JASON LEWIS: Yeah, that was awesome. Hey, there. I'm Jason. And congratulations, you've just jumped on board with us for this Edmunds soft-roading trail test. This could be a lot of fun.
We've noticed a big trend in the auto industry-- a whole lot of family crossovers are getting off-road-minded trim levels. But do they really offer any extra capabilities? Or are they just poser packages?
We grabbed a couple of our recent favorites and are heading out into the rough stuff to find out right now. I'm behind the wheel of this 2023 Kia Telluride, equipped with their new off-road-ish X-pro package. And we brought along a 2023 Subaru Forester with their most dirt-capable wilderness package.
Now, before you send your fingers flying into the comments section, no, this is not a comparison test. We realize these two vehicles don't line up against each other. This Telluride is a big seven-passenger people mover, and that Forester is a classic compact SUV. We just want to see if either of these approaches to factory-added off-road upgrades have any merit once the tires hit the trail.
You may notice Edmunds' own long-term test Bronco lurking in the background. We thought to bring out what's considered a real off-roader, not only as a benchmark vehicle, but also as a potential recovery vehicle. We don't know what's going to happen here, and I'm going to send these things. We'll see.
In this video, we're going to focus primarily on the trailability of these vehicles. If you're interested in the tech, seating, cargo, MPGs, just head on over to edmunds.com, where you'll find reviews, rankings, all the writeups, and video content. There's a link in the description.
So now, as we all know, getting up to that epic mountaintop campsite, you're going to run into some interesting terrain and obstacles, and a deep sandy wash is one of them. Obviously, the Bronco blew right through the sand wash. Big tires, big power-- no surprises there. It made it look easy. And I'm jealous, it looked like a lot of fun.
It's Telluride time. I'm in manual mode, Sport, locked the center diff, and let's go. All right. Whoo! So the X-pro that I'm driving-- that package offers 8.4 inches of ground clearance, some 18-inch wheels, with some legit all-terrain tires. These things are actually hooking up pretty good.
Now, we have them down at 19 PSI. So we lowered the PSI a little bit, because we're not monsters. We want to see these things actually perform to their best. Wow, this thing is actually really doing well. I'm kind of impressed.
Having 291 horsepower actually does make quite a bit of difference here. I can actually feel this thing staying up on top of the sand and doing its thing. That was a hoot. A lot of fun. Can't believe they're paying me to do this.
Time to send the Subaru on up the wash. In X mode, I have it in snow dirt, traction control off, even in manual shift. Let's go. All right. Yee-haw! A little boxer 4 on this thing. I noticed right away, there's quite a bit less grunt under there than in the Telluride, but it's peppy. It's peppy enough.
Paddle shifters are kind of fun. The wilderness package in this thing seems to be a much more thought-out kit. It's more than just a set of all-terrain tires and a slight lift. This thing has 9.2 inches of ground clearance and functional skid plates-- Jason-approved-- front-facing camera, and what Subaru calls X-mode.
And we are in sand mode at the moment, and it's working great. Can't believe, for a CVT, these paddle shifters actually feel like I have gears. I don't actually have gears.
It's definitely more nimble than the Kia was, but it's missing a little something. It's just a little bit shuddery through here. Plenty of fun but missing that power, and the suspension in the Kia just seemed to soak this thing up a little bit more. And that could be that wheelbase as well. The Kia is a foot longer than this thing. But still a hoot.
I'm going to give the Kia this one, but just by this much. That was way more fun than I thought. One test we've done on a ton of trucks is the ziggurat of integrity. This will measure the approach angle and the articulation of these vehicles, all in one gut check of an obstacle. All right. We get it. You're awesome. Let me have at it.
On the spec sheets for both of these vehicles, they've claimed to improve the approach and departure angles. Let's send the Subaru up this, and see if we can get up on a step here. Oh, we got one. That's pretty impressive, actually.
I see my spotter saying we could do two. Yes, we have two. I'm impressed. This is way more than I anticipated. All right, I'd say this is an absolute win for the Subaru, to get two steps in our modified approach at the ziggurat here. This is an impressive bit of approach for a vehicle that looks like this.
All right, so we're in the Telluride. Let's see what we can do here. Now, it does have a forward-facing camera, which is actually pretty cool, so I'm going to utilize that and approach our obstacle.
Here, let me turn off-- I got to turn off the parking warning. I'm still getting the go-ahead. All right, so I'm getting the stop from my spotter. Let's see what we got.
OK. Well, I mean, this is no surprise, there is, literally-- oh, my gosg-- parking lot-level approach angles here. So you just have to keep that in mind. Oh, goodness. [CHUCKLES] That's not much. [CHUCKLES] That's no good at all. All right, note to self. Pretty much, grocery-store approach angle.
These are the dreaded whoops that you're bound to encounter when you're heading out into the back country. This is going to test the limits of suspension and ground clearance. Look at that thing. No problem. He's actually having fun.
Now, here's where the much-improved approach and departure angle on the Subaru is going to come into play and make this much less painful, I should say. And you could see, this is just going to be something where in a short wheelbase vehicle like this, it's going to be a little bit of work.
Oh, goodness gracious. See? Now, that's a little-- probably a little too fast. Would you want to do that to your car? Again, a little too fast. I don't think so. So I think you're going to just have to dial down your speed to make this something that you could bear for any extended period of time.
I'm looking less forward to going through the loops in the Telluride than I was in the Subie, just because we learned about how little overhang or approach angle we have. And you can see right there. I mean, we just got into this little ones, and we're already clanking the frame on the ground.
This wasn't designed for this. But this is something that you will have to deal with if you want to use these things like they're advertised. If you want to get up into those cool spots, you're going to have to encounter some terrain like this.
And the way to do it is modulate your speed. See, I just scrubbed the brake, got the speed down, let the vehicle just porpoise its way through here, whereas the Bronco just kind of floated through this with big tires, long travel suspension. Way better, but I have to say, this thing is just such a nice place to be, that yeah, this isn't as offensive as I thought. Not bad. There you go. We survived. Ready for another challenge.
Now, it's time to test the off-road drive systems and the traction-finding abilities of these rigs. I found this little section that looks a lot like a forest road that's been damaged by weather. So let's send the Subaru on up first and see what we get here.
It's working. It's working. It's working. Just keeping my foot planted on the floor, and it found its way up. Little dramatic, a lot of spin, a lot of dust. Sorry, camera guys. But it made it.
So the Subaru did what I hoped it would do up that. X-mode in dirt did its job. So mission successful. Let's try the Telluride.
OK, sending the Kia up there, give you a quick update of the settings. Traction control is off, I'm in Sport mode, and I have the transfer case in lock. And we're going to send it on up and see what we can get here.
And we didn't get very far. I think we need to carry a little bit more momentum, and we'll try that again. All right, we're going to change the settings. I'm going to go over to snow mode. We still have the center transfer case, essentially, in the lock mode.
So I'm going to disable the traction control, and that's holding the button for a few seconds. So let's send it and see what we got here. And it's not happy. So we're going to try one more time. Now, I'm in smart mode. And we're going to let the computer do its thing.
Agh. Well, we gave that one a really serious go. I was hoping that the wheelbase would actually help this thing find some traction, but it didn't. That was a little disappointing. I was hoping the Kia would actually fare a little bit better up through there.
What we have here is a much more substantial hill climb-- steeper, obviously, and still loose sand on there. But it's minus those ruts that we had on that last one, so it's going to be a real test of the vehicle's ability to put the power through the tires to the ground to make momentum and get up to the top.
All right. We're going to take the Subaru up this really steep hill first. And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm a little scared. This looks intimidating from the driver's seat of one of these vehicles. But I'm not going to go full send up this. We're going to let the vehicle do its work.
We are in snow dirt mode, traction control is off, and we're just going to let it see if it can find its way up this. And right now, it's doing its job. Come on, Subie. Oh, you are absolutely amazing, you little Subaru!
I am loving you! Look at us at the top of this hill! Yeah, that feels really good for the reasons I just stated. From the driver's seat of this vehicle to make that feels pretty rad. Love it. Good job, Subaru. So far, kind of in love with this car, if you haven't noticed.
All right. Now, we're going to try it in the Telluride, and I have it in smart mode again. Traction control disabled, I have the center lock on, and we're going to try the same exact driving technique. We're just going to let it do its work. I'm not going to try to carry a bunch of momentum and just see what it does.
Now, I have the illusion in this one. And I thought that because I have some wheelbase here, that it would do well on these climbs. But I have it floored right now, and it's doing OK. All right. Well, there you go. That was a little bit more dramatic than I anticipated, but it made it up it.
And because of the wheelbase, the length of this thing, and having a little bit taller tire, I kind of figured this would make it up that. So thumbs up, Kia Telluride. Good job. That was a gnarly hill.
So what I found after hours in both of these vehicles is that the inside of the Telluride Pro is a wonderful place to be. The materials, the look-- it's just nice. And this platform is rock solid.
Now, it's $55,000 for this vehicle, but it feels it. Nothing fazes it-- no rattles. It's just really, really good. A lot of confidence from behind the wheel in this vehicle.
Now, the Subaru that we have is about $35,000, and it kind of feels it. There's a lot of shuddering when you get onto the washboard roads. There's a little bit of things jostling around inside the cabin. Now, it's not bad. I'd say, actually, for the price point of each vehicle, they're an absolute home run. It's just really nice here.
After miles of dirt roads and pretty fun obstacles, we reached our goal to set up camp at the top of the mountain. And I can confidently say, we put these two through the wringer today, and they performed fantastic. I was blown away by the performance of both of them.
Heading into this trail run, we knew we were facing some obvious limitations. And you could just visually see at the front of the Kia, there's just not much room for any obstacles there, and we found that out right away at the ziggurat. So we knew we needed to be careful with that one, because we didn't want to come back minus any body panels.
But where the Kia more than made up for that was anytime you got a chance to put the power down and take advantage of its size of tire and horsepower. It was a very smooth and confidence-inspiring ride. The hill climb failure we had in the Telluride was mostly due to the wheelbase working against us and the lack of articulation.
We just couldn't keep the wheels on the ground enough to apply the horsepower to the ground, whereas on that big, steep hill climb, this thing was able to put the power down, grind its way all the way to the top, and felt relatively comfortable-- again, the wheelbase working back in its favor there, and I felt very happy at the top after that one.
My final thought on the Telluride is that the X-peo package might be slightly misleading in the off-road world, whereas it just seems to excel in any road conditions. We were able to do all of this dirt roads, bumpy driving, and it was luxurious, comfortable, darn right relaxing through here. Not even the Bronco can hang with this thing on these long stretches of just rocky roads.
Subaru people, I get you. I understand you so much more now. What a fun vehicle. This thing absolutely just emotes fun into the driver's seat. Now, the Subaru conquered everything we pointed it at. It did everything we wanted.
Did it do it in the most comfort? No. Does it shudder and rattle and feel like a less expensive car than the Telluride? Yeah. But that's exactly what we expected.
The wilderness package on the Subaru is obviously a much more thought-out, cohesive unit. There are multiple mechanical things like these skid plates, the transmission coolers, the drive modes. There are multiple things working together that actually create more off-road ability in that package right there.
And that's why that actually meets and exceeds the package name. Are either of these things as capable as a Bronco or Jeep? Absolutely not. But for most of us, 90% to 95% of our lives are on road, and will these things handle that extra 5%? Yeah. I'd say they both more than deliver.
That Jeep guy didn't wave at us. What does he think, our Telluride is not cool enough?
Wow. He just sent it. Like, he literally sent it.
