2024 Honda Passport TrailSport First Drive: Tougher Soft-Roader
From backwoods pretender to forest-service-road-stormer, newfound capability comes at little cost to on-road comfort.
Badges, stickers, and knobby-looking tire sidewalls don't count for much out on the trail, as we discovered back when we did some unambitious soft-roading in Honda's original Passport TrailSport. We ended up limping it home on a temporary spare tire when a jagged rock punctured an all-season tire, but it still won its three-way comparison against one true off-roader (Toyota's 4Runner) and another then-new tough-trimmed crossover, the Subaru Outback Wilderness. Despite that win and decent sales (one third of all Passports are TrailSports), the brand has done the right thing and backed the rugged looks up with some substance in the 2024 Honda Passport TrailSport—mostly all-terrain tires and suspension tuning. Do these changes compromise the Passport's on-road civility that ultimately won it that 2022 comparison?
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General Grabbers, Not Shouters
As noted, the most significant upgrade is ditching the Firestone Destination LE 2 mud-and-snow meats, which paired tough-looking sidewall detailing with all-season tire treads. The new General Grabber A/T Sport tires, in the same 245/60R18 size, have a true all-terrain tread and cost roughly the same at Tire Rack. Miraculously, while we complained about tire noise on the Firestones, we struggled to hear these Generals. Yes, they sing a bit, but unless the radio's off, nobody's talking, and the big grumbly V-6 is coasting, that soto-voce singing is nigh inaudible.
But Do They Grip?
We'd love to be able to tell you we scaled Holly Oaks ORV Park's gnarliest sand and gravel hills, but a brief loan over a peak holiday shopping week scuttled all such ambitions. The tread is a half-inch wider than the old Firestones', and the track width increases ever so slightly for a tougher stance. It's hard to imagine these tires not gripping vastly better than any all-season tire in sand and muck. We're also comfortable predicting that the taller, wider-spaced tread blocks are enough squirmier on dry pavement to lower our limit handling numbers slightly. Another bold prediction: The 95 percent of buyers who will spend 99.9 percent of their time on pavement will not detect any meaningful comfort or on-road performance penalty from the tires or the spring- and damping-rate revisions (these 18s probably ride better than the shorter-sidewall tires on other models).
Where Will We Rank the 2024 Passport?
The 2023 Passport ranked eighth in MotorTrend's Ultimate Car Rankings within its highly competitive midsize two-row SUV segment, well behind the podium-finishing Subaru Outback, Hyundai Santa Fe, and Toyota Venza. That's largely because its class-above 3.5-liter V-6 engine, which earns it a best-in-class performance score, can't offset its third-worst fuel-economy score—only the VW Atlas Cross Sport (another big ute truncated from a three-row) and the ancient Toyota 4Runner rank worse. We don't expect the 2024 revisions to alter its rank much.
How Does It Fare Against Class Off-Roaders?
Reducing the spring rates by about 15 percent front, 10 percent rear, and swapping to a solid rear anti-roll bar that's about 80-percent less stiff should improve articulation. Modifications to the damping prevent these changes from permitting too much roll or wallow on pavement. The Outback Wilderness is still the only other crossover in the class making a play for backwoods running, and this TrailSport's superior torque-vectoring traction would seem to widen the lead its 2022 forebear established. But for the budget conscious, the $41,255 Subie seriously undercuts the $45,875 TrailSport. To get a Trail Rated Jeep Grand Cherokee, you must now step up to the 4xe TrailHawk for $67,575, but we'd wager a Laredo Altitude 4WD for $46,435 will take you as far off the road as this Passport—way farther if you swap out the Jeep's all-season tires. A Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road starts at $46,195 and will run off-road rings around the Honda, while driving like the decade-plus-old truck it is.
Aging Tech
Not that the Passport is exactly cutting edge. Climbing aboard, the screen appears tiny by modern standards, there's no wireless phone mirroring, and the corded connection is via USB-A (though there is a USB-C port for charging). The revised console includes a wireless phone charging pad that securely fits a bigger phone, allowing the screen to be viewed, and there's room for a second big phone to sit next to it. Even the big V-6 powertrain seems slightly old fashioned, and the Eco button and efficiency coach (a light above the cluster that glows green or white) merely dull throttle response and indicate throttle position—like one of those Malaise Era vacuum gauges.
Bottom Line
The 2024 Honda Passport skews bigger and stronger-performing in the crowded two-row mid-size SUV class. It still brings legendary Honda reliability and resale value to the class, and in TrailSport guise, it promises to take you just that little bit farther off the beaten path than most competitors can, without making you pay for that capability when carpooling or running errands. Modernize the tech and maybe hybridize the powertrain, and Honda could put a Passport on our Ultimate Rankings podium.
I started critiquing cars at age 5 by bumming rides home from church in other parishioners’ new cars. At 16 I started running parts for an Oldsmobile dealership and got hooked on the car biz. Engineering seemed the best way to make a living in it, so with two mechanical engineering degrees I joined Chrysler to work on the Neon, LH cars, and 2nd-gen minivans. Then a friend mentioned an opening for a technical editor at another car magazine, and I did the car-biz equivalent of running off to join the circus. I loved that job too until the phone rang again with what turned out to be an even better opportunity with Motor Trend. It’s nearly impossible to imagine an even better job, but I still answer the phone…
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