How to get your Ford Ranger Raptor properly stuck in the mud

The solution was as clear as mud. Here I was with a Ford Ranger Raptor on its belly in a swamp unable to move a centimetre, and having a deep ponder about how life can blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday, as the Baz Luhrmann song Sunscreen goes.

Before this somewhat embarrassing incident I’d previously driven the second-generation Raptor in various off-road playgrounds including rocky trails and Namibian sand dunes, and the burly 4x4 had felt near invincible in tackling them. It's Ford’s most off-road-focused bakkie with a towering ground clearance, fat all-terrain tyres, fancy position-sensitive Fox suspension and every traction-enhancing trick you can think of.

And it's got a belter of a V6 turbo petrol engine. Tested with a V box, the big bakkie soared from 0-100km/h in a hot hatch-like 6.7 seconds, making it the quickest bakkie we’ve yet tested by quite a margin.

Back to our swamp quandary. I hadn’t intended to go off-roading that particular evening while on a camping trip. I was making an innocuous U-turn on a gravel road in the campsite, and as my arc took me into a veld the Raptor suddenly bogged down in a swamp hidden in the grass. Just bad luck. A few metres away cars were parked in the same veld on solid ground.

I engaged 4x4, low range and Mud mode. I wrenched the steering from side to side to try to gain extra traction as I pressed the throttle. Nothing. The Ford did as it was designed and all four wheels were turning with the front and rear differentials locked, but there was zero traction. The quagmire was so slippery the bakkie was going nowhere.

The smart move would have been to quit before digging myself deeper into the mud, and getting someone to tow me out, but I was only about half a metre from the safety of hard ground and the temptation to extricate myself won over. As the self-rescue attempt continued I may have even said a little prayer to the off-roading gods, but the bakkie just sank deeper into the goo. Game over. The vehicle was stuck like a wine cork and I had to call the cavalry.

When a friend arrived in his 4x4 to provide a tow, the Raptor still wouldn’t budge. I’d done a really champion job of getting it stuck. We had to leave the Ford in its muddy jail overnight and call a tow truck in the morning for additional help. It took the two vehicles and their winches to finally extract the Ford from the clingy clay.

The Raptor wasn’t to blame for this blunder. Its 4x4 system worked as advertised and ensured that all four wheels were turning, but when there’s zero traction underfoot there’s nothing you can do. I’d still choose this boss bakkie over just about anything else for a 4x4 expedition as it has formidable terrain abilities.

But sometimes life happens while you’re making other plans, and you accidentally wander into a swamp that has your number. Goes to show that even the best 4x4 can get stuck, and you occasionally have to get by with a little help from your friends.

Sometimes it’s also good to check out what lurks hidden in the grass before driving over it.