Are Off-Road Trims for SUVs Worth the Extra Money?
5/27/202625 min
On this episode of Talking Cars, we discuss our recent evaluation of popular rugged SUV trims, sometimes called "soft roader" SUVs—including the Subaru Forester Wilderness, Honda Passport TrailSport, Toyota RAV4 Woodland, Ford Explorer Tremor, and more—to see whether they add real capability or mostly rugged styling. Plus, we answer a viewer's question about whether roof crossbars hurt fuel economy on SUVs like the Toyota RAV4 Prime.
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SHOW NOTES
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00:00 Intro
00:16 Soft Roaders Explained
00:47 What Makes an SUV a "Soft Roader"
01:44 Why CR Doesn't Do Formal Off-Road Ratings
03:56 Building and Driving the Off-Road Evaluation Course
04:56 Vehicles Evaluated
06:13 On-Road Compromises
10:26 Off-Road Impressions
12:44 The Big Role Tires Play
16:28 Should You Buy an Off-Road Trim?
20:06 Can You Add All-Terrain Tires Yourself?
21:14 Should CR Fully Test These Off-Road Trims?
21:58 Audience Question: Do Roof Crossbars Hurt Fuel Economy?
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlex Knizek· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome back to the Talking Cars podcast. I'm Alex Knizek.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host0:14
I'm Ryan Pszczolkowski.
Aubrey Wishigrab· Host0:15
And I'm Aubrey Wishigrab.
Alex Knizek· Host0:16
All right. So today we are talking about what we are calling soft-roaders.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host0:21
Mm.
Alex Knizek· Host0:21
[laughs] And you're gonna tell us all about what that is, but essentially this is one of the biggest trends in the automotive industry right now. And so we just had to get our hands on some of these types of vehicles- Mm ... explore them, try them out, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today. But first, Ryan, if you can tell us what the heck a soft-roader actually is- [laughs] I hate that ... and we will take it from there.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host0:40
[laughs] I really don't, I really don't like that term.
Alex Knizek· Host0:41
Well, let's change it right now.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host0:42
Um, well, the s- yeah, so a soft-roader is sort of an industry term, at least that's how we're taking it.
Aubrey Wishigrab· Host0:46
Ish.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host0:47
Ish, yeah. Um, basically it's an off-road trim or version- Yeah ... of, um, a car that already exists. So Toyota, a RAV4 Woodland- Mm-hmm ... would be, like, their soft-road version. Um- Right.
Alex Knizek· Host0:58
A normally on-road oriented SUV- Yeah ... and they kinda off-roadify it a little bit.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host1:02
Yes.
Aubrey Wishigrab· Host1:02
Yeah.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host1:03
Yeah. So they're, you know, they might raise it up a tiny bit, put, uh, more all-terrain tires on it, and, and give it some plastics or just, you know, make it look a little more rugged.
Aubrey Wishigrab· Host1:10
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Pszczolkowski· Host1:10
So they call it, yeah, they call 'em soft-road- Why would they do that? It looks cooler. [laughs] [laughs] I think- That's the main thing ... like, all these cars, all these, the, how many do we have? I mean, the, all of them look better than their regular, uh, regular road-going counterparts if you, if you- Yeah.
Alex Knizek· Host1:23
They look a little more tough, a little more interesting, especially in this segment- Mm-hmm ... of vehicles where it's just the most popular, right? You wanna maybe