Video: 2016 Midsize Pickup Challenge: Off Road

That's why we've come here to Bundy Hill Off Road Park where we've pushed these vehicles, the entire competitor of the mid-size segment, to their limits. Here's what we have to say. (upbeat rock music continues) The Chevy had the same tires as the Toyota but then it needed a lot more momentum to keep traction in the same situations. It doesn't take too long to drive the Chevy Colorado off-road. To understand this is kind of an old school, ladder frame, chassis and suspension. A lot of chatter when the road gets bad. And the 4X4 dial, when you do wanna go into low range or 4-High, you kinda have to crane your neck and reach underneath and turn the dial in a way that doesn't make it very easy to do when you're on the fly. (upbeat rock music continues) Now, what I like about the Canyon is there's not much off-road. I mean, this is just not meant to be out here. My least favorite feature about the GMC are the tires. We didn't have the Z71 packing. So we had street tires on our truck trying to go through the mud and trying to climb hills, it made it a huge pain in the butt. My favorite aspect to the GMC Canyon is the all wheel drive capability to the transfer case. No other vehicle has that. It can go two-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, four-wheel drive lock and 4-Lo. (truck engine revving) That's a great feature. What I really liked about the GMC off-road was the shorter wheel base really helps crest hills a lot easier. You're not worried about getting it hung up on anything. I was amazed at how well the Honda did on street tires and the traction that it could maintain and float over sandy surfaces. What I like about the Honda Ridgeline is that I think it surprised all of us here. The super smart all-wheel drive system was just king of the sand and gravel. What don't I like about the Honda? Where do I begin? Very good vehicle for what it does well, but when you try to go off-road, especially trying to keep up with the other segment competitors, very difficult to do that. No low range, very street tire, so no grip trying to grab your way up a hill. And also there's no ground clearance. The Nissan got things done in the old fashioned way with a good aggressive tire and old school 4X4 components. What I like most about the Nissan Frontier is that it's the most rugged vehicle here. That makes sense, it's the oldest of our competitors. What I like least about the Frontier is there's very little technology. It's an old school platform, so maybe that makes sense, but it would be nice if it did a better job of providing traction where it's needed instead of just trying to provide big wheels and tires and a big gear to fight its way through all the rough terrain. (upbeat rock music continues) What I really liked about the Nissan Frontier Off-road was the fact that the suspension is absolutely made for this kind of duty. You can barrel across some of this rougher stuff and it really handles it without a problem. And what I don't like about the Frontier is that it's a Frontier, this thing's ancient. It's not nice to drive. There aren't a lot of features that you get in some of the other trucks. Now it gets the job done off-road, but man, when you're not off road and you have to drive this thing to work, it just no, I don't want it. (upbeat rock music continues) I thought the Toyota was the best all around 4X4 today, but I like driving it best without the crawl control. The place where the Tacoma underwhelmed me the most was in its engine performance of all things. It does not have a very responsive throttle. So when you want to romp on it and start Baja racing down an open stretch of dirt road, it just wasn't there. Either the traction control system broke in and shut things down, or it just wasn't responding the way that we wanted it to, or the way even some of the other competitors in the segments did. (upbeat rock music continues) Now the Tacoma, you can bring it to a recreation off-road park like this and you know what? It's in its habitat. (upbeat rock music continues) So those are just the highlights from our judges, but you can bet they had a lot more to say about each one of our competitors. For more on our midsize pickup truck challenge, go to pickup trucks.com. (truck engine revving)