2026 Subaru Ascent Tested: Not Great, But There's Hope

• What's new: We brought Subaru's $42,290 three-row SUV to the track see how it fares against other three-row midsize crossovers like the Toyota Grand Highlander, Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride.
• What it matters: The Ascent is your only choice if you must have a Subaru and need three rows of seating
• Edmunds says: The aging Ascent isn't our favorite vehicle in the class, but a different (and excellent) new Subaru gives us hope for the next Ascent.

Not exactly family-friendly

While performance figures are good and all, vehicles in this class are ultimately judged by their ability to carry passengers in comfort and haul plenty of cargo. Unfortunately, the Ascent falters here, and not just compared to the segment leaders.

I have major gripes with the seats. The best, by far, is the driver's seat. It's nicely shaped and has adequate side bolstering, and there's plenty of headroom and legroom in the front row. My only issue here is that the cushion design means you feel the seat seams through your pants. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's annoying. The same is true of the front passenger seat, with the added indignity of only having simple four-way power adjustment. There's no adjustable lumbar support, and you can't raise or lower the seat.

Our Ascent Limited tester had a bench in the second row, so I cannot attest to the comfort of the seven-passenger version with captain's chairs. On our tester, though, these middle bench seats were undoubtedly the worst seats in the house. The cushioning is so stiff and uncomfortable that I can't see myself sitting back here for any length of time. The middle seat is the most punishing — it has so much lumbar support that it feels like your lower back is bowing out. With a high floor and a tapered roof, the third row isn't suitable for taller adults. Average-sized people will fit just fine, however, if there aren't taller occupants in the second row. 

There's adequate but not great spaciousness in the second and third rows, and some shorter rivals — like the Toyota Highlander and Honda Pilot — present similar headroom and legroom challenges in their back rows that we don't notice in the bigger midsize three-rows like the Palisade and Grand Highlander. None of them, however, have stiff seats that reveal pain points shortly after sitting down.

Cargo space is another lowlight. Drop both back rows, and you're working with a maximum of 72.8 cubic feet of storage. For context, the Highlander, Palisade and Pilot offer 84.3, 86.7 and 87.0 cubic feet, respectively. The behemoths of this class, the Volkswagen Atlas and Toyota Grand Highlander, offer just under 100 cubic feet of cargo capacity. The Ascent has less cargo space than a two-segments-smaller Honda CR-V. We like the Ascent's flat load floor and large hatch opening, but there's no denying it has far less cargo space than others in its class.

A glimmer of hope

There are a lot of other things that irk me about the Ascent, from its thirsty engine to the plastic-heavy cabin and inconsistent logic of its advanced driving aids. Check out our Edmunds Expert Rating of the Ascent to take a deeper dive. With this generation dating back to 2019, the Ascent is too far along for Subaru to make substantive improvements. But another vehicle in Subaru's lineup gives me hope for the Ascent's future. 

The one-size-smaller Subaru Outback was redesigned this year, and its improvements over the previous model are impossible to overstate. We've spent a lot of time with it as part of our One-Year Road Test fleet; it's better in every conceivable way, with significant upgrades to its tech interface and driver aids leading the charge. The new Outback is currently our top-rated midsize SUVs with two rows; the last-gen model was near the bottom. It's a hybrid powertrain away from being one of the best vehicles on the market.

The Outback's graduation to the A-list is what gets me excited about the possibilities for a second-gen Ascent. Subaru has shown it's capable of producing a class-leading vehicle — now the trick is to take what makes the Outback great and apply it to a larger SUV without losing the magic in the process.