New 2021 Raptor Ditches Leaf Spring, Offers 37-inch Tires | Edmunds
What about off-road stuff? Suspension and gearing?
The 2021 Raptor gets a thorough suspension overhaul compared to the standard F-150 so it can sail over ruts, bumps and air with the durability you’d expect from a desert-racing-inspired truck. It also needs to be drivable every day and do regular truck stuff too, like towing and hauling.
Along with front suspension upgrades, the big addition this year is the switch from a leaf-spring rear suspension to a five-link (or multilink) coil-spring rear suspension with a Panhard rod (or track bar). Ford says the goal of this change was to provide more lateral stabilization to the rear suspension and more traction under acceleration. On all four corners are beefy and electronically controlled Fox adaptive dampers.
Giving the Raptor traction are standard 35-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 tires. New for 2021, you can also option massive 37-inch tires that provide additional ground clearance. These are also Goodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 tires.
If you stick with the 35s, you can upgrade from the standard 17-inch wheels to forged and beadlock capable wheels. The 37s come with forged and beadlock capable wheels, but with a different design. Forged wheels are generally lighter than cast wheels, and a beadlock is a means of mechanically attaching the tire to the rim, so the tire stays fixed in place in challenging off-road terrain.
The transmission is a 10-speed automatic with the same gearing, final drive and low range as the one on the last-gen Raptor. The 2021 Raptor also again comes standard with an electronic-locking rear diff and an optional Torsen torque-sensing limited-slip front differential, which is something you can’t get on the Ram TRX.