2026 Honda CR-V TrailSport vs. Subaru Forester Wilderness vs. Toyota RAV4 Woodland Compact SUV Comparison Test: Bite-Size Bushwackers

What are we doing here? Are off-road-capable compact SUVs really a thing? If they are, how come there’s no Land Rover Freelander/LR2 nowadays? How did Jeep get along without its compact Cherokee for two years, only to then (like Land Rover) introduce a slightly larger-than-compact replacement (with no Trail Rated version) at launch? Nevertheless, the Subaru Forester Wilderness edition blazed this trail for 2022, with the Toyota RAV4 Woodland following a year later, and Honda chiming in this year, adding a Trailsport version of its Honda CR-V. It turns out that picking a winner among them will depend entirely on your willingness to buy into their raison d'être.

Bushwhacking Bona Fides

These things often start out as little more than cosplay trim upgrades, which was largely the case with the 2023 RAV4 Woodland and is absolutely the case for the newly minted 2026 Honda CR-V TrailSport. But the 2022 Forester Wilderness got a half-inch suspension lift, shorter axle ratios to boost torque delivery, and enhanced X-Mode programming. For the 2025 and now 2026 Forester Wilderness (the Forester was newly updated for the 2025 model year), ground clearance increases another tenth to 9.3 inches (besting these rivals by 0.8–1.1 inches) with reshaped bumpers that further widen its lead in approach/departure angles. New Snow/Dirt and Deep Snow/Mud modes join the X-Mode roster; it gets wider and more capable all-terrain tires, and engine-cooling upgrades enable a quarter-ton towing capacity increase to 3,500 pounds. A 360-degree camera can be summoned by a hard button, and this Subaru is the only contestant here that provides a standard, full-size spare. It bears noting that a Wilderness trim has yet to be confirmed for the new, first-ever Forester Hybrid. That makes Subaru the odd crossover out in this contest.

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The original RAV4 Woodland got Falken Wildpeak tires, a softer TRD tune on the suspension, a Trail mode for the throttle and traction control systems, and abundant “trail-readiness” signaling. For 2026, its suspension is hiked up 0.4 inch and retuned, tires are widened, drive-mode software is also retuned, plus there’s hill-descent control and a 360-degree camera, each with its own hard button. Toyota matches Subaru’s towing capacity while including a standard hitch (Subie charges $355). It also provides a standard spare tire, but it’s a space-saving donut. Toyota offers a 110-volt outlet for camp lighting/entertainment or air-mattress inflation.

The Honda CR-V TrailSport’s freshman effort looks a lot like that of the previous Toyota: stickers and graphics plus terrain-curious tires (Continental CrossContact ATRs), a slightly more aggressive engagement algorithm for the mechanical AWD system, plus hill-descent control. Honda’s hybrid battery consumes the entire spare-tire well, so, good luck with the “fix-a-flat.” If it follows the Passport and Pilot TrailSport playbooks, a sophomore refresh could bring skidplates and recovery hooks, a suspension lift, forward-looking cameras, and better off-road programming. And strike this one from your shopping list right now if your towing needs exceed 1,000 pounds.

How They Rank as Compact Crossovers

Among mainstream hybrid compact SUVs, at present our MotorTrend Ultimate Car Rankings place the 2026 Toyota RAV4 (second) ahead of the Honda CR-V (third) and Subaru Forester Hybrid (sixth). Among gas-only models, the Subaru ranks fourth ahead of the CR-V (fifth—and all RAV4s are now hybrid).

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Space: Guest judge Jared Gall, at a lofty 6-foot-7, confirms the Subaru to be most accommodating of tall folks, providing the airiest greenhouse and biggest sunroof. The more steeply raked windshields of the other two had him limboing into the Honda and wearing the RAV4’s header “like the brim of a hat.” Honda’s rear seat wins on legroom and child-seat friendliness with doors that open 90 degrees and the most accessible LATCH attachments. The Subie’s the runt of the litter for carrying stuff, however, swallowing 8.8–10.3 cubic feet less stuff with the seats up. At least it comes with standard luggage rack rails, but you’ll pay $610 for the factory-supplied Thule crossbars. (Honda offers neither standard, while Toyota provides both.)

Interior Design: Class pioneer Subaru commits with “Wilderness branding that swarms the interior like mayflies,” according to Gall, who found its gold stitching and accents to richen the look without being showy. Toyota’s interior looks the most modern in terms of screens and form language, though the fit where the door panels meet the dash was sloppy, and the gray and black trim comes off as dour. We found the Honda’s design to be mostly cohesive, but it needs more contrast to break up the monotonous black (there’s almost no color on the screens unless CarPlay or Android Auto is active). We also question the choice of cloth seats in a car selling itself on adventure (more easily wiped faux leather is standard for the other two). Only Toyota offers a choice of interior “colors”: black or gray.

Electronics: Subaru surprised us by having quelled much of the beeping that’s afflicted earlier EyeSight systems. Its vertical screen is starting to look old-fashioned, and its responsiveness lags that of newer systems, but it’s reasonably user friendly and there’s no driver monitoring system constantly hectoring you to lock your gaze dead ahead. We like its strong lane centering but loathe having to wiggle the steering wheel every mile or two to prove we’re holding it. The cruise control offers eco, comfort, and dynamic acceleration settings.

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The CR-V has nice high-res screens but offers little that’s cool to watch on them—no fuel economy history graphs, eco-coaches—nuthin’. It seems like a retrograde move from the last-gen infotainment system in many ways. Our phones couldn’t detect its Bluetooth signal, forcing a corded phone connection.

Toyota’s adaptive cruise control provides smooth automated lane changes, and its steering wheel uses capacitive touch sensors to detect hands on the wheel. Its driver monitor is overly officious but can be switched off. One Toyota safety advance that automatically switches back on at every restart is Safe Exit Warning. This system beeps and vocally alerts you any time you’re stopped, in gear (like waiting to make a left or right turn), with traffic approaching from the rear. Asinine. What epidemic of passengers leaping out into traffic is this meant to reverse? Please, Toyota, issue an over-the-air update to allow permanent cancelation of that annoyance.

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Driving on Snowy Dirt Roads

Cycling through Subaru’s X-Mode driving modes revealed the Deep Snow/Mud option to offer a bit more wheelspin—useful for flinging mud and snow out of the tire lugs and to point the car. But if hooning is the prime objective, S# (sport sharp) mode with traction control off allows the gnarliest slip angles. Curiously, Subaru doesn’t allow changing X-Modes while in motion, so we kept having to stop to switch modes. At the end of the day, testing director Eric Tingwall spoke for us all when he said, “There’s little question in my mind that if I was doing something sketchy in a place with nobody to pull me out, this is the vehicle I would want to be in.”

Toyota’s drive modes are more easily accessible via dedicated buttons, and they can be changed at will. The RAV4 is alone in providing electric AWD (the other systems are fully mechanical). In most modes, the rear motor doesn’t engage until a front wheel slips, but in Trail mode, it proactively sends power aft whenever you accelerate. We managed to light up the inside front and rear tires when turning left on the pavement in this mode. That’s Toyota’s hooniest mode option.

Honda’s most adventurous mode is Snow, which mainly just seems to relax the throttle and perhaps change the antilock brake and stability control programming. This is clearly the least hoontastic offering here.

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Driving on Dry, Twisty Roads

Subaru: Maybe it’s the taller ground clearance or 17- versus 18-inch tires for the others, but the Forester was everybody’s least favorite vehicle to fling around a hilly, twisty road. It’s far and away the slowest, lumbering to 60 mph two seconds slower than the others in an old-timey-sounding 9.4 seconds. Stopping from that speed took the longest, too: 118 feet, or 6–8 feet longer than the others. Persistent snow on our Michigan test track prevented us from obtaining lateral g or figure-eight data, but after looping the cars, Tingwall said, “The steering in the Forester is quite bad—very light, and the effort is flat. That makes the car feel a bit cheap dynamically.” Of the three, this one also felt underdamped and springy in undulating, bumpy turns. Insufficient roll control compounded by seats offering less lateral support sealed the Forester’s last-place ranking for on-road ride and handling.

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Toyota: Our prototype test car sounded like its upper right front strut bearing was shot (it later was found to be defective), so some impressions were colored by that. Our judges thought the RAV4’s suspension was the busiest and noisiest of the bunch, but the pay-off is impressive lateral body roll control. With the most torque on tap (probably—Toyota doesn’t provide a combined total), this was the only steering wheel to go light at full throttle, and some commented on its lack of precision and vague feeling when negotiating a series of esses. At 7.3 seconds to 60 mph and 110 feet to stop from that speed, the RAV4 was our performance champ. It’s quicker out of corners than its heaviest-in-test (by 8 pounds) weight would suggest, and its continuously variable transmission never pretends to be making gear shifts like the others do.

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Honda: This chassis, though the oldest by a year or three, feels the most sophisticated and the best buttoned down (ceding only roll control to Toyota). Its damping and the way the body largely conforms to undulating surfaces belies its mainstream compact pricing. Steering effort and precision were the best-in-test. Ditto ride quality, which imparts a sense of heft and substance somewhat lacking in the equally weighty RAV4. Performance is nearly indistinguishable from the Toyota’s, but we all wished the fake transmission shift engine programming offered an “off” button.

This is a hybrid with an engine that spins a generator (occasionally connecting directly to the wheels). Making it rev through gears is just theater. Swinging the “power gauge” needle like a tachometer doubles down on the charade. Tingwall noted this serves to exacerbate an unpleasantly noisy engine that “sounds like a 20-year-old Honda Civic with a cheap exhaust on it.” But as Gall rightly points out, “Hell, this entire niche of vehicles is pretending to be something they’re not. I’m not drawing the line for excess BS at the Honda’s transmission.”

Value and Efficiency

The Honda CR-V represents a compelling value, delivering the motors and battery pack required for a hybrid at a base price that’s just $415 more than Subaru charges for a bunch of analog off-road-enhancing hardware, and at an as tested price that undercuts both competitors by $1,330–$1,495. Then again, the Toyota’s $1,100 base-price premium over the Honda can be recovered in about 34,000 miles’ worth of fuel cost savings at current gas pricing, given the Toyota’s 11 percent better combined fuel economy rating and the Honda’s thirst for (30 percent pricier) premium fuel. Note that Honda’s spec panel 91 octane is “recommended,” though the owners’ manual states that 87 is okay. Deciding to wait for a Forester Hybrid Wilderness (that is, if there even is one) isn’t likely to alter this math, as it would likely cost more and be thirstier than the other hybrids.

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Picking a Winner

If you’re all-in on the wilderness-exploration conceit and hellbent on doing it in a compact crossover, get the Subaru. You can even spec out your rooftop tent, awning, and hitch-mounted bike rack from the factory accessory catalog, rolling their cost into your monthly payment. If you’re primarily looking to project an outdoorsy image while riding around in a superbly built, confident-handling, comfortable rig that’ll hold its value better than nearly any rival—grab the CR-V (and maybe a set of Katzkin seat covers to liven up its drab interior).

But the best overall bet in this kinda kooky subsegment is the Toyota RAV4 Woodland. Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive has proven itself to be the most efficient option in the wider compact hybrid crossover class. It’s the performance leader at a modest price premium that’s realistically recoverable in fuel-savings, and, as Tingwall noted, “It's a sensible interpretation of what these soft-roaders should do, cater to the lifestyle side of things: hauling outdoor toys, camping, etc., with a dash of off-road capability thrown on top.”

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3rd Place: 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness

Pros:

-Greatest off-road credibility
-Roomy cabin
-Panoramic outward visibility

Cons:

-Pricey for a non-hybrid
-Slow and thirsty
-Unrefined suspension

Verdict: Perhaps as close as you can come to a Rubicon runner in the compact crossover class.

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2nd Place: 2026 Honda CR-V

Pros:

-Honda refinement, resale value
-Electric-smooth power
-Cohesive interior design

Cons:

-Shifting charade
-No legit off-roading upgrades
-Blah-black interior ambiance

Verdict: The CR-V needs Honda’s second-gen TrailSport upgrades before its off-road pretensions can be taken seriously.

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1st Place: 2026 Toyota RAV4 Woodland

Pros:

-Strong performance and economy
-Good buttons and modes
-Sells lifestyle convincingly

Cons:

-Harsh and noisy ride
-Annoying Safe Exit feature
-Spotty interior build quality

Verdict: Well equipped for adventures to the trailhead; best equipped for daily commuting between adventures.