Mike Up

Sorry, not trying to be harsh, but our winters are so bad, seems like we're on NBC Nightly new every other week. At the most southern tip of Lake Michigan and in the snow belt, we get some of the worst blizzards and snow fall out of the country.

johnday in BFE

iTrader: (1)

No problem, I know all about lake effect off Lake Michigan, for some reason, northern western Michigan is rarely mentioned. I lost count how many times I couldn't get across the Mackinac Bridge due to very bad conditions, but no one knew of it but us! LOL. Yes kids, that bridge DOES get shutdown! LOL
Been down in your area coming and going from Gary many times in the winter, it can be deadly all the way up. It ain't no fun at times.

Jelbz

Ford doesn’t do a good job at explaning the differences...maybe on purpose. The higher level models have a lot of different parts, for example the auto transfer case. This was a big reason I went above the XLT.

I found the base king ranch had many of the features I wanted for less than a loaded Lariat.

Mike Up

Don't know if I would want to be on the bridge in bad weather.

Unfortunately, seems the news agencies only concentrate on the bigger metro areas. The problem for the Borman (I80/94) is that it only takes one idiot to cause an accident and block all lanes of traffic.

johnday in BFE

iTrader: (1)

Ya, the more populated areas usually are more news worthy, read that, "should" be a warning to most people.
There's been twice that I was asked how bad the bridge was, and they really listen to the regular users, they shut it down within minutes when a couple of us said something. The bridge people take safety very seriously, as do most of us that crossed twice a day. There were a few times I could look in the mirror and see nothing but trailer though. It looked cool when you got out of a gust and you could watch the trailer straighten out!

seadragon

Well, I have 4A and it is absolutely NOT a waste. It’s excellent and I use mine a lot. No regrets paying a bit extra for it and I would happily do it again.

acdii

Same here! Had to use it several days this past week and it performed perfectly. I've only ever had Lariats, so its what I get.

NASSTY

I've been driving Ford trucks for about 30 years and my 2017 is the 1st F150 that I've owned that has 4A. I wouldn't want to own another one without it.

WildernessLVR

@ NASSTY

4A in a Raptor operates differently the on Lariats & other trims.
In a Raptor there's always some power being transfered to the front wheels while the steering is angled (small amount, but there is). On the other hand on the other trims that have 4A there's ABSOLUTELY NO POWER being sent to the wheels in the same circumstances. This is visible on the Power Distribution View on the 8" Cluster display.

I found out about this recently, after reading about 4A on the Raptor forum and then did a drive test on my truck on a parking lot and sure enough - BINGO!! There I knew why the heck on snowy drives the truck would fishtail on tight corners while on 4A??!!!

No wonder my previous XLT performed so delightedly well on snow! In 4H the front wheels always have power and one will never get disapointed. I never had any issues in doing a quick Kn*b switch from 2H to 4H then, and now that's exactly what I started doing on my Lariat!

What I get from this is there could be a situation where 4A has a benefit, but if it's said "it is for when a unpredictable slippage occurs" then I'd say there's a BIG FALSE SENSE OF SAFETY being induced, because if this occurs and the steering is turned, then 4A = 2H and could turn into a potentially precarious traction loss and just because the driver was expecting the front wheels to be doing something than just grabbing the ground, it could result in serious consequences!

4A seems to be a myth! And please don't come telling anyone that their MPGs are better in 4A than in 2H - I always thought it was BS and I confirmed it. Run a test for half a tank on the same path to work and home at the same hours (to have the probabilities of same amount of traffic) and did substantially wayyyy less miles and the mileage graph jumped from 18L/100Kms to 24L/100Kms (Winter gas blend, of course).

If anyone has experienced differently an advantage of 4A, please chime in as I want to believe there is a typical good application for it. Raptors I know can cheat (NASSTy this one is for you too lol!)

WildernessLVR

What I meant to point out on the previous post is if anyone is stretching the wallet to go to a Lariat or above trim, because of 4A instead of just enjoying an XL or XLT 4x4, then your doing it for a flopped reason.

All the other upgrades of the trims could be a better factor to consider. IMO...