Can the Comfy, Luxurious 2024 Honda Pilot Black Edition Crush the TFL Slip Test?

Today on the TFL Slip Test, Alex and I are filling in for Tommy with the new Honda Pilot Black Edition. Yeah, and we're going to see how this does off-road because it's got a pretty advanced all-wheel drive system, so naturally we have to get it on our rollers and then take it off-road and see how it does in the real world in our Onyx Off-Road Andres Pit Course. Now the purpose of the TFL Slip Test is to get different wheels stuck in these rollers so that we can test how the all-wheel drive systems on different cars deal with getting different tires stuck in a zero traction situation. So for our first test, we have both of the front wheels stuck, which means the rear wheels are going to have to engage to get us unstuck. I've gone into neutral to let the wheels settle. I'll go ahead, go into drive, no special modes quite yet until we start getting stuck. So this is all of the normal conditions that you would be driving this vehicle in from day to day. And I come off the brake, light throttle application, and no problem getting unstuck. So this vehicle has the IVTM4 all-wheel drive system. It's a system we've tested before, tends to be really capable, and it is standard on this Black Edition as well as the Trail Sport. So that's the easiest test. Let's see what happens when we go to the Diagonal Slip Test. On this Diagonal Slip Test, we have one front and one rear wheel stuck in the rollers. We'll go to neutral, let the wheels settle, into drive. What's going to have to happen here is that the car will have to send power at both the front end and the rear end to the wheel on the ground with traction. Light throttle. Ooh, also very good. So again, so far, no problem for the system, but the next test is where it gets difficult. For our second-to-last slip test, we have only the front left tire on the ground with traction, which is going to be challenging for any all-wheel drive system. This is a front-wheel biased system, so the next test is going to be even harder. But once again, back into drive. Light throttle application, spinning. So in our normal mode here, it is struggling. So why don't we try out one of our different modes. So we've got a few options here. We've got snow, trail, and sand in addition to sport, normal, economy, and tow. Let's go to trail. That's probably going to be the most aggressive programming. One way or another, still pretty impressive system. Did have to go into a more aggressive mode to get off the rollers, but once again, we'll try the same thing on the next test and see if we can still get off. All right, final test. As before, we will start out in our normal mode, let the wheels settle, into drive, and we'll see if we can get off. It's trying, but it doesn't want to do it in normal mode. In trail mode, let's see. It's struggling. Let's see if any other modes seem to strike it differently. This is the snow mode now. It's having a hard time. Let's try sand. It's tough because it starts spinning so much that it ends up shifting toward the side and eventually kind of comes off of the rollers. This is a difficult test for the system, especially being a front wheel biased system, but we haven't had to push this car off the rollers, so I'd still give it a pass. It got off on its own. All right, Casey, what do you think of this interior? Inside of this brand new Honda Pilot Black Edition, we've got some pretty nice features, pretty nice tech. Some of it does feel not quite as brand new as some of what you can get out of there. I think this center screen looks a little old school. What do you think? Yeah, especially, I mean, it's not a huge deal when you're using CarPlay. It's nice and colorful in CarPlay, but when you go into some of the Honda menus, it's just a little dull, a little boring. Yeah, it's not to say that it's not very responsive or not very functional. It works fine, but it's not the most modern looking tech that's out there. But one thing that we do like is we've got a lot of hard buttons for the climate control. So this is not a screen. We've got actual dedicated buttons, which is nice. We've got heated and ventilated seats. We've got a heated steering wheel. We've got some pretty nice materials. And that's pretty much all you really need in a family car, I would say. Yeah, I'd say so. And we drove up here together side by side. It's pretty roomy in here. I'd say it's a spacious interior. It's comfortable to sit in. Yeah, Bose audio system, which is decent. One knock against for both you and I is the angle of these headrests that kind of pushes your head a little bit further than some drivers might want it to be. But overall, not a bad place to sit. Now, Alex, this is a family hauler, so the back row is pretty important, too. What do we got going on? Yeah, it's also equally as comfortable back here, I'd say. Seats are nice. Floor is pretty flat. I've got plenty of legroom here and we've got our own set of controls in the back. Auto climate control in the second row. We have heated seats for the outboard seats and then a little bit of power, too. So we have an AC outlet to plug like a laptop in and then two USB-C ports, which is awesome because for a while, Honda was far behind in the USB-C department. Looks like they've caught up. Yeah, and it doesn't even stop there. These seats will actually recline a little bit, which is pretty sweet. You've got some shades that can go over your window. You've got that console there. And overall, in this whole car, there are 14 cup holders. Yeah, I'm a big, big fan of the cup holders. There's a lot of them and they fit big bottles, too. They're not these tiny little cup holders that are useless. These are a little small, but no shortage of space to put your drinks. And you've got this little pass through here. You can put skis through. But if you've only got four people in the car, it just makes it a little more comfortable to sit. It's sweet. Yeah, getting into the back row is pretty easy. We've got a button on the side of the seat. Press that and it goes out of your way. It makes it pretty easy, about as easy as it's going to get to get into the way back here. And we do have seat belts for three all the way in the back. So this is technically an eight seater. Yeah, that's impressive. Compared to like a Grand Highlander or something. No, it's not super spacious. So it works for kids, works in a pinch. But still, we've got two cup holders aside back here. We've got vents back here. We've got USB-C's back here. So it's not like they've completely forgotten about your third row passenger. No, and I think the third row headrests are actually more comfortable than the first row headrests. If you've got tiny legs, it would be great. Yeah. Under the hood, we have a 3.5 liter naturally aspirated V6 and a 10 speed automatic transmission, 285 horsepower. And this model does come standard with all wheel drive, as does the Trailsport. Trailsport is going to be more rugged. But really, that IVTM4 all wheel drive system on this is going to be one of the big selling points, especially if you need a system that is really capable in snow conditions. This is going to be that. All right, down to the trenches we go. Yeah, this is a real world application of the all wheel drive system on this car. So instead of being on the rollers, we can see how this car will behave in more of a trail type condition. We're going to start out in normal mode because we want to see how far we can get. But this is going to be tough for this car. So we've got these alternating poles here. So we're going to be hanging wheels in the air. It's going to be not only difficult for traction, but also for clearance. Yeah, it's going to be a pretty good test. And this car looks pretty capable from the outside. But just driving down here to the trenches, we did scrape a little bit. So I'm curious to see what's going to happen. I do have my cameras on pretty good camera systems in this car, which makes it easy to line up. Yeah. But here we go. Yeah, I really I think we're going to bottom out on some sections of this. Already, we're not even into it yet. Already struggling pretty good. Wow. I'm surprised by that, actually. Yeah. Because this again, this all the drive system generally, it's something that we've tested a number of times and it typically is pretty capable. But at least here on the trenches right now in normal mode, it's not cruising right up. And it is it's we're progressing. Yeah, we're getting through it. And I'm being pretty late on the throttle. And we'll definitely step into it harder. This is as aggressive as we're going to be with this car as far as testing, because this is not a forerunner replacement. It's not a Wrangler or Bronco competitor. This is a vehicle to get you up some maybe mild trails and fire roads to get to a camping spot. So anything beyond this, you're going to be looking at at least the trail sport version of this car, which I think would go a long way. The tires would make it. Exactly. We're spinning a lot of tires. It's not like the car is just cutting power. So if we had a little more grip. Yeah, it's it's still it's doing it. Yeah. OK, so definitely had a hard time, but that's normal mode, much less aggressive programming. So let's circle back around. Try out trail mode. See how big of a difference it makes. The things that matter. This car does well, it seats a lot of people. It's got a lot of cupholders, got good ride quality. But we want to test how capable this all wheel drive system is. And now in trail mode already seem to be having an easier time. We are bottoming out a little bit. I can hear that underneath. But look at that. Look, that's a that is definitely a difference. Yeah. Now this is the harder section of this, because this is where we start to pick up a little bit of an incline. It's doing it. It really is. Yeah, pretty good. Obviously, not a ton of articulation from this car. This is a suspension system that's very much set up to be on road oriented, as it should be. It's going to be ninety nine point nine percent of the time that this car spends driving is on pavement. But even without the articulation, good enough all wheel drive system, especially in trail mode, to get us up that pretty effectively. I didn't think that was going to do that as well as it did. And yeah, it struggled a little bit. But yeah, I'd say it makes a difference. Yeah, it makes a huge difference. And trail mode with some better tires on here, it'd be pretty good. It would get you to every trailhead, every campsite that you would realistically be taking a pilot to. So once again, should you take this car to the hardest trails in Moab? No, probably not. It's not really what it's designed to do. But I'll tell you what, if you need to get somewhere in a pinch up a pretty gnarly road, this vehicle will definitely do it. And in the snow, fantastic, especially when it's specced with a good set of snow tires. All right. So it did pretty well off road. But how much are you going to have to spend to get into one of these? This black edition is fifty six thousand dollars as tested. So it is not an inexpensive car. And if it were my money, I would go for the trail sport because we live in the mountains out here. Colorado gets some pretty rugged terrain and that trail sport is very capable. It's notably more capable off road than this. So that's what that would be where my money would go. But this black edition gets you some nice features. I think it's just a little on the pricey side. Yeah, I agree with you. I would probably go for the trail sport as well. But still, I mean, looking at this car, we have here fifty six grand for a pretty luxurious. I mean, it's not a luxury car, but it feels comfortable inside. Fifty six grand for a car like that. That's pretty capable and seats eight people. I don't think it's a horrible deal. So I like this car surprised at how it did off road. And I would say if you need a family hauler for eight, definitely take a look at this one. But that's all for this video. Let us know what you think in the comments down below, and we'll catch you in the next.