: Driving Sports TV

Views: 291,160

Keywords: car review, driving sports tv, best off road suv, ford bronco raptor off road, 2022 bronco raptor, bronco raptor off road, ford bronco raptor 2022, ford bronco off road, 2022 ford bronco raptor review, ice driving, snow driving, bronco snow, bronco ice, mountains

Id: IUGR3uZzGVM

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/peakdecline]

Bronco Raptor performs as expected... which is to say excellently when aired down and the right buttons pushed

I must say though... I think at a certain point the sheer number of modes and options ends up making for a worse and tedious off-road/snow experience. And this video and the Bronco Raptor kind of exemplify that.

4A, 4H, 4L.... a variety different "GOAT" modes, front and rear diff locks... and then all of this stuff kind of engages and disengages based on which combo of GOAT mode, 4WD mode, and diff locks you've got selected. It can get very confusing, quickly.

To the review itself... as a reviewer he's somewhat obligated to go through those options to show them to the viewer. But it takes so very long for him to reach "optimal." And then he barely even stays in optimal configuration. Because there's this whole pile of modes he's got to keep playing with...

I'd really have appreciated a bit more time spent with it just plain 4H, both diffs locked (and this shows off a somewhat unique ability of the Bronco to use the front diff lock in 4H). Which should be ideal and really all that's needed. No need for "GOAT" modes and figuring out which ones work with which options or not and making sure they didn't unlock your diffs.

[u/SecretAntWorshiper]

The Bronco Raptor is such a cool car. Would rather get one than the F150 Raptor

[u/PurpleSausage77]

So much want. Wonder if winter tires plus airing down would be a big help on the inclines in this vid. I’ve driven KO2’s in foot of snow but on flat service road and it was perfect.