Ep. 318: Only One Of These Off-Roaders Does It All!

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Think of these three off-roaders like you would eggs. We have a soft, medium and a hard. And in

this video slash podcast, we're going to take them into Andre's pit. But more importantly,

we're going to do it with Andre who's with me. Andre, so we have three pretty substantial

off-roaders that somewhat kind of compete, lined up against each other. And what are you

going to do in this video besides take them into your pit? Exactly. We have a fun selection,

dude. So let's introduce the contestants. Okay, go for it. So here all the way on this side,

we have the brand new 2026 Honda Passport Trail Sport. It's in this sunset orange color, right?

I love the color, Andre. Yeah. And we're going to call this soft. All right, so this video because

it doesn't have a low range. It doesn't have a low range. It doesn't have a locking differential,

right? It does have really off-roading tires, but the tires are not very huge, right? So this is

one of them. And how much? Let's talk about MSRP. Let's not hold it to the end. How much

is this guy? So this guy with a fully loaded package, it's about 54,000 bucks, but they start

around like 46, 47, right? And the cool thing is that we're going to find out is Honda

has figured out, like the rest of the industry, that people like not just to look of the off-roader,

but also its capability. The substance. Yes. And for a long time, let's face it, the Passport

sort of kind of looked like an off-roader, but it didn't have all the off-road cred. And we're

going to actually show you everything that Honda has added to it to make it much more off-roady.

So that's why we're calling it soft because while it does have some of the cred, it doesn't have

all of it. What's next? All right, so in the middle here, this is the medium, right? Yes.

The medium is the new Toyota Land Cruiser. This happens to be one of the more optioned ones,

right? But it's in the middle because it does have those several items we talked about. It has

the low range four by four system. It has the rear locking differential and a center locking

differential, but it doesn't have a very aggressive tire. The tire on this Land Cruiser,

it's kind of an all season-ish, right? Yeah. And we're basically reviewing these the way they

came from the factory. So this is the way you would buy it. Now, normally the Land Cruiser starts at

what, 58,000 now? Yes, 58-ish. But this one as tested is a whopping 70,000, which is still about

20,000 less than the old outgoing 200 series. Many people call this a 250. In Europe, this would

be the Prado. Yeah, exactly. And we'll go inside each one of them. We'll show you all the features,

talk about all the capability. And then here, the hard on this side is a new Ford Bronco. This

is the four door. This is also the Everglades edition or trim that they don't make anymore,

right? Yes. So this was a special edition that they built to go mudding, I guess. Yeah. But what

works for mudding also works here in the Colorado Rockies. We forgot to mention the color. What's

the color in the Land Cruiser called? So the Land Cruiser is smoky blue. It's a two-tone, gorgeous,

just combination for the Land Cruiser. And of course, the Ford Bronco here is eruption green.

So all of these have kind of fun colors, right? Now, we're calling this, of course, the hard boiled

egg or hard off-roader because it not only doesn't have 35s, it's the only one with 35s. Yes. It also

has a middle, a rear, and a front locker. It's got a winch from the factory. Yeah. It also has a

snorkel. And you know it's a hard-core off-roader when it's got a snorkel on, right? Oh, yes.

It's actually a functional snorkel. Yeah. And it's also kind of a little bit more adventurous model

because you can remove, you know, the top, basically, you know, the front panels and also the rear

panels. You can remove the doors a little bit easier than most here in the Broncos. And you can remove

the top. Yes. So it's the only convertible of the bunch. And this one we actually bought with our

own money because we always have to have an off-roader in our fleet. We paid $57,000 for this. So

it's kind of in between the Passport and the Land Cruiser as an as-tested price. So let's do this.

Before we concentrate on the first one, the soft boiled, why don't we go under the hood and show

all three of them with what's under the hood. So I'll open up the hood and you show them what's

powering the Passport, please. Well, this is really fun, dude, because they all have kind of

different takes on the powertrain. And yeah, they're quite different and they have different

efficiencies and just kind of different setups when it comes to power. So here underneath the hood

of the Honda Passport, it's a traditional powertrain. I would say 3.5-liter V6. It's naturally

aspirated. There are no turbochargers of any kind. And it's got a 10-speed automatic. And this engine

has 285 horsepower, 262 pound-feet of torque. So not a lot of torque, but nonetheless quite a lot

of power. And the government rates it 19-city, 24-highway, and 21 combined on efficiency.

And it's kind of a ubiquitous engine that Honda uses in a lot of things. You'd find this in the

Ridgeline as well. Yeah. You'd find it, I think, in the Pilot. Yes. So it's in a lot of... Several

different vehicles. Yeah. And if you hate turbos... This is the way to do it. And you hate four cylinders.

This is the way to do it. Out of the three here, this is the one. And I like this powertrain. Up here

at Altitude, you kind of want a turbo because we're losing a lot of, well, air density, which

means less horsepower, but it's smooth. It's quiet. It's a little growly compared to the other two.

It's not a bad powertrain. And you know, it's been around a lot. And it's been around a lot

in a lot of different vehicles. So from a reliability standpoint, this is certainly the one that

I would cast my vote for. I would agree 100%. All right. Well, let's see what Toyota packs

under its hood. Now, every Toyota starting in 2026 comes as only a hybrid. And this is no

exception, Andre. Yeah. This is the Land Cruiser powertrain, which is a combination of a turbo

charged four cylinder engine. Oh, look, I need a prop stick for this. And you can tell we've

already taken it off road. It's a little muddy. It's a little dirty. Well, of course we're going

to take it off road. Yes. That's what we do at TFL. You should check it out at altifl.com. Yes.

So, but this is also a hybrid. The only hybrid of these three that we're looking at.

And the hybrid, and of course the eight speed automatic, the hybrid system adds more power,

right? So it does add, it's the highest horsepower of the bunch, 326 horsepower,

465 pound feet of torque, massive amount of torque. And the government rates this at 22

high, sorry, 22 city, 25 highway and 23 combined. So it's also the most efficient, at least on paper

of the bunch. Yeah. And all three of these are all wheel drive. So you can have them in all wheel

drive or rear wheel drive, except for the passport. That one is only all wheel drive. You can't get

that in rear wheel drive. And this is full time four by four too. Yes. So the Land Cruiser is a

little bit unique in how it kind of positions itself in the Toyota lineup. All right. Let's look

under the Broncos hood. There's two engine options. And we have the smaller of the two,

which I can tell you it's plenty powerful. We had the first edition, which had the six cylinder.

And personally, I don't miss the power in this four cylinder turbo.

Yeah. So I think this is kind of a surprise, a pleasant surprise, I would say. This one's

even dirtier. Oh, this is, I mean, we really take this one off. You could tell we own it because

it's kind of a surprise, dude, because this is a 2.3 liter. So the smallest displacement

of the bunch. But still, if you use premium fuel, 300 horsepower, that's the rating,

and 325, 325 pound feet of torque. And it is a 10 speed similar to the 10 speed

that's also available in the Honda. But kind of a different orientation, right? That V6 in the

Honda is kind of positioned in a cross way. But this engine is in line. So it's basically like

a truck, right? So this engine is kind of like horizontal, you mean? Exactly. And a lot of

power in this one, very surprising. So what's the horsepower again? 300. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah.

How about fuel economy? Fuel economy, I wish you would not have asked me that. Well, we can look,

when we get inside, there's a minority in there. Well, this tells me here for this engine is 18

city 17 highway and 18 combined. So it's the thirstiest of the bunch. Yeah. And it's probably

because of the tires, because of how square it is. So probably the worst efficiency here.

And before we go off road in the passport and go inside of it, let's look at the back and see

how much room there is in all three of these. Because let's face it, if you're buying this,

you're not just buying it to go off road, but you're buying it because of the utility, right?

Yep. These are vehicles that are often used to carry stuff. And we just actually carried a small

refrigerator to the ranch and it fit nicely. Yeah. So this is the passport. I mean, it's two rows

only. So not a three row, but this also offers a huge amount of kind of a trunk space here, humongous.

You also have power here. So in the back, you do have an outlet for 150 Watts, not a lot,

but still you could charge something using this outlet here. And this is a 6040 folding seat.

Yeah. Which, you know, is okay. And then does it have a spare tire? We should always look for that,

because off roaders need spare tires. Yeah, you must. You must have spare tire. By the way,

there's a hitch down here on the Honda. The tire. Where is it? Yeah, where is it? This one doesn't

have it. There you go. Aha, but there's a solution. Yeah, our friend's at Modern Spare. Yeah, Modern

Spare. It's a really great company because about half of new vehicles actually don't come with spare

tires. And if that is a problem and if you really would like a well engineered spare,

check out ModernSpare.com. I got a feeling that it needs a spare tire, especially if you're

off-roading. You'd really want one. Exactly. And I'm wondering if, since this is kind of a larger,

slightly wider tire for Honda, if that's the reason. Because of the off-road tires. Why?

How does it tow? 5,000 pounds. But no brake controller. No brake controller. So we have

towed with this. So you can check it out at oldtfl.com. It does have a 7-pin connector,

so it's already set up, except you need to bring your own brake controller for the trailer.

All right, well let's compare that to what Toyota is offering in this Land Cruiser. And we just did

a video talking about how successful this Land Cruiser is because in the past, they used to sell

about 4,200 Series Land Cruisers per year. Now they sell about 4,250 Series Land Cruisers a month,

which is a substantial difference. So yeah, that's a success as far as in any book. This is kind of

strange. I mean also a huge amount of space, maybe a little bit more than in the passport.

But look dude, there's handles. There's 10 of them in here. There's 10. 10 has gone crazy with

handles. Oh my god. 10 grab handles in this vehicle. And cup holders for the third row that

doesn't exist. Well, it exists in Japan. Then you lose some space because of the hybrid battery,

which is right there. Yeah, so there's a little bit of a bump. There's a little tiny copy under.

Oh no. Look how cute that is. And you get your little like first aid kit. Yes. How cute. Oh,

it's so cute. You could probably put a couple chopsticks in there. Oh gosh. And then of course,

I believe this one does have a spare tire. So let's take a peek underneath and then towing rating

6,000. And a brake controller. And a brake controller. So this is actually, I mean,

it does cost more money, but it is more capable. You can kind of see there's a spare tire right

there. Wow. There's a cover here that's protecting the hitch. And there's a also wiring here and

a brake controller included. A towing condom Andre. Yes. How crazy is that? Yeah, that's weird.

All right. Now the Ford wears its tire on its sleeve like an off-road or should, right? Yes.

It's also the only one with 40s. So you've got these 35s. 35, sorry. Yeah. 40s would be something

else. Wow. Yeah. You've got these massive Goodyear territory. MT's. MT's on the back. And then,

of course, they had to put the little backup camera poking through the wheel. Very handy,

but not handy for towing. No. I mean, this one is not set up for towing in any case,

but if you did put the hitch down here, that camera will never see it. So this is not the

tower of the bunch. The other problem that's not great is the way that this opens up. It does this

weird thing where it does half the tailgate and then the other half. And then you got to close

it in the right direction. And it certainly has the least amount of space of all three of them.

Yeah. As you can tell. So we've got this interesting feature right here. I never

understood this. I never use it. But it's got this tray that pulls out. Like a little slider.

Yeah. How does this work? Like, it works like... Do you have never used it?

I know. I think it pulls out. Maybe it doesn't pull out. Yeah, it does pull out. It's definitely...

Oh, here it is. There we go. Got it. There's a handle. Yeah. That's kind of cool. I've never done

that. Okay. So I guess this is where you cook your lunch. No. No. This is where you do this.

And sit underneath a little space. Yeah, look at that. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. We've owned

it for, what, almost a year. And I've never done this, actually. There you go. Also, 40,

60 split, which is nice. Actually, that's really nice. Yeah. And of course, it's, like I said,

it's the only convertible of the bunch. Yeah. Plenty of recovery hooks back here.

This is by far, you know, a very purpose-built machine to go off of. But you do have a 12-volt

back there. And you do have a little cubby over here. I guess. A little light. Yeah. A little light.

But that fully-loaded Land Cruiser offers about 2.4 kilowatt of power. And this is just,

you know, not very much, but still something, at least, for your accessories.

Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon is on. Oh, what fun it is to drive a new Toyota today.

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with a new Camry, RAV4, Tacoma, and more. All right, let's sing it together this time.

Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon is on.

Dealer inventory may vary. Toyota Thon ends January 5th. See your participating dealer for

details. Toyota, let's go places. All right. Well, let's jump in the passport,

and let's talk about the interior space. You want to, since you're the tallest of us,

you want to jump in the back and see how you fit. Yeah, let's take a look at the Honda again.

And then we'll talk about the interior, and then we'll take it off road for all of you guys

who are waiting for us to go off road. Okay. Do you want to open that rear door?

I think Ian's got it. Here you go. Thank you. Okay, so, you know, one thing about this passport,

dude, is that it's wide enough and big enough for even some of the biggest dudes. Yeah, very nice.

Lots of headspace, lots of knee room for me, a lot of width. I don't feel like I'm too cramped

here. Look at all those controls back there. Plenty of... Is it three zone or four zone?

It's four zone. No, it's three zone. Three zone. So there's two zones up front and one in the back.

Heated seats in the back and USB-C ports. That's a 150 watt outlet here. So actually

really livable, nice space. Do these recline these seats? I think it would be back here. Hold up,

I don't think so. I think they might actually try this. Okay, that's like that and then come up,

come up. They do that recline. No, but it's plenty, plenty comfortable. Yeah. Let's get in the front,

dude. All right. Let's get in the front. This is, I think, one of my favorite interiors,

mainly because of three reasons. Number one, I love the color combination of the chocolate

with these inserts in the seats. It's well done. It's really well done. I love the fact that's

number one. I love the fact that we have real buttons for everything, including HVAC, including

volume, including real buttons on the steering wheel. At $54,000, you get both heated and cool seats.

You get a heated steering wheel right there. That's nice. And of course cruise control paddle

shifters here, nice steering wheel. And you get very comfortable seats. So I think these are very

comfortable. And look at this. Look at this giant panoramic sunroof. You just took this on a road

trip to Moab and back, right? I did. I think I drove like 600, 700 miles over a weekend. Yeah,

like $300. So how was that? It was extremely comfortable. Never felt like I was in any pain,

never had any pressure points. That's really good. It was really good. There were some things I

learned about it. First, this push button transmission to pain the butt. Yeah. So they've

been doing this for a while, right? So basically a push button here in the center console. Also,

this is where the drive modes are down here. And this is why we call it a soft rotor, because if

you show them, I think they'll pop up there. You see, you've got these different drive modes.

And I'll move the drive mode. So you got eco, snow, trail, sand, and tow. But you'll note there's no

there's no like hard rock crawl. Yeah, there's nothing like that. There's no

four wheel low range. There's also no low range buttons here. There is a hill descent control,

which is nice. And then the other thing I figured out about this, let me show you, is it's got this

phone charger, but you kind of throw it like that. It just kind of goes, you know, right on there.

And there's really not much road. Kind of wobbly. It's kind of wobbly. So sometimes you'll,

if you're not careful, you'll do that and nothing really gets charged. And I don't know about you,

but these things, like 90% of the time, they work for like five minutes and then they stop,

or they don't work. What is it with this Qi wireless charging where nobody can make it work?

Have you, have you found that to be the case? Yeah, I agree. It's really hard to get them to work.

I was listening to our friend Sam's podcast, Wheel Bearings, and they were saying that

2.0 standard is out and it has MagSafe magnet. So that should work better, at least for iPhone people.

All right. And how about the cameras? I think it's really good. I mean, it's not a humongous screen.

This is also weird, right? This little cut there. Yeah. Why is there a bubble? I don't know.

But there's plenty of visibility for me. So I think the visibility is good. Let's see what this one does.

Oh, there's some dirt. On your side. I can get rid of that. Can you wipe it?

I can wipe it. Yeah. Is that helping? It's underneath. Oh, it's really crunchy.

Can I make it worse? No, it's getting better. A little bit better.

Please don't break it. I'm not going to break this. This is a long trip. Oh, it's a lot better.

There you go. I got it. Wow. So it's just a really pleasant place to spend a lot of time.

And then in terms of driving, it drives really well. Now, this is not a sports car. We drove from

Moab to Montrose, the back way. And there's some beautiful windy roads. There's some big

S-pens. And it does wallow a little bit when you start to get into these very swift turns.

You can really feel the fact that it's taller. And the tires on this aren't exactly great

for on-road use when you get into some faster turns. But for the most part,

it's a very comfortable ride. That's nice. Well, now we need to figure out if it's comfortable.

I also figured out the camera button is on the back of the stock right there.

Oh, I didn't know this. I'm not sure I love this little tiny volume knob.

It's very small and there's no tuning knob. How do I tune my radio? Yeah, there's no,

unfortunately. So Ian, do you want to jump out? Yeah, let's drive it off-road.

All right. So we're going to take it into your pit, Andre. Yes. And we're going to descend

via logs. Okay. Correct? Yes. So being that we're calling it kind of this soft egg, soft off-roader,

you would think that this should be the most comfortable, right? You would think. We have an

air down, of course. No. And I don't want the air down because... Oh, gee, this is not comfortable.

This is not the best. No, I am getting a lot of... This is not great. Well, I'm trying to go slowly.

I'll tell you, the headrest is nice and soft because this is pretty extreme.

But still, it's not the softest. So maybe not the most. Obviously, suspension travel.

Yes. That comes down to how much articulation we have, basically.

Luckily, we're going to go up rocks. Now, the good news is they have given it full underbody

protection, or mostly full underbody protection. But here's an issue. Only about

8.3 inches of ground clearance, right? So this is not massive ground clearance. This is not going

to be scrape-free, I fear. So I'm going to go straight up here. Yeah. And you want to show me

a little like... Here, I'll show you. So you've got a little inclinometer that tells you pitch and

roll, which is nice. I'm using my camera, so I'm trying to go very, very slowly. All right.

So kind of crawling speed. And cameras are actually pretty useful. Yeah, they are.

I don't like that beeping, of course, but I'm not sure you can turn that off. Maybe there's a way

to turn it off. My parking sensor. That's always a problem with off-roaders. A little wheel slip there.

But it's doing it. You've got to admit it's doing it. Yeah. I'm expecting a big bang, but no such thing,

huh? I think I may have picked the right line. The right line. All right, nice. Hey, that's okay.

But did you see how it was a little jerky? Yeah. I'm trying to maintain a constant speed. It was

difficult. But this passport continually surprises Andre. It always surprises me. You know, you think

this is just, you know, some like grocery getter or kid mover, you know what I mean? And then

eventually you take it as something like the rocks and it just says no sweat. I can do it. Yeah. Which

is nice. But now the biggest test of traction, we have to take it into the trenches. Do you want to

try before we do that? Do you want to? Well, let's try that. I'm curious to approach in the

So we can also do that. Not great, Roman. Not great on this passport. So these are the trenches.

In other words, they're also called elephant steps. And what it does is it tests a vehicle's

off-road ability because it gets one or two wheels in the air. And then

let's see if it can actually send power to where it needs to. And this is IVTM4. That's the name of

their oval drive system. Oh, it's trying. It's trying. It figured it out. Also, I'm in trail mode,

which is good. Yes. Okay, once again, a little bit of proximity sensor. A little bit of wheel spin.

And then you kind of pull through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. All right. Well, let's tell Ian,

we'll try approaching departure because this is where it may... You want to go lavaling? Yeah,

we're going to lavaling. This is a really nice course somebody built back here. I got to thank

David for that. Yeah, thank you, David. Thank you, Roman, for naming it after me. Of course.

This is my pit. Yeah, this is your pit. It's all groomed. Well, where's Nathan's crack? It's in the

heart. It's in the heart of course. All right. Hey, Ian, tell us if we're about to hit.

So we're going to come towards the nose here.

Oh. We're beeping. We're beeping. Are we hitting? Not yet. Not yet. I think we may make it, Andre.

Full on beeping. Okay. How about my rear end?

Not yet. Be close. You're going... He's saying close. We're close in the back.

Nice. But no hitting. Look at that. No hitting. So this is actually... It's not a very long wheelbase,

right? Which actually helps. Once again, it surprises. And they just applied a little bit

of accelerator. The tires started to grab a little bit and we pulled through. Yeah. So that's very

nice. Yeah, that is very nice. So, you know, for a soft boiled egg... It's actually pretty good.

It's actually pretty good. Yeah. Honda has done a good job. I think if they gave, look, a Subaru's

got overnight and she's a ground clearance. Yeah. Come on, Honda. I know that comes up

because it has to do with fuel economy. Yeah. The higher you, the taller you make it,

the worse the fuel economy. But now that our president has gotten rid of all the fuel economy

standards, I say you put some 44s on it. Honda from the factory. Just go for it. Well, you know,

there are, they do participate in the Baja Racing, you know, with their trophy truck. Yeah. So why

not bring that technology into here? 44s and a supercharger. Yes. Honda. That's where I'm at with

it. Okay. All right. Let's hit the Land Cruiser and see how that is. I have to say, I think this

is one of the best looking ones. And my question for you, Andres, the Land Cruiser comes with

in like these little squinty lights or the round lights, which you like better.

Gosh, I think a little bit more old school, right? With the round headlamp. Yeah. I think that might

be a little bit better. All right. Jump in. All right. So let's do the same choreography, right?

So I go in the backseat first. Yeah. So keep in mind, as tested, we're at 70,000. Yes. So we're way

above as far as price. We're basically 16,000 more than the Passport.

Oh, wow. Roman, so immediately I can, sorry, I noticed that I don't have as much leg space.

Yeah. Is this where you normally sit though? You were driving this, right? Yeah. But this seat is

kind of, it's all the way back. It's all the way back. But look what you do have. Sit up, would you?

Look at this. So yeah. So I can recline. I can sit uncomfortably or I can sit comfortably

by reclining. So I would say a very similar amount of space as far as headroom, elbow room,

but my leg room is not great. So less leg room in the second row. How about if I do this?

Oh, that's better. Is that better? Yeah, that's way better. But now you're, of course. But Roman,

look, there is kind of a big hump here in the middle. And Honda, it wasn't as pronounced. I felt

a little bit more comfortable in the Honda than this. And we're also looking at three zone climate

controls. So there's climate control here. We have all kinds of power outlets here,

trying to get a good view. Yeah. So you'll see all that here. All right. Let's take a look at the

front. Yeah. Okay. You want to get it out of the sun again and we can talk about it. Roman,

here all the grab handles. Do you see this? Yeah. There's two up front here, which is crazy.

Everybody has two grab handles.

Okay. Now we have definitely jumped into the medium boiled egg here because

immediately there's a lot more going on in terms of, yeah, let me, let me turn this around so we

are not in the sun. Of course, the Land Cruiser is an iconic name that dates back a long way.

1958. Yeah, exactly. Because there's a 1958 edition. That's how I know. So we have both a heated

steering wheel, ventilated and heated seats, just like the Passport. I like the shifter a lot more.

Yeah. So this is a more traditional console shifter here. And then we have a four high

and four low and a center locker and a rear locker, which is nice. And also several drive

modes, including crawl control. We might be using that actually in the pit. Multi-drain select.

And let me see. I think to keep it fair, we'll just, this is why it gets confusing because

there's an off-road drive mode and an on-road drive mode. So it's got, these are just on-road

right now. I think that you're going to have access to. So you have to probably put it. So now,

yeah, so let's go over that. So on the road, I have eco, normal and sport. Yes. But then when I

select MTS, now it's changes into auto, dirt, sand, mud and deep snow. So it has more choices

actually. Yeah. I'd say we go to trail, which, or dirt, which was what we had the other one,

and to keep it as fair as possible. Because we do have a lot of dirt here. You also have a camera

backup camera here. Another backup of digital camera in the ribbon mirror, if you like.

And then here's my camera button here. Yes. So a lot more different camera.

But also not a humongous screen. Also horizontally kind of oriented screen here.

Pitch and roll. And then let's, how do we change the camera? That's your front. Actually, you know

what? What? I'm going to go to four low. No, no, let's keep it in the same. Are you sure? Yeah.

I think we can. Well, we need to demonstrate. We need to demonstrate that. It's up to you. If

you want to put it into four low, put it in four low. Let's use all our, most of our tools. Now,

we have a smaller side roof in this car. Yes. And we also have maybe a little bit better wireless

charging. It's not quite as wide. Might be a little bit better, but same kind of issue.

So are you in four low? Yes. All right, let's go. Actually, that was pretty easy. Yeah. I, you know,

usually in some Toyota's, it takes a while, but look at this. We kind of have a see-through front.

I saw that for the first time. Sorry. In the Land Rover, right? In the Land Rover, yeah. I think it

was the Evolk. That was the first time I saw it. Where they got rid of it. And now it's on every

vehicle. Also, a much more upright windscreen, just like the Bronco. The Passport's a little bit

more early down. You do have a Heads Up display on this guy. But I believe the Passport also has

a Heads Up display. Can I remember? Yeah. They both have it. So actually this one, so you do have

more power, more torque. You have a little bit more hardcore. And also a body on frame, right?

Where the Passport is kind of a unibody construction. Yeah, I'm not sure. This is more

trucky. Yeah. Yeah, people like more trucky, but I'm not sure that that makes such a huge difference.

Because let's face it, the Grand Cherokee has always been unibody. And it's very capable. And it's

not sure that that necessarily makes it that much better. I like opening windows when we're

off-roading. Here's another cool thing. Did you see this? Look at that. Cool box. Refrigerator.

A little refrigerator. That's not a Land Cruiser thing. I don't know what is. What do you think of

this material? Do you like it? Yeah, I think it's good. It's also chocolate slash express. So I think

it's really nice. Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's pretty attractive. This has a nice

on-road feel. We've been driving it for almost a week now. And I think on-road feel. The engine

is a tiny bit buzzy. Yeah. Right? So the engine doesn't feel super, super premium when you're

really hard on it. But otherwise, the comfort is really great. Shall we go down logs and see how

much head bob? Yeah, because we had quite a lot of bob, I would say. So this should have, well,

body on frame, more suspension, more articulation. This should be more comfortable.

I think this is where you really tell the difference. And I'm trying to go slowly,

just like we did in the Honda. It feels a lot more comfortable. Actually, yes. You know what? I

feel like in low range, I have a little bit more control. So I'm not as jerky as far as my motion

is concerned. Yeah, and my head isn't slamming against the back of the headrest. I wouldn't

call it comfortable, but it's a little bit better. It's a little bit better. Yeah, exactly. How about

the seat comfort? What do you think? Okay. I like it. Yeah. I think it's on par with Honda,

in my opinion. I know you really love the Honda seat. I'm a little bit less of a Honda seat fan.

Well, I like it because I spent, like I said, a lot of miles on it. Almost 800 and I heard miles in it

over a weekend. So I kind of got used to it. All right, now here we're going to go up rocks.

And I'm trying to pick the same line. Yeah, I'm trying to be very apples to apples. Of course,

the biggest difference between these two are the tires. These are not ultra aggressive. These are

all weather. Naturally, not all weather. They're all seasoned tires. Yeah. I think you can get more

tourney tires on your Land Cruiser if you so choose from the factory, but Toyota supplied us

with one that doesn't have them. But you know, it's doing well, even regardless of that. And

also 8.7 inches of ground clearance. So about a half an inch more than the Honda, but not a tremendous

amount of ground clearance. What is it with the Japanese and these little tiny volume knobs? You

know, I wonder if they get from the same store. You know what I did when I first got into this?

Yeah. I pressed the mode select to try to start it. Because that's kind of how it feels. Because

right there you've got the button for the engine. Yeah. Whereas that feels like it should be it.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So that's kind of one of the big differences. So that was pretty good. Also,

no scraping over rocks. It felt pretty confident. And I feel like I have more control. Now, keep in

mind, we aren't going into the back part of our off-road course, because that would probably

mean that we'd have to use a Bronco to win some of these out. So we don't want to. And we're going

to scratch things out. You know, vehicles that don't belong to us. So we don't like to break stuff.

But this is, I think, still a good test and a good demonstration of the difference between

the two vehicles. All right. Here we are going into the trenches. Elephant steps. Yeah. I also

have my proximity warning and reminding me. But a lot less. A lot less. Yeah. Hondo is, you know,

squealing like a pig. This one is a lot more comfortable here. All right. Now, you should

have more control now that you're in low range. Yeah. Oh, there's a traction control system helping

out. It's figuring it out. And I think this is where the lack of knobby tires is really going to

show. Yeah. It's going to struggle a little bit. But you know what? That traction control system

is working really well. I was talking to Toyota engineers when I recently drove the four, actually

the three different off-road Tacomas. Oh, yes. And they worked really hard to get rid of that

drumming sound in the previous generation. Yeah. Like you were like in a marching band.

No more marching band. No more marching band. All right. Let's see. Approaching departure in

Lavalaine. We'll test that. And by the way, we're doing the same route and turning radius in both

of these so far has been really good. Yeah. I don't feel like this is, you know, unwieldy. The one

thing I would definitely say that this feels, and it is a much bigger vehicle. Yes. There's a sense

of like, especially when you look out over the hood, there's a sense of you're in a pretty big

vehicle. And this is, to me, it feels actually smaller than the 200 series in a lot of ways,

but yet it's still very big. But that hood on the Honda is also quite visible from your driver's

standpoint. You also have, if you look to your left, you have a brake controller. Yes. Which is

sweet. Yes. But how much is it? It's only $6,000? Yeah. But more than the Honda. Yeah. So, yeah.

It's only more than the Ramco. A little bit. Yeah, a lot, you know, which tells nothing. All right.

I don't think we're hitting. All right. Good. Okay. Now the question is, what about the rear end?

It's great for a butt. Because we do have mud flaps. We do have mud flaps. Are we hitting mud

flaps? Oh, yeah. Oh, we're crunching the mud flaps. But they're meant to be crunched. They're meant to

be crunched. Yeah. I can hear it. Okay. I can hear the mud flap. Now accelerating a little bit up the

level lane. It feels like more control. Okay. Yeah. A little bit more. Yeah. I feel like this also

has a little bit more like square jaw off-roading cred. Yeah. It feels, you know, like it's meant

to be off-road. The Passport seems to be like they took an on-road car and made it off-roading. Whereas

with this, it feels like they went out and designed an off-roader that is from the get go. From the

find something completely different in the Bronco where, you know, they designed an off-roader that

can go on-road. And that's, I think, the biggest difference. Yes. And we'll soon determine that.

So you'll see the difference between how these three operate. I also love these little round

vents. I think that's a really sweet touch. And also the side mirrors are really tucked in and

really nice. Yeah. And they look like they'd be good for towing. Yeah. All right. Let's go sit in the

back of the Bronco, Andre. Okay. I want to show them these wheels, by the way, and tires. This is,

this is, of course, by far the most off-road bias. I love the design, dude. The design is great.

The tire itself is amazing. And you've got real rock rails. Those have side steps. These are real

rock rails. Yeah. So they're meant to scrape across boulders. And by the way, so this one is

solid rear axle and independent front. And so is the Land Cruiser. So let me get,

let me get in the back. Grab handle, Andre. Grab handle. How many does this one have?

Not as many. I'm counting one, two. One, two. One, two. Instead of 10. I feel like,

I feel like we're getting robbed. Only two. Oh, no, no. On the wind, on the dashboard.

There's wings four. So four grab handles here. All right. So, near room decent. Yeah. And I feel

like I have enough floor space here. There is also a hump. But it's not as wide, Roman. It's not as

wide. You can kind of see that already. What do you think of this? No step right there. That's kind

of cool. Yeah. And this is definitely a dual zone. There's no third zone back here. No, there's no

even vents back here. But you do have power options. Hold on. You've got a big vent right here.

Yeah. You take this off and you have infinite sky. But no vent like if you're trying to heat

yourself in the winter. Yeah. That's okay. Because it comes from the front. So I would say

it's kind of between the Land Cruiser and the Honda. So the Honda was maybe the most spacious.

This one is next. All right. Yes. Let's go. Let's go in the front. Yeah. From a pure refinement

standpoint, this is the least refined interior by far. Yeah. I mean, this is plastic. This is the

one where you wouldn't be afraid to like take a hose and hose it down and hose it down. Yeah. Once

again, big screen. Lots of auxiliary switch. Yeah, which we actually hooked up to some lights.

Yeah. We have F-150 LEDs on this puppy. So let me turn it around before we start going again.

Let me turn it around. Hopefully we don't have music blaring. I'm turning everything off here.

But look, unlike the other ones, we have both a volume and a tuning knob. Thank you for it.

How nice is that? Thank you for it for giving us a tuning knob. And then, you know,

traditional shifter. Traditional shifter. Okay. Cup holders. You know, the usual sort of things

that you would see in a very off-roading car, except for this goat mode, which is, you know,

unique to Ford. Yeah. So this is kind of all in one. So you could twist this. And then you select

whatever you want. Yeah. So let me show you. I'll twist it and then you can show them. So that's

normal. And now I'm going to go the other way. So you're going to eco, then sport, then slippery,

then mud and ruts, which will put it into four-wheel sand and rock roll. Rock roll. A nice thing

about this is it does everything for you. So let's go into mud and ruts, huh? Yeah. So then it's

automatically puts me in four high. Yep. But then I can also select either four automatic or four

low if I want it to automatically lock the rear. Yeah. I didn't have to do that. You know, but I

kind of don't like that it's trying to think for me. I love that. Actually, you want to go into

four low because we do the other ones. Yes, we did. Right. So just press the four low. I think you

might have to go into neutral. Yeah. So there we go. Four wheel shift in process. Okay. There we go.

And now we're in four low with a rear lock are still enabled. And by the way, we're missing one

button here, which is sway bar disconnects for the front, which some Broncos have, but not this one.

We're also missing wireless charging, which is good. We have the manual. The other wireless

charging rarely works. So we do have a cable, but plenty of headroom, which is also nice. No cool

box. No camera mirror. But still really purposeful. There's the steering wheel is wrapped.

And I can't wait to try this out. Let's go off road. And you could argue, look, most people,

including us, let's face it, even though we do a lot of off-roading, we spend 90% of our time on

road. So why are we buying a car for the 10% of the time? Or if you're like a regular person for

the 1% of the time. And the fact is, because it's cool, because it looks cool, because it says

something about you, right? It says that you're an active person, that you love being outdoors.

And sometimes, no, I'm going to say more times or not, that is more important than actually

how you use a vehicle. Yeah. And also I would wager. And this is hard to show, right? I would

wager that these big tires, we're going down logs now, these big tires, especially if you

air them down just a hair, they're going to be comfortable on the road as well. You know what

I'm saying? They're going to be pretty cushy. Yeah. This one seems to have a little bit more,

yeah. A little bit more toss. A little bit more toss, yeah. Then Toyota. And you think it would

have less, because it probably has the most suspension travel and the most. And the bigger

tire. And the most articulation, yeah. But yet, I think it's, it's, it's not as tossy as a passport,

but I don't think it's as comfy as a Toyota. Yeah, Toyota, I think they nailed how that

suspension works. Yeah, I agree. All right. And let's try rocks and see how it goes up the rocks.

Well, this is laughable. I mean, this Bronco has 11.7 inches of clearance, which is three more

than that Land Cruiser room. And so this, this is a, this is a work in the park. This is taking,

this is taking a machine gun to a knife fight. Yes. So I can go over these bushes probably

without breaking a sweat here, if I really wanted to. Yeah. And for those of you wondering,

this is what it looks like over the hood. Yeah, the hood is big, but we do have those markers,

those kind of little, you know, those are for us to tie down, to tie the stuff down. No, no, no,

they're not to tie stuff down and to prevent from branches from hitting. Exactly. Yeah. So there's

like a, I wouldn't say a rope or wire that would go from that, you know, from that little guy to,

to there. To the top of the A-pillar. Yeah. And then if a branch were to come at you wouldn't

slap yourself in the windscreen. But I think they are rated to like,

if you have a canoe on top of your roof. Yeah, you could. I guess you could. You could put a canoe

tied down. Oh yeah. If you wanted to. And we do have ways to put stuff on this roof. This,

one of the cool things about this Everglades trim is that it does have these roof rack.

Yeah. Actually, all three of these have a roof rack. Yeah. So you can be very adventurous.

The downside with that is they're hard to get off the vehicle. And then this one does have the

fur or felt up here. Mouth fur? Yeah. It does give you a little bit of

sound that, that name, which is nice. Okay. So now we should see Roman,

probably the most articulation when we go down, go up the trenches. This should not create any

issues whatsoever. This should just be. And I'm not even using the front locking differential

actually. No, this should just be a walk in the park. There should be no tire spin or wheel spin

here whatsoever. This thing should just not care. And I think, I think a little bit. There was

just a little bit. A tiny bit. One wheel in the air, but it's, it's fairly noticeable.

And also, yeah, I mean, I'm not even the least amount of drama. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is also

the only one that comes with a winch from the factory. Yes. Which is nice. So obviously you

could put a winch on anything, but it's nice to have it from the factory, because it's all

integrated. And also, I don't know if that Honda, I mean, there's not a lot of space in that grille

in that Honda. So I don't know if you could actually put a winch on it. Put a winch inside of

it. You have to go to the aftermarket for that. Same thing for that Land Cruiser. Yeah. All right.

And now of course we're going to try approach and departure. Once again, this should be

a walk in the park. A walk in the park for this. I'm kind of torn on this Bronco, Andre.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm a little torn. I'm kind of, I mean, we've had it for many months, like you said.

I love the styling of it. Yeah. The interior, you know, you don't feel like you're in a premium

vehicle when you're on the inside here. Obviously. No, you don't. You feel purposeful. Very

purposeful. Very utilitarian. But yet when you're on the road, it doesn't drive bad. No, no. I mean,

it's not a race car, a sports car, like you said. I mean, I didn't even ask Ian anything,

because I knew we had plenty of angle, approach and departure angle. Yeah, you would have to put

like a tree in front of it. Before it'll be a problem. Yeah. But I kind of fallen in love with

this Bronco over the last few months that we've owned it, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really glad

that we got the Everglades trim. The only thing it's missing, like I said, is the disconnectable

sway bar. Yeah. But that's not a horrible thing. And it's, you know, it's the only one from the

factory where you get the snorkel and you get the winch. Yeah. Not that you need either one of them,

but we've used the winch, recovering other vehicles, right? So we actually have used the winch,

but we haven't needed really the snorkel, but the snorkel is well integrated into this system.

All right. So, Andre, I'm going to hand you $70,000. Yes. Only $70,000? Well, that's what this is.

$70,000. Yes. So you got $70,000 now. Do you go for the Land Cruiser? Do you go for the Passport?

Or do you go for the Bronco? And I'm going to make this even harder. I'm going to say it has to be

for the lifestyle that you have right now. You can't be like, you're not, you're not guiding

off-road, you know, people. I'm not Nina Barlow. You're not Nina Barlow or her friend Eric. Yeah.

You know, this is your one vehicle to pick up your kids. You know, they have fun on the weekends.

Which one, which one, which one do you go for? Huh. My heart, I think, belongs to the Bronco.

Okay. Yeah. So, would we pay $55,000 at $57,000? $57,000 for it. Yeah. $57,000. So I would have,

you know, $13,000 left over in this budget. I just love, you know, the way it drives on-road.

It's pretty cushy. I love the adventure of it because you can remove the doors. You can remove

the top. Just, yeah, I would go for the Bronco. I'm going to go a different take. Okay. Yes.

If we had the base Land Cruiser. This one. Yes. No, not that one. The base one. Yeah. The fifth,

the 1958. Yeah. The 50, how much is that one? $58,000. Almost identical to that Bronco. If we

had that one versus the Honda. Yes. Then I would get the Honda. Okay. All right. Because I think

you get, you know, 90% of what you get there for less money. Okay. But I do love that spec on that

one. I love all the goodies, you know, and I love the fact that it's very comfortable. It's body on

frame. It's good on-road. It's good off-road. And at $70,000, I know it's a lot more, but here's the

thing about off-roading, guys. To put everything in there that Toyota has done for additional,

whatever it is, $15,000 would cost you like $30,000. So with off-roaders, it's better just to get it

all from the factory and not have to go to the aftermarket. The only thing I'd have to do on

that one is put some, you know, more terrain-worthy tires. But I would get that one at $70,000,

whereas if it was the base one, I would get this one. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So there you have it, guys. Thank you for joining

us. This has been a really fun, I think, demonstration of three vehicles that actually

people can cross-shop and do cross-shop. And where should they go, Andre, if they want to see

all of our videos? AltFL.com, because we have actually compared these two off-road on a very

difficult trail. So you could see that. We've also, well, you took this to Moab. I did. I took

my baby lions back. Yeah. So again, it surprised me. It did really well. So if you want to see all

that detail, AltFL.com, you can check it out in one place. Yep. And if you're listening to this

and you want to see this, actually just head on over to AltFL.com. And there you can actually

see the YouTube videos. And if you're listening to it, thank you for joining us. And happy New Year.

Happy New Year. And thank you for all of you who have supported us on Patreon.com

slash TFL car. Really love your, appreciate your support. And we do, when we do podcasts in the

studio, you get them first, you see them live right there. And thank you for our friends at

Onyx Offroad, who we named this course after, because without our sponsors, this would be

impossible because, well, let's face it, YouTube is no longer as profitable as it was when we

started this, what, 16 years ago, right? Exactly. That's our next podcast. The monetary

business plan behind the YouTube channel. I think Tommy would be more specialized for that.

Sure. Maybe you should have Tommy. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being on the car podcast. And

before we close this up, what special thing did you do with the truck podcast? There's

something really special in the truck podcast over at AltFL.com. Yes. So finally,

we're able to speak about this, right? Because I saw the brand new Ram TRX, right? And also,

a truck that many of us, especially Kase on our team, have been waiting for, for maybe decades,

maybe all his life. Can I end this with three words? Yes. Power wagon don't care. Yes. With diesel.

Ciao. With diesel. Yes. Check it out.

All right. Let's sing it together this time.

Ep. 318: Only One Of These Off-Roaders Does It All!

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