2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport Road Test: Outdoor adventuring to Oregon
BEND, Ore. – Outdoor adventure trim levels are all the rage throughout the SUV landscape. The 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport is one of the newest in the three-row segment, joining those by Nissan, Ford, Kia, Hyundai and GMC. Some, like the short-lived, last-generation Pilot TrailSport, are just glorified appearance packages, while others like the redesigned ’23 TrailSport actually include componentry upgrades along with rugged visual enhancements. The task before us was simple, then: Take the Pilot’s outdoor adventure trim level on an actual outdoor adventure to see if it lives up to the billing.
Google Maps would be set for the outdoor adventure mecca of Bend in Central Oregon (see the route here), or 826 miles from Autoblog’s West Coast headquarters in Agoura Hills, Calif. That should satisfy the highway performance quotient of the test, along with answering a key question: Would the TrailSport’s all-terrain tires increase noise and ruin the ride as they do in the Kia Telluride X-Pro? Into the standard 2-inch trailer hitch would go a Yakima StageTwo bike rack, which is specifically designed to carry increasingly popular electric bicycles like the Gazelle Ultimate 380+ I brought along to review while venturing further off the beaten path with my son in his Thule child seat. Onto the standard raised roof rails could be fitted the Yakima Timberline roof racks I still had from previous tests, but sadly, my plans to strap a kayak to the roof were nixed by the road to Bend’s many nearby lakes still being closed due to many feet of snow in late May. There’d be one fewer outdoor adventure, then.
Well, two actually. I had intended to get to one of those lakes by way of a rutted, rugged dirt road that seemed like the maximum sort of challenge an owner would throw at the TrailSport’s enhancements. Instead, a few dirt roads around Bend would have to suffice as easy-cheese challenges for those tires and the unique suspension that includes special stabilizer bars, spring rates and damper valve tuning, plus a 1-inch lift for a grand total of 8.3 inches (still 0.4 less than every Subaru Ascent but better than those other three-row outdoor adventurers). There are also skid plates and a full-size spare tire, though the latter chews into the underfloor cargo area such that there’s not enough room for the removable second-row middle seat available on other trim levels. I’ve already reported how much luggage space remained, but what about space for a whole load of outdoor adventure gear … and the people who’d use it?
Finally, I’d be keeping my eyes and ears open for the public response to the TrailSport’s visual enhancements, including plenty of gloss black trim, orange accents, black wheels and, most obviously, the unique-to-TrailSport Diffused Sky Blue Pearl paint job. Let’s not delay the response: People clearly dug it. It stuck out from the crowd in just the right way and received multiple unsolicited compliments from passersby. For the Patagonia-wearing set, at least, the Pilot’s new design and the TrailSport’s extra flair are winners.
Setting out onto Southern California’s consistently inconsistent and uniquely crappy highway pavement immediately revealed that Honda’s engineers did a much better job than their counterparts at Kia of tuning a suspension to accept the more rigid Continental TerrainContact all-terrain tires. While the exact same tires on the Telluride SX X-Pro I drove to Arizona two weeks prior felt like the equivalent of swapping out your running shoe soles for winter boot rubber, the Pilot’s extra firmness was really only noticeable on certain concrete surfaces. Noise is definitely elevated, perhaps more so than the Telluride, but not to an objectionable degree. Many won’t notice.
I haven’t driven another Pilot trim, but I strongly suspect that the tires do impact steering precision as well as the lane-centering steering assist system that comes standard along with adaptive cruise control. There’s a degree of on-center numbness that just doesn’t feel right, especially for a Honda – I found myself making more corrections than expected and the lane-centering system was acting in a nervous way, making even more corrections to counter the constant subtle back-and-forth drift. The lane-centering also skews too far right, which is nerve-wracking when you’re passing big rigs. While I gave the system a fair shake on the drive there, I left it mostly off on the return trip.
The adaptive cruise control system is vastly better than its dimwitted predecessor in the old Pilot, but it’s still too slow to get back on the gas once slower traffic clears ahead. This is admittedly a bigger pain in busier, multi-lane environments. On the mostly two-lane Highway 97 that splits off Interstate 5 in Weed, Calif., and heads toward Bend, it was as much a godsend on a two-lane road as ACC typically is, helping to keep my sanity while patiently waiting to pass glacial big rigs and RVs.
There were times, however, when the Pilot was the one that felt a bit glacial. True, 122 pounds of bike and rack were hanging from the trailer hitch and a cargo area full of stuff, but nothing was particularly heavy back there, and I was the only person on board (my wife, 2-year-old son and parents flew ahead). Much of Highway 97 also hovers around 5,000 feet in elevation with lots of grades, so this certainly wasn’t an easy task for the 3.5-liter V6, which produces 285 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque. Still, it should have done better, as it was clearly handicapped by the programming of its 10-speed automatic and Normal drive mode. Downshifts were just too slow to engage and upshifts were far too quick after easing off the throttle. Putting the shifter in Sport helped a bit, but that only covered the transmission. It required selecting the Sport drive mode to adjust the throttle programming, which made a big difference both when I was driving and with ACC. Trouble is, I was never driving in a way anyone would deem sporty, nor did it even dawn on me to engage a Sport mode in a Honda Pilot TrailSport – I didn’t remember it was there until the drive back. Normal mode needs to be made more adaptable to conditions.
While the transmission frustrated, the scenery wowed as the extremely wet and snowy winter has rejuvenated California’s extreme north. Lake Shasta has gone from a depressing puddle amidst a sea of red dirt to a grand alpine lake of dark teal water. Waist-high, green shrubs punctuated by purple wildflowers swamp the bases of pitch-black posts that are the remains of a vast forest that existed before last September’s Mill fire. The imposing Mount Shasta volcano, meanwhile, was still almost entirely caked in snow.
The transformation inside the 2023 Pilot isn’t quite as dramatic, but it’s nevertheless substantial as Honda sacrificed some of what worked before (the functionality) in order to change what didn’t (the snoozefest look). The minivan-like center console, complete with seat-mounted armrests, is gone, meaning you’re less likely to fit a purse inside the console bin. Storage remains exceptional, though. The four front cupholders, two in the center and one in each door, could fit two 750-ml water bottles (no Nalgenes, but a rare fit in cars nevertheless). The large rubber tray forward of them can fit a pair of phones – there’s a wireless charger and/or two USB ports at your disposal. There’s even a smaller bin above I could pop my plugged-in phone into to save that aforementioned tray for my sunglasses and a sandwich. And yes, I was plugged in despite the TrailSport including wireless charging and wireless Apple CarPlay – one just can’t keep up with the power demands of the other. Processing speeds can lag, too, especially when using Google Maps. Speaking of which, the TrailSport does not have in-car navigation. “Big deal,” you might say here in 2023, but outdoor adventure vehicles are bound to spend time outside cell service (as I did extensively), and you can’t search Google Maps for a destination without cell service.
Once in Bend and reunited with my family, the Pilot’s mission of outdoor adventurer could officially begin. Basically, this means it becomes the most important piece of gear. All six of us happily fit inside, including my 5-foot wife in the third-row’s 60 portion, while the 40 portion was folded to accommodate some combination of stroller, bike child seat and toddler balance bike. She reported that it was surprisingly spacious and airy back there, and appreciated the A/C vents. I would report that there’s loads of headroom even for 6-foot-3 me and OK legroom, though the seat is a tad flat and lower than others in the segment. She also exclusively used the middle pass-through to climb back there (remember, the TrailSport does not have the removable middle seat of other Pilots), rather than deal with the surprisingly tight space left after sliding the captain’s chairs forward.
Although the cargo area behind that third row is a smidge less than other Pilots, it still proved itself tremendously useful. I stashed two full-size Coleman camp chairs in the underfloor cavity throughout the entire journey, plus a third, smaller chair and a toddler life vest. Anything else just piled on top without issue (pictured above left). This allowed for impromptu picnics that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, not to mention allowing for easier packing and more stuff being brought along.
It should also be said that even if we had more stuff (hard to imagine), those real roof rails up top would’ve made it easy to place a roof carrier. Come to think of it, the hitch would also make it possible to plug in some sort of aftermarket storage solution, too. You’ll be able to read my review of what I actually plugged into that hitch, the Yakima Stage Two bike rack, in the coming weeks (though, spoiler alert, I’m a big fan of its tilt-down functionality that lets you easily access the liftgate without taking off the 53-pound e-bike).
While I can’t say my outdoor adventure was as adventurous as the Pilot TrailSport is intended for – the loss of the off-road lake excursion hurt – I at least discovered just how good every 2023 Honda Pilot is at being a family road tripper and confirmed that opting for the TrailSport doesn’t overtly hamper its livability or functionality. The TrailSport’s ability to more easily accept aftermarket cargo solutions was also definitely appreciated, but even if you just buy it for aesthetics – and I definitely see it happening – you likely won’t regret it.
