2022 Honda Passport TrailSport: The soft-roading SUV

Speaker 1: You know, when you think about offroad, I'm betting, you don't think about the Honda passport and frankly, neither do I. So maybe that's why Honda has brought me out here to AEE Wells to test out this new trim, the trail sport, but you guys, daylight is wasting. I wanna hit this dirt. So let's see what happens, cuz I'm just as confused as you. Speaker 1: [00:00:30] The trail sport is a new trim for 2022 and it comes along with a mid cycle refresh. So every single passport is gonna have this new like uni brow thing that it's got going on the trail sport also has very unique grill with some badging. But what I really wanna show you is in the back now, along the side, eh, same old, same old, not a lot of changes here, but in the back we have a little bit of surprise. I'm talking about these giant tail pipes that are just writing checks at the performance of this thing cannot cash. I mean, it's a bold statement. [00:01:00] It's just a little bit outta perform. Speaker 1: Now. Honda has given us a few things. That's gonna make it a little bit easier to offroad. The first thing is a wider track, but you guys like it's not that much. It's 10 millimeters. And that turn translates to about 0.4 inches. So it's not like this thing is gonna be way more stable than the rest of the trims. But Honda has seen fit to throw a set [00:01:30] of 18 inch wheels on this guy with some tires wrapped around size 2 45, 60 and all together that translates to a wheel entire package of about 30 inches, which sounds great. Right. But you guys here's the kicker. These are really just all season tires. I mean, yeah, there's a little bit of trim around the outside that could kind of maybe help you if you got stuck in the sand, but essentially these are not offroad tires. Now under the hood, we've got the same old, same old, I'm talking about a 3.5 liter V six engine, which is good for 280 horsepower and 262 [00:02:00] pound feet of torque. Speaker 1: And that's made it to a nine need automatic transmission. We've got some drive modes here for snow, normal sand and mud. But by and large, I mean you guys, you're just gonna have to drive this the way you think you're gonna be able to drive this right. I mean, it's not a dedicated, offered vehicle. What you need for good offroad is you need ground clearance. You need geometry. And Frank, the passport is kind of Midling at both. I'm talking like 8.1 inches of ground clearance and [00:02:30] approach angle of about 21 degrees and a departure angle of 24 degrees. But that 21 degrees it's without the air dam and with the air dam on this thing, like, because it's really low in the front. So if you compare this to other offroad, mid-size S U I mean, you guys, this isn't gonna compare like the new Jeep grand Cherokee is gonna drive circles around this. Speaker 1: But having said that if you have careful line placement, even with these tires, I mean, you'd be surprised at how far a stock SUV can go, especially with Honda's all wheel drive [00:03:00] system that can throw 70% of the torque to the rear wheels and then split that and spend a hundred percent of that torque to whatever wheel has the most traction. Now that's really cool. But again, it's all coming down to tires because these all season tires, I mean, they don't have a ton of grip here on the sand and we're not aired down. So I have on the car in front of me, it's a little bit of wheel spin, but if you swap those out for a good set of like BFG, K two S or maybe some Toyo open countries, you're not gonna have that problem. In fact, the passport was [00:03:30] wearing K2 S on the 2019 rebel rally and it earned a third place in the crossover category. And you guys I've done that rally six times. Trust me, it is no joke. So this thing has got guts. It's capable. You just gotta give it the right equipment, But you guys here's the good news Honda has said that it's not against beefing up this passport, adding some skid plates, a lift better tires, offroad suspension. We're just gonna have to wait for a couple of years until then. Well, you just gotta wear with what [00:04:00] you got pricing on this trail. Sport trim is right around $43,000, including destination, and it will be available in dealerships. Well, pretty much now.