2021 Honda Ridgeline Sport AWD Off-Road and Snow Review

Honda's Ridgeline gets an all-new look and trim package for 2021. Is this the truck you've been waiting for? We tackled dirt, mud, and snow to find out. What we have here is the 2021 Honda Ridgeline. This is a mid-sized truck that Honda is targeting a younger and more action-oriented buyer. And, as if to prove a point, they didn't send us a fully loaded version. They sent us this. It's a Sport. That's the entry-level model. What you have here is an affordable and fun all-wheel drive pickup truck. This is, of course, a mid-size, which means it doesn't compete with the F-150. It more competes with the Ranger. But the buyer of this truck is going to be very unlike the buyer of the Ranger. This is for somebody who wants the functionality of the truck but doesn't really want everything that comes with a body-on-frame. They want something that's comfortable, easy to drive, easy to take care of, and basically will last forever, because it's a Honda. In terms of design for 2021, they have added the new HPV package. That adds looks that are befitting an off-road adventure mobile. We're looking at a boulder grille, plastic fender flares. These wheels and tires are also part of the HPV package. And I love the wheel. However, the tire, it has kind of an indent to make it look like it's an all-terrain tire. But when you actually look at the tread, yeah, that's an all-season. So we can't get too crazy with these, because manufacturers do not let us change tires on the press cars. But we're going to do the best we can with what we got. Price as you see it here, with all the HPV goodies, $40,860 US dollars, including destination and handling. Honda bills this as an adventure truck, and we have quite a journey planned for today. But first, let's go over all the features. The key fob allows for remote start. Under the hood is Honda's legendary 3.5 liter V6. Here it puts out 280 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque through a nine-speed automatic transmission. It powers all four wheels with Honda's own i-VTM4 torque vectoring all-wheel drive system. Thanks to variable cylinder management, the EPA rates this at up to 24 miles to the gallon on the highway, and 18 around town. A transmission cooler comes standard, which is good for towing up to 5,000 pounds of towing capacity. Taking advantage of a unibody design, this truck is really clever. Of course, that folds down, but it also swings out. And beyond that, it even has a large trunk with a drain hole so you can actually fill it up with ice and have it function as a cooler. How cool is that? A space saver spare is located on a removable tray along with some tools. And then there's the bed. What you really notice is just how flat and wide it is. It's also lined to reduce scratches, includes hooks for tie-downs, and has an integrated bed light. Total payload up to 1,583 pounds. Now let's take a look inside. The Ridgeline is only available as a crew cab, and back here you have enough room for three people. And if you want to have more room for cargo, just fold them up. It's like the magic seats in their HR-V. We also get mud mats down here, which is a nice touch. With the second row back in position, I have room enough for my knees, plenty of room for my head. It's actually a really nice place to hang out. Plus they give me a bin for my phone and a cup. Down here there's really nothing because this is the entry-level model. If you go up to like touring and stuff, you get more options including power. As it is, yeah, this is pretty nice. And I am way higher than the driver, which is funny. This seat is in the position where I would normally drive, and I am 6'1", in case anybody's curious. Here we also get a fold-down armrest with cup holders. Inside the Ridgeline, it's actually pretty nicely equipped. You get push-button start, paddle shifters, a screen. Oh, you also get armrests that can be flipped all the way back. You get a huge bin that has USB and DC power, and then you also have USB and DC power up here. You won't find anything like, you know, a charging pad. You don't even have navigation on the head unit. Even the gauge cluster is pretty simple. However, this is the entry-level model. I would say this is probably for a younger buyer. Maybe it's somebody who's looking for their first brand new truck. They have the income to support that. They want something that has the capability of a pickup, has the comfort of an SUV, and has all the basics that you really need. I mean, it has multiple textures, and they all seem high quality. You even get dual-zone climate control, which is kind of surprising at an entry-level price point. Visibility is great. The seats feel relatively comfortable. These are, of course, fabric. As you go up the food chain, you can get leather. I really like they have the mud mats down here. That's a nice touch. The steering wheel, it does feel plasticky. I would probably immediately run out and leather wrap this thing because I really like leather wrapped steering wheels. That's an easy thing to do in the aftermarket, though. And if you plug in an iPhone or Android Auto, you get integration on the main head unit. And it's a pretty nice looking screen. I mean, it's not the highest end unit, but it will do. In terms of advanced safety, you don't get blind spot warning, but you do get collision mitigation as well as adaptive cruise control and lane centering. Nice features at this price point. The rear view camera is okay. It's pretty low resolution, but it's effective. It even includes tracking lines, which is a nice touch. You control the automatic transmission with the set of buttons here, which trickled their way down from Acura. And I really like this setup, pulling for reverse, pushing for park, neutral, and drive. It just makes a lot of sense. And then if you want to go into sport mode, you hit drive again, and you go into sport. The only thing I would like to see is that the green surround on drive. I'd like it to turn red when I engage sport. That would be a nice feature. One of the main reasons to consider a Ridgeline is actually the V6 engine with IVTM4 all wheel drive. This is a derivative of the Acura super handling system, which is really good. It's an actual torque vectoring system. It doesn't just use wheel braking to shift power around. It'll actually proactively shift power and it'll put extra power on the back outside wheel. When you're going through corners to help with rotation of the vehicle, it is really a spectacular system and you can adjust it right here with normal snow, mud and sand settings. From the side view, we can slow down the film to see how it distributes power when applying full throttle on a loose surface. Here, there's lots of emphasis on the front wheels. Switching into sand and IVTM4 pushes more power to the rear wheels right out of the gate. With the drive mode back at normal, time to see how fast it can run from zero to 60 on a paved surface. I'm going to come to a complete stop. I'm not really going to change anything except the transmission I'm putting into S mode. 3, 2, 1, and go. Whoa, there we go. Yes. And 60. Looking at 7.13 seconds. That's not bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. This motor is just one of the best motors you can get. Honda puts it in everything and for good reason. It's relatively economical. It spins freely. It sounds great. Use the paddle shifters. I mean, I would not drive like this on this road with a normal truck. I just wouldn't. It wouldn't be any fun. But this thing, it's great. On the freeway, there's a lot good to be said about this Ridgeline. It's super comfortable. Even this base trim version of the Ridgeline comes with a pretty good package in terms of advanced safety technology. Honda wraps it all up in what they call Honda Sensing. What that includes is blind spot monitoring, rear camera with cross-traffic alerts. It also has adaptive cruise control with lane detection and lane centering. To enable it, I just hit main, hit set, turn on the lane detection feature. Once the lanes go white, I know that it's found them and I can show you how it works by taking my hands off the wheel. In reality, you don't really want to take your hands off the wheel. This isn't an autopilot system. It is just basic technology to be able to help improve long distance commutes. Unlike a truck with truck suspension on body-on-frame construction and all that stuff, this thing, it drives like an SUV, and that is a really positive attribute for it. And it's one reason why many people should consider this over a standard truck. It doesn't get as disrupted when you go over rough surfaces. It doesn't kind of have that bouncy, roly-poly feel that you get in a lot of trucks. It just feels smooth, confident. It's really comfortable. It's very quiet in here too. I mean, there's just so many good things to say about this. We are just outside of Ellensburg, Washington to take this on the segment of the Washington Overlanding Trail. Now, this is going to be a complicated dirt road, and it's mostly complicated because of the vehicle. It has limitations. Those limitations being only 7.6 inches of ground clearance. It also is running all-season tires. And the worst issue is it does not have any underbody protection. That's right, we are running naked. Now, I have been down this road before with a couple other vehicles, and those vehicles had more than 8 inches of ground clearance. This one does not. Further, these are all-season radials, which aren't going to have a lot of grip in off-road conditions. And even worse, the spare is a space saver. And this is the first real obstacle. This is a crosscut, which is going to take traction off of the front passenger wheel and the driver back wheel. Now, there's no settings on i-VTM4, which is both its, you know, curse and a blessing. There's no way to lock up anything. We just have to rely on the system to channel power where it's needed, all the while not grinding the underside. Let's see how this does. I just have it in normal right now. Let's see that power shift. Power shift. Oh, there we go. There we go. Yeah. Smooth as butter. No worries. Let's head on up the mountain. i-VTM4 can send up to 70% of available power to the back wheels. It then shifts power left and right as necessary to help the Ridgeline get over the obstacle. Moving along, you can see the same power transfer happen as I tackle this rut along the road. First, I dip in a front wheel and get out, checking clearance to make sure I don't break anything. Working through it, even with just two wheels effectively having grip, the Ridgeline is still able to crawl out of the gap. Clearly, the approach, departure and breakover angles are limited here, but at least the rear exhaust hangers are flexible, allowing for a little dragging when necessary. Continuing up the mountain, I eventually came to the section I was most concerned about. This right here is the roughest section of this road. I mean, not in terms of... See what I mean? Yeah, that was a rock hitting the underside. Thankfully, no damage, but I thought it was best to clear the larger boulders out of the way just to be safe. When I brought the Bronco Sport up, it knocked a few times right here, but it has underbody protection. Even if it's just aluminum panels, it's still something. This has nothing. It's a bare belly and big rocks. It is kind of hard to see exactly where my front two wheels are because there's no indications on the hood line. Yeah, I can't tell. Super slow to not drag anything. Oh man, I don't think I could do this whole trail at one mile per hour. Luckily, this rough spot is a short section, although there are other rough spots. Okay, made it out of that alive. On to fight another day. So I'm not going to stop up at the towers. Instead, we're going to continue on because we got more stuff to do. Be very careful where I take this thing because lack of ground clearance, inappropriate tires. I mean, it's a basic laundry list of things you don't want to do off-road. Rule number one, do not go off-road improperly equipped. This being an easy trail, the risk was actually pretty small in this ridgeline, and I do have a rescue crew available on standby if needed. It is a shame, though, that Honda hasn't added a bit more clearance to this great package. Also, hill descent control would be nice. It's not just a gimmick. So it's situations just like this where hill descent control would be really useful. I mean, it's doing fine, but I would like a safety net. Maybe just a little one because these rocks are very slippery. It's hard to tell just, you know, on camera. You can't look at this terrain and go, oh, that's slippery. But trust me, it's very slippery. Put my foot on the brakes. Yeah, I roll. See? Let's not get out of control here. So yes, you can take this overlanding. No, it is not the best choice. I would, any day of the week, take a Toyota Tacoma or a Frontier over this for conditions like these. We made it through the overlanding trail very carefully. However, I didn't get a chance to really stress the all-wheel drive system. I kept running into clearance issues. So here's a little hill climb that is very slippery. There's a slight trench on the right, so that will remove traction from one of the wheels, or two of the wheels, depending on exactly how much articulation we have here. And yeah, we'll run through the different programs and see how i-VTM4 responds. We're going to start with normal, put it in drive, and up we go. I want to see how much slip there is and how well it shuffles power around. And I'm also a little concerned about the breakover. Hopefully we don't drag anything. Okay, in normal mode, you can see what's going on outside. Can it get up? Yep. Shifts that power around. Hopefully we're not going to drag. No. Okay. Let's go to the most extreme, sand. This should give us the most wheel spin possible. Yeah. Hmm. I have to admit, it feels kind of the same from this seat. Now let's see how much different snow is. Snow should allow for the least amount of slip. About the same rise. Slowly approach. Now this is interesting because in snow mode, my throttle is super sluggish. I have to add so much more throttle than I did those other modes. Now on the outside, you're probably seeing less slip. It's more aggressively moving that power around without allowing the wheels to lose traction. Here are all four drive modes in slow motion, side-by-side. Which do you think is the most effective at moving the Ridgeline up the incline? To me, sand looks to be the best. But all the modes work to get it up the hill. So does it really matter which one you pick? In most cases, probably not. But we're not quite done yet. Heading back to the wet side of the mountains, a late season snowfall presents one more opportunity. I have one more test. I want to see how well this does on our rock trail. And yeah, all season radials. Heavy snow, ice with water on top. This is some of the hardest stuff to climb. I don't think that, you know, it's going to do very well because simply there's going to be no grip with these tires. They're just not going to be able to cling on to anything. As usual, I'm going to start the system in normal. IVTM4 doesn't give us a lot of options. It basically just gives us a few different modes. But beyond that, there's nothing else. Going to hit drive and up we go. So torque vectoring is really a great system. However, you need some kind of grip to be able to make forward momentum. Even the greatest system on the planet isn't going to work if there's no grip. If there's 100% no grip on all four tires, you're stuck. I don't care how good that all-wheel drive system is. Although this one seems to be doing pretty good stuff. Oh, there we go. It's still doing great though. I am a little concerned about our approach angle here. Yeah, we're scooping up a little snow in front there. Man, it just keeps on going. This is pretty incredible, actually. Wow. Now, I wish I could tell you exactly what's happening, but for some reason on the lowest trim, they don't include an all-wheel drive gauge. All I see is my MPGs. This upper section is always the most challenging when it's covered with ice. And we are starting to get stuck. So I'm going to go ahead and switch it into snow mode, which should slow down our throttle and optimize the all-wheel drive system for slippery conditions. Let's just see if we can get out like this or if I need to back up. Let's back up a little. Always need a little momentum. Through we go. Nope. Let's try again. Nope. This is tricky. This stuff is really hard. Even my 4Runner had trouble with this when I brought it up here a few days ago for the Bronco Sport review. And keep in mind, the Bronco Sport actually had three-peak rated altering tires on it, so it was ready for this kind of condition. Okay. Getting a little momentum. Getting through. Kind of hitting that snow on the underside though because of the ground clearance isn't so great. Oh man, this is so tough. I don't know if we're going to make it. See, this is why I did the overlanding adventure first, because I knew that that would not get us at least stuck. Might be challenging, but it wasn't going to like, oh, what? Are we making it? Oh, not quite. This is not normal snow. This stuff is just evil. Come on. Oh, it's really slowing down that throttle. I'm going to change the mapping to sand, which should actually push most of the power to the back, and also reduce traction control because I want to try to get some momentum to get over this bump. I think it keeps just kind of killing my momentum here. Maybe it's just the lack of grip that's killing my momentum. Let's see. Okay. Here we go. Made it. Slowly, slowly. Still have some progress. Still doing it. Still doing it. Yes. Okay. So, IVTM, just need a little momentum to get over these awful tires, but in the end, I was victorious. Now, about going back down. There is no hill descent on this, and I have to be really careful of the front fascia because it doesn't have a lot of ground clearance. So, we need to be really careful that we don't completely rip it off, especially when we're scooping up all this snow. That can get really heavy really fast. And this ice just wants to have its way with us. Due to front and rear clearance issues, the Honda Ridgeline should really stick to mild trails. This isn't a hardcore off-roader by any measure, and that is okay. In fact, it's the lack of extreme truckiness that really makes this Ridgeline something special. This is one of the best driving trucks because it's basically a Honda Pilot in terms of suspension and seating position and, heck, even the engine and automatic transmission. I think the trip we're on today really is the limit of what you want to do with this new Honda Ridgeline. It is an amazing truck around town, really flexible, great to use, really nice to drive every single day. I love the trunk in the back, I love the seating position, it's comfortable, and at around $40,000 for what you see here, it's actually a pretty good value, I think, especially the fact that it comes standard with the iVTM4 all-wheel drive system, which is still one of my favorites. If you want something like this but you don't need a truck and an SUV is okay, take a look at the Honda Passport because it is all this, minus the of course, with an extra inch of ground clearance. Ground clearance makes all the difference. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douth and thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe, leave a comment, tell us what you think. Thanks again for watching, see you again next week.