2026 Honda Passport TrailSport: Winter Driving Review

• We took the Honda Passport in our One-Year Test Fleet to the mountains for a ski trip.
• On its way there and back, the Passport had to battle through snow and icy roads.
• Can the TrailSport also double as a sort of Snowsport? That's what we found out.

The good 

The trip up was the first hurdle, not because of the torrential rains LA was facing at the time but because of how much stuff we had to load into the Passport. Two snowboards, a set of skis, another full ski bag, helmets and snow boots for three, three suitcases, three backpacks, a duffel bag, an air mattress, eight full grocery bags of food, and four cases of water is a lot of junk to pack for one trip. But with the left and middle seats of the second row folded down, the Passport was able to handle all of it with room to spare. We've given the Passport high marks for interior storage before, but I was surprised by just how much actually fits inside. 

When it's below freezing out, you really want your car to feel like something of a cocoon — a way to escape the elements. Luckily, the Passport served as exactly that. In addition to being spacious, all three of our tan leather seats were heated (front and rear). Plus, the climate system was able to heat up the cabin and defrost the windshield relatively quickly, even after a few very cold starts. 

Another huge help was the surround-view camera system. Being able to see what's directly in front of me or to my sides made a major difference in how confident I was in placing the car on snowy streets or while parking. It also helped when I had to move the car a few feet while the windshield was caked over in snow.

The Passport is spacious, comfortable and easy to use, and our complaints generally center around its poor fuel economy and lack of engine and transmission refinement. But in the snow, a few other issues reared their heads.

The not-so-good

Despite coming to us in TrailSport guise, one thing the Passport lacked was traction. On one occasion, after a long snowy night that packed up snow, the Passport wasn't able to clamber its way over just a few inches of snow. I'd normally say that's fair — snow and ice are slippery. However, a friend of mine brought their 2011 Honda Pilot to Mammoth too, and it had no problem getting out of the exact same situation. 

Why was a 15-year-old Pilot able to do that when our fancy new Passport couldn't? The short answer is that generation of Pilot was the last Honda SUV to feature a locking differential. While that doesn't explain the difference in traction outright, it absolutely helps. Why is it that, in a car that's got off-road capability in the name, Honda didn't see it fit to add a locking diff? As the automaker digs ever further into its off-road-ready TrailSport brand, this is an easy thing that adds both capability and value. 

The Passport's various drive modes didn't seem to make any appreciable difference in the way it drove. Normal and Snow felt almost identical, and while they're might be subtle differences to throttle, traction control, and ABS calibration between the two, they were negligible. Furthermore, we don't see why, in a car with so much interior room, there isn't a button to disable the traction control. Instead, it's buried in a menu in the instrument cluster. 

If Honda's really going for an off-road-ready vibe, making the traction control simpler to defeat is an easy way to improve your chances of getting out of slippery situations. Smaller cars like the Bronco Sport and even some Hyundai and Kia models (which are smaller and a lot less off-road-ready) offer both of these features. If they can do it, so can Honda. 

The last issue was with the location of the radar sensor at the front of the car. Snow attracts all kinds of muck, and that can block the sensor's ability to track the car in front. That meant on the way down the mountain we had no adaptive cruise control, even once the roads out of Mammoth finally cleared up. From behind the wheel, I wasn't too surprised and expected the sensor to be all gunked up. But when I finally stopped and went to check the sensor, to my surprise, it was basically free of dirt and debris.

I thought it was maybe a software issue, but starting the car back up without cleaning it off led to the same issue. Simply cleaning it off fixed the issue, and we know these are sensitive parts, so placement is likely the culprit. We think Honda should consider changing the position of the sensor in future models so it's less likely to get blocked by snow and dirt. 

Despite being comfortable and easy to live with, the Passport does have a few key areas where it can be improved to better in the snow. Maybe a refresh will add some of these changes because they'd make a solid SUV even better at tackling inclement weather.