People love cars that have even just a dash of off-road credibility, and off-road packages aren’t limited to dedicated 4×4 trucks and SUVs anymore. You can get a Subaru Forester and a Nissan Rogue with a little bit of off-road kit, and the Ford Bronco Sport is an entire model that revolves around being a crossover that can handle some mild off-roading, or what some people call “soft-roading.”
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Soft-roaders are controversial because some executions of the theme come off more like soulless cash grabs than credible efforts at improved off-pavement performance, but some softies are surprisingly capable when a measure of off-road prowess is called for. Andrew Martin is going up to bat for the soft-roader in the piece Thomas wrote about the Nissan Rogue Rock Creek:
Maybe a controversial take, but I’ll happily defend “soft roader” packages.
My wife and I love driving around forest service roads / fire roads. There are loads where we live. We go foraging and mushroom hunting, dispersed camping, and just drive them for fun with our kids in tow.
We have a Forester Wilderness. I have no delusions that it’ll do what a 4Runner or Wrangler will do. But, its real competition is our minivan. It has a decent AWD system, a heck of a lot more clearance (9.2” vs. 4.5”), and WAY better approach and departure (I doubt anyone knows or cares what those are on an Odyssey). We’ve run out of clearance a few times, and turned around when the roads are really (really) bad. But that’s fine by me. It has great gas mileage for what it is, and the road manners are good enough to make it a “do everything” shuttle.
We put some Toyo Open Country AT3s on it after the stock milder tires had quite a few punctures. Next up is a tougher skid plate (we broke the clips on the stock one).
Some day, I’d consider replacing it with a hybrid 4Runner, maybe.
Back in 2021, I beat the everlasting crap out of a Subaru Forester Wilderness. Sure, it wasn’t as capable as a Jeep or my old Volkswagen Touareg, but it made the fire roads seem like a Sunday drive, which is more than enough for many people!
Speaking of off-roaders, Lewin wrote about the headache Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator owners are going through over corrosion. From Trust Doesn’t Rust:
It sounds like a lot of owners selected the David Tracy Appearance Package when buying their vehicles.
Shooting Brake was firing shots:
Does “Stellantis Product Suffers Serious Quality Issue” even count as news anymore? Seems like it’s more in the vain of “Dog bites mailman” than “‘Mailman bites dog” by now.
Finally, let’s stop at Lewin’s post about a Cybertruck crash. The driver of the Cybertruck said he was blessed because the polygonal truck did its job in protecting him. Vanillasludge comments:
Jesus took the wheel. Unfortunately he never went through driver’s ed
Mondestine responded:
Jesus took the wheel – it’s just a shame he drank some of his own wine before driving.
Chris Wright corrected:
Nah, it’s just that the Cybertruck is very different from the Honda Jesus drove but didn’t talk much about. (John 12:49, “I do not speak of my own Accord…”)
I come from a religious family and that line always made me giggle growing up. Nobody understood me when I tried to joke that the line was a clear reference to a Honda. There’s also the one about the hot rod Jesus rolls in.
Have a great evening, everyone!
I saw an Outback Wilderness on the road today and out of the corner of my eye it reminded me a little bit of the Isuzu Vehicross. It was probably just the black patch in the middle of the hood but it looked good to me.
Regarding hot rods in the Bible, I always heard that it was Moses dragging his rod across the wilderness.
And for a few more: https://www.churchpop.com/heres-your-scriptural-guide-to-motor-vehicles-in-the-bible-with-undeniable-proof/
One day I hope well have genuinely capable soft-roaders. We have all the parts, just not the will to do it just yet. All it would take:
You could take it further with things like fancy rear diffs, or agro suspension (for a crossover) but these three would be enough. If you had a 20:1 1st gear, a locked AWD system and a high torque hybrid system that could deliver a lot of low end grunt, you would have a crossover that would be no worse on the road, but actually able to challenge the body geometry as the limiting factor, and not the AWD system.
I’m a little sad seeing the torsen center + locker combo being relatively rare in vehicles in general (I looked for a 4th 4Runner last year but nothing that really appealed to me) but I get that a clutch pack is much more appealing to manufacturers
I personally believe that the crossover had an odd bathtub curve in off-road capability. Where it was a factor in early designs but going out of fashion until off-roady stuff came back into vogue.
Fun fact, if you go back to the original RAV4, the manuals came with an open, locking center diff and the lineup (along with the Highlander, RX) had a rare, optional rear torsen LSD until 2002 or 2003, whenever traction control was added.
I think a clutch pack is enough for the crossover’s use case, we’re seeing trucks and even older 4-Auto systems going for clutches now and as long as the fluid can be changed I’d say they’re an alright compromise.
I read of Sorento’s (third gen, like my previous car) experiencing binding when driven in AWD Lock on pavement. Heat is a concern though but in my use cases, the angles and transmission temp was the limiting factor in mine. (base 2.4L engine, 16:1 crawl ratio) I found the AWD and traction control just fine in situations where my approach and overall clearance was a little too dicey.
Except those AWD clutches aren’t user serviceable and eventually die, sometimes sneakily. The programming using them all the time doesn’t help but I understand it makes it surefooted in any left or u turn, rain or shine, and I do miss that, having gone to a part-time 4WD vehicle since.
Fun fact, if you go back to the original RAV4, the manuals came with an open, locking center diff and the lineup (along with the Highlander, RX) had a rare, optional rear torsen LSD until 2002 or 2003, whenever traction control was added.
I had a 96 with this combo, including the Torsen rear which was a factory option my dad ordered new. It has item 1 but not 2 and 3. Gearing was poor and power was VERY poor. It handled like a rally car, but was hopeless off-road for gearing and power.
Numbers 1 & 2 sound like the Cherokee trail hawk, it even has a rear locker.
The KL was the closest we got, but no one else ended up using the Eco trac II system.
Every car I’ve owned has ended up with dirt friendly tires. My buddies had old trucks, I had Pintos, a 62 Tbird, 62 Cadillac and several Baja bugs. My current softroader? Infiniti jx35. My son’s ridiculous CanAm 4 seater cost a fortune and requires zero skill OffRoad. Did the Rubicon and got bored. Took it to Baja..got bored. This thing is so capable there is no room for fun.Buy a car, lift it or cut it, throw some 33’s on and have a good ‘ol time
We bought our soft-roader (Subaru Crosstrek) primarily because many of the surface streets around here (Greater St Louis) aren’t much better than off-road trails in other parts of the country. Plus, the potholes and street plates have a nasty habit of sneaking up on you, unexpectedly.
Most soft-roaders will likely prove more than capable a few years down the road when they’re cheap enough on the used market that people are willing to give them a real beating. Cherokee Trailhawks may eventually end up in as many off-road shenanigans as their XJ older brothers but right now they’re relied on more for daily use.
Unless its a Subaru.
Then the engine will just lock up from oil starvation due to a head gasket leak.
So they’ll be found in the wild with trees growing through their open hoods with skeletons of their thirsty former owners nearby.
They’ll be right alongside Ford Exploders and Death Wobble Cherokees.
You seem to be describing Subarus of 15-20 years ago.
I had high hopes for the KL, but I think they are proving a little fragile for future wheelers unfortunately.
Well, my comment may not have made it, but I initiated the Cybertruck crash comments seen here so no biggie…????
When I was a wee lad, Dad would take us up to our property up near Grass Valley in our Chevy II wagon.
Yes – the only way to access it was via heavily rutted fire roads.
So he’d drive with one side of the wagon on the crown and the other side on the ground next to the path.
Only got stuck once, when the car slid sideways off the crown and became high-centered.
There were no such things as skid plates or plastic cladding back in the 1960’s.
You just drove till you couldn’t drive any more – then someone with a Blazer or a Power Wagon would come along and drag you out.
I did the same thing with a Corvair in the ’70s in the Colorado mountains.
Softroad packages are the equivalent of Ford’s Eddie Bauer trim option for the Explorer and Expedition. Is it a shameless cash grab by the manufacturer? Absolutely, but the people buying them seem to be happy to pay extra. To each their own.
I’m a partisan for the era of the sport coupe – we knew they were just tarted up economy cars and that graphics packages or fog lights didn’t do anything for performance…but we absolutely would shell out for the “rallye package” or whatever, just b/c fun.
I miss those cars too. Why buy a Honda Civic with no backseat and a roof that will eventually leak? Because the Del Sol rocked. Either you get it or you don’t.
This past weekend, I came across a guy motoring down the expressway in a good condition Del Sol. He had the roof panel off, radio on, and was, as they say, living his best life. Surrounded by Teslas, SUVs, and a Charger, he sure seemed the happiest.
My friend bought one years ago because he was looking for something different from his Delta 88 and “chicks liked them”. He seemed to find out that they liked to own them, not date the guy with one (might not have all been the car), but it was fun to drive, didn’t shake as bad as I expected (though it was noticeably better with the top on), more interior space than a Miata, and I loved the manual hard panel roof. There’s a sense of occasion to having to lift it out and put it in the trunk that’s lost on (overweight, less reliable, more expensive) power targas. Anyway, I wish there were modern cars like that—sporting and fun at normal speeds, but as reliable and cheap to run as an economy car. The upcoming Prelude sounds like it might be in the ballpark of that, but will probably be too expensive and not terribly fun, the latter of which being an industry-wide problem due to weight, size, and electronic nanny garbage.
Having taken my Odyssey down a dirt trail to a crystal mine, I can attest to the ground clearance issue off road. My undercarriage has the scars to prove it wasn’t the best idea lol.
My issue with the soft roaders is 80% of them have never seen even a gravel driveway. Why live with off road compromises, if you never go off road?
Plus no one has ever utter the words “cool Nissan Rogue”
The way I look at them is to assume that the buyer might have purchased something with more off-road capability if there weren’t soft roaders. So they’ve ended up with something that is less compromised than they might have.
My cousin bought a Timberline Exploder to drive the kids to school. This is the norm around here. Maybe people in rural areas are different. But the number of off road vehicles in the SF Bay Area is insane. It’s all posing. A parent at my sons preschool had a roof tent on their GX. They have used it twice, in their driveway.
I live in an area that’s more rural (and come from an area that’s very rural) and there’s a lot of posing here, too. And some people saying they need 4WD to get around, when they don’t drive anywhere I wouldn’t go in a FWD vehicle with normal clearance.
The soft roaders are pretty great for the people who live down a private dirt/gravel road they don’t want to maintain that well, though. That little bit of extra clearance keeps them from scraping, but they’re still pretty good on the road. Most of them could get by without it, but it isn’t a bad deal.
The compromises are minor. Most of the changes are cosmetic, maybe an offroad-ish capable but mainly highway tire. It doesn’t alter the driving character too much from the standard version.
I agree, most are cosmetic, but it feels like putting a giant rear wing on a Civic. Just playing dress up. And Subaru puts actual off road tires on their Wilderness trim. Every review says they are louder than the regular tires.
If you live in rural Maine, I get it. Here in a county of 2m people and zero dirt roads, it’s just silly.
Woohoo, COTD! That makes my day.
If one has certain musical tastes, Jesus built that hot rod. I feel Adrian would back me on this.
All he could do was ding a ding dang his dang a long ling long
Not sure how good of a driver Jesus might be in his Honda but his pops is well known for driving folks out of places in a Fury.
I’ll be here all night… nope, I’m being asked to leave immediately…