Video: 2024 Ford F-150 Review: Minor Updates Still Satisfy

Let me take you for a ride. Are we ready? Let's send it. (engine revving) (upbeat music) Most of our time, in the new '24 F-150, has been off-road, here in the dirt. We did do a little bit of time on road with the new PowerBoost hybrid with its special BlueCruise hands-free control. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But most of it has been off-roading in two versions of the F-150, the Tremor, and this, the F-150 Raptor. This is the Raptor R, and it has a couple of styling changes for the 2024 model year. Most of them are up front. You've got new headlights with the Ford C-Clamp lighting signature. You've got a new grill with the woven-forward logo. But more importantly on this one, you've got a new bumper. It's a new modular accessory bumper, and that means that you can actually replace different bits and pieces on it, and you could add things to it like a light bar or a winch. This one has higher end caps, so you can actually approach obstacles off-road and have a lot more tire area as well. So this is the 720 horsepower Ford F-150 Raptor R, supercharge 5.2 liter V8 engine. It is nuts. And this is its natural environment, off-road, high speed, through basically desert washes like this. And for 2024, it's got some new equipment. It's got 20 more horsepower than it did, thanks to a new hood that allows it to breathe a bit more freely. But it's also got a new suspension, a little bit anyway. They've changed things like the half shafts up front. It's got new knuckles, so it has more articulation than it did before, both in the front and the rear. But it also has new shocks out back, dual-valve Fox shocks, instead of just single valve. And that means that it can electronically control both compression and rebound now. And that makes this far more comfortable than you could possibly believe it to be, which it is. You could actually blast through here at much higher speeds than you expect with extraordinary control. Nothing feels out of shape. Nothing feels like it's gonna get loose and do something stupid. (laughs) It is a workout though (chuckles) for both me and my poor camera folks. (laughs) Hope you didn't have that breakfast burrito before we got on this course. It is a factory built off-road, Baja, racer truck. And all you have to do, really is just air down the tires a little bit, push a couple buttons, and you're good to go. If you've never had the opportunity to drive a Raptor vehicle, whether it's an F-150, or a Bronco, or the new Ranger Raptor, in its natural environment, which is this, you simply have to, there's just no substitute. There's no mall crawling that you can do that really shows off what this thing can actually do. Now, the thing to remember is that this is the Raptor R. It is the V8-powered version. The less expensive, plain old regular Raptor, still comes with a 3.5 liter twin turbo V6. And we just saw it get its first competitor, first real competitor, with the new 2025 Ram 1500 RHO. So what if you don't need all the Baja off-road craziness of an F-150 Raptor? Well, there's this. This is the F-150 Tremor. And if the Raptor is your play toy, this is really more of your work truck. It doesn't have the crazy dual-valve Fox shocks of the Raptor, but it does have a very capable off-road suspension. It does have unique knuckles. It's got a Torsen limited-slip, front differential, electronic locking rear differential, off-road tires. It really is basically more of the slower speed overlanding kind of off-road truck as opposed to the Raptor's more high speed, cross-country racing truck. I will say, however, that the Raptor, even on slower speed stuff like this, is more comfortable. (chuckles) You don't have the same level of electronic shock control that you do in the Raptor, here in the Tremor. But you do have a lot of really neat features. You do have a standard V8 engine, which is kind of unusual, but that's what they've got. The 5 liter Coyote V8, making 400 horsepower, 410 pounds feet of torque. This one has the optional twin turbocharged EcoBoost V6. It's making 400 horsepower and an even 500 pounds feet of torque. So, two very capable engines. This one is extremely torquey. And when you get it out on actual smooth pavement, the thing actually is really quite a blast to drive. You don't get the Baja mode that you get in the Raptor, but you do get an off-road mode, and it does change quite a lot of things. Like, everything on the display, you've got a lot of information to tell you how you're doing off-road. Everything from inclinometers, to what the status is of your suspension, tire pressures, powertrain information, like what's locked, what's not. And when you shift it into off-road mode, just like in the Raptor, it automatically turns on the trail cameras as well. These cameras, they face forward, or rear, or 360, they don't shut off at certain speeds, they will actually stay on. So even if you're going at a higher rate of speed off-road, it'll still show you where your tires are pointed. So that is a useful feature as well. Pro style standpoint, they do give a little bit of styling love to the Tremor. Tremor thing is it's all about the gold accents. So you've got a gold strip in the unique Tremor grill. They call it a wraparound grill, because it goes all the way across and wraps around the headlights as well. You've got unique wheels, you've got some unique badging as well, and you've got an optional accessory bumper that is also featured on the Raptor where you could swap out that center section for light bars or added additional winch if you want, making your Tremor just that much more off-road capable. In terms of how it drives, well, it's extremely capable, but unlike the Raptor, it does beat you up a bit. This is not the same kind of suspension that you get in a Raptor, where you've got those Fox shocks that now feature both electronic control for both compression and rebound. So it's gonna be a little bit more of a harsher riding thing. But you can get things like the new pro access tailgate on this. And it also has its exhaust system very up high in the rear bumper as well. So you're not likely to hit anything as you're going off-road. Ford has also loaded in a number of unique off-road features that I think are frankly a questionable utility. One of 'em that does seem to be kind of neat is the trail turn assist. We've seen this in other off-road forwards, like on the Bronco and on the Super Duty. It locks the inside rear tire, and so it enables you on low-friction surfaces like this, rock, and dust, and dirt, to actually turn a lot tighter by locking that inside rear wheel as you're going around a corner, and letting you basically skid around the corner. So, that could be useful in certain situations. Other things like the trail control, it's basically a cruise control for off-road driving. I don't think that's really all that useful at all. Yeah, they say it's meant to enable you to maintain a certain speed over terrain without having to modulate your pedal, but I don't know anybody who drives off-road and just wants to set cruise control. Hill descent control could be more useful for that situations where you can set a certain speed going down a hill and it automatically will take you down the hill at that speed. Yeah, that could be more useful. And they also have this one-pedal driving situation so that you don't have to, well, use two pedals and break an accelerator in order to hold yourself on a slippery or rocky surface. That's also I think of potential utility, but overall, most people who drive off-road know how to do it. And adding all of these electronic aids, I'm not really sure they're all that useful or all that wanted. This is the PowerBoost full hybrid system. It combines the 3.5 liter twin turbocharge V6 with a full on hybrid system, with a fairly decent-sized lithium ion battery pack, a small one, but still good enough to actually allow for some all-electric driving at very low speeds and around town, not obviously out here on the highway. Why we're out here on the highway right now is to try this. This is BlueCruise. It is Ford's version of the hands-free cruise control system. And it has been available on the F-150 previously, but now they've made it more available and they've upgraded it. It now has some different lane centering characteristics such as if you pull up next to a Semi, it'll actually move you over in the lane a little bit so that you're not right up against that Semi. It's better to make you feel a little bit more comfortable, but it's actually fairly easy to use as long as you're on one of the 98% off-roads in Canada and the United States, that are mapped and are part of the BlueCruise system. All you have to do is push one button on the steering wheel, that's this cruise control button here, ding, and you're in hands-free mode. You can adjust the distance, obviously. I prefer to set it to there. And we're currently cruising at 60 miles an hour, hands-free. There's a little icon in the display cluster that says "hands-free," and the steering wheel there lights up blue. There's no lights on the actual steering wheel, so that's a little bit different than you'll see in systems like General Motors Super Cruise, or even some of Mercedes-Benz systems as well. But as long as it's on the mapped road and it's happy with what it sees around the vehicle, it's happy to motor you along, happy as you please. Now, you don't have to take your hands off the wheel, you can put your hands on the wheel if it makes you more comfortable to do so. But quite frankly, as long as you're in a controlled environment like this in terms of everybody going in the same direction on a highway as opposed to like some, you know, lesser two-lane highway roads that now the new Super Cruise system can accommodate, this is, I think, where this system works best. It's also got the new lane change function, which all you have to do is use a turn signal, preparing the lane change, it does it all by itself. Recenters, and here we are. That works pretty well. Now, the GM Super Cruise system actually does it all by itself. It will determine if there's a car in your path. It will determine if the way around it is clear, if there's somebody behind you, and it will automatically move you out and around and then back in again. But Ford is kind of a half-step behind in terms of what GM is doing. And this is still a manually activated system, which I don't mind. And the first time the Super Cruise system did it for me, it kind of freaked me out a little bit. See, if there is a vehicle coming, it will not do it. Not until the way is clear. Now, it should. Preparing the lane change. Oh, not available, lane busy. Except that it's not. So I'm gonna override and do it myself. These systems are very cautious. The changes they've made for the '24 F-150 are fairly minor. There's some new features, there's some new benefits, but overall it was a solid truck to start with, it's still a solid truck now. The '24s are now starting to roll into dealerships, and prices range from about $39,000 to over $110,000. And if you'd like to read more about the new 2024 Ford F-150, you can look everything up on cars.com. (upbeat music)