2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport First Test: Uncompromising Off-Road Cosplay
The more off-road-oriented Ridgeline looks buffer yet remains as smooth as butter.
Pros
- Looks truckier
- Tires lack ill effect
- Solid on-road manners
Cons
- Limited off-road upgrades
- High price
- Competitors are closing the refinement gap
Pickup snobs have long stared down their noses at Honda’s Ridgeline, which until recently was the only unibody pickup truck you could buy in America. Although the Honda’s lack of a separate frame and its fully independent suspension might not have combined for big-time towing figures or perceived “toughness” compared to traditional body-on-frame rigs, they made for an ideal everyday pickup with decent fuel economy, a smooth ride, smart handling, and a cavernous and flexible interior. Would upgrading the Ridgeline for more off-road performance chip away at its best quality—its carlike refinement?
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What Trail Stuff’s Included?
The 2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport is the first overtly off-road-focused Ridgeline in the model’s history, though its transformation is relatively mild. It includes 245/60 18-inch General Grabber A/T all-terrain tires (the same overall diameter as regular Ridgelines’ rubber), more compliant springs and anti-roll bars, and a protective steel plate beneath its oil pan. It’ll likely rely on that shield quite a bit if steered off-pavement regularly, as the TrailSport sits at the same 7.6 inches of ground clearance as lesser Ridgelines, and its nose is protected by a mere “skid garnish.” The rest of the kit is literal garnish, in the form of TrailSport badging for the tailgate, all-weather floormats and front seat backs, and some orange-colored stitching and accents inside.
Like other 2024 Ridgelines, the TrailSport benefits from a new 9.0-inch touchscreen (with standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a volume knob) and an upgrade from a centralized 4.2-inch low-resolution driver information display to a larger 7.0-inch color unit that swallows half the gauge pod and incorporates a digitized tachometer. Other improvements hit the center console, which has a friendlier wireless charging pad location and more versatile cupholders capable of hanging onto larger containers.
So It’s an Off-Road Beast Now, Right?
Wrong. Other than the extra traction afforded by those Grabber tires, the 2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport is likely to make it about as far off the beaten path as any other Ridgeline, which, to be clear, isn’t nearly as far as the most adventurous variants of its direct competitors like the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, Ford Ranger Raptor, or Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro. Without any extra ground clearance and with the same longish snoot as regular Ridgelines (remember, this truck is spawned from a front-wheel-drive-based car platform shared with the Odyssey minivan, two-row Passport SUV, and previous-generation three-row Pilot), you’ll likely get hung up on rocks or steep breakovers long before even entry-level four-wheel-drive versions of a Colorado, Ranger, or Tacoma might.
Honda also hasn’t included the more comprehensive off-road gear that the new-generation Pilot TrailSport model enjoys. That SUV has moved to a new-generation architecture, one that the next-generation Ridgeline will move to, as well; unfortunately, until then, it means better underbody protection, recovery hooks, and other goodies included on the 2024 Pilot TrailSport won’t hit the Ridgeline until the next-gen truck arrives in the next year or two. (Same goes for the existing Passport TrailSport.) In other words, if—or when—you get a Ridgeline TrailSport stuck, you’ll wish that stuff was included. We didn’t push the truck hard enough to find out for ourselves.
What is included is the 2024 Ridgeline lineup’s standard i-VTM4 all-wheel-drive system. It is decent for a setup that doesn’t have a locking center differential or low-range gearing, but it does have rear-axle torque vectoring capable of shunting all the torque sent to the rear axle (up to 70 percent of the engine’s torque) to a single rear wheel. This pays dividends on-pavement, as well, where the torque allocation to the outside rear wheel helps pivot the Ridgeline around corners, aiding its already secure, agile handling.
It’s Still the Thinking Person’s Truck
Without a significant suspension lift or more skidplates and such, the 2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport pickup truck was never going to challenge the segment’s most hardcore off-roaders. We’re happy to report, though, that none of the upgrades messes with the Ridgeline’s fundamental refinement. In fact, the softer suspension delivers an even smoother ride, and we noticed no untoward body lean or floppiness in the handling, meaning this is the best-driving Ridgeline yet—more comfortable than ever, with no impact on agility. Our test figures don’t bear this out, but they do prove the General Grabbers don’t neuter the truck’s ultimate grip—we recorded a 129-foot stop from 60 mph, identical to a 2021 Ridgeline on the standard Firestone Destination tires, and 0.77 g (average) of lateral grip, in line with the 0.80 g put up by a 2021 Ridgeline HPD model. Both performances leave the off-road variants of the Chevrolet Colorado and Toyota Tacoma in the dust.
You can’t even really hear the all-terrain tires’ more aggressive tread when tooling around town; push the Honda harder through a corner, thus rolling the tires’ blocky tread edges into the pavement, and a gentle roar builds in step with the truck’s speed and body lean.
The 3.5-liter V-6 engine is unchanged for Ridgeline TrailSport duty, which is just fine. It’s smooth, quiet, and decently powerful—280 hp and 262 lb-ft of torque—which is cleanly transmitted to the wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission. The TrailSport’s only drag on the engine are those tires, which pull the Ridgeline’s highway fuel economy figure down by 1 mpg, to 23 mpg, which also lowers the EPA combined number down by the same amount to 20 mpg. (The 18 mpg city number holds firm.) Curiously, the TrailSport is the quickest Ridgeline we’ve tested to date, laying down a 6.2-second rip to 60 mph—well ahead of the Colorado ZR2 (6.9 seconds) and Tacoma TRD Pro (7.1 seconds for both the new-generation 2024 hybrid model and the old-gen V-6 that more closely lines up against the Honda’s engine).
As ever, then, the Ridgeline shines on pavement in the real world where most trucks spend most of their time. There, Ridgeline TrailSport owners can look forward to clever Ridgeline features such as the in-bed “trunk,” which offers sealed storage akin to a sedan’s trunk; the two-way tailgate that can swing out away from the curb or lay down like a traditional tailgate; and filling the cabin with people and stuff or both, flipping and folding the seat cushions up out of the way and taking advantage of the flat floor. Without a bulky frame underneath, the Honda’s cabin boasts more vertical space than in other trucks, and even the rear seat backs sit at a slightly more natural angle against the bulkhead than your typical midsize pickup’s rear perches.
At What Cost?
You need to prioritize that versatility and comfort for the TrailSport version of the Ridgeline to pencil, however. At $46,375 to start—the only option being special paint colors—the Honda is only a few thousand bucks more than a base Ridgeline Sport ($41,145) but still runs rich for the midsize truck segment. With tri-zone automatic climate control, heated front seats and steering wheel, leather, a memory function for the 10-way power driver’s seat, a heated windshield, power-folding door mirrors, and an integrated Class III tow hitch and harness, it’s well equipped. Still, the MSRP sits uncomfortably close to that of the excellent (and 2024 MotorTrend Truck of the Year–winning) Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, which costs just $2,020 more.
A lifelong car enthusiast, I stumbled into this line of work essentially by accident after discovering a job posting for an intern position at Car and Driver while at college. My start may have been a compelling alternative to working in a University of Michigan dining hall, but a decade and a half later, here I am reviewing cars; judging our Car, Truck, and Performance Vehicle of the Year contests; and shaping MotorTrend’s daily coverage of the automotive industry.
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