In many places of the world, the spring thaw is already well underway (or has already wrapped up), but it seems that you can still find very slippery and snowy conditions if you look hard enough. We do have a feeling that our friends from the SUV Battle channel on YouTube already knew the exact location for their latest encounter, though.
They decided to set up a late-winter battle of successful three-row SUVs to decide which of them has the greatest all-wheel-drive system. And, as always, a few disclaimers are in order. For starters, this is an eclectic group of SUVs from different model years, going back in time as far as 2008.
Additionally, they’re not on the same page in terms of powertrains, and they naturally come with different tire setups, some even wearing aftermarket studded ones. But that’s certainly not going to detract from the fun of watching nine SUVs showcase their (sometimes surprising) strengths and weaknesses as they strive to conquer a couple of treacherous obstacles.
Now let’s meet the contestants, which have been arranged in a particular manner. First up on the slippery paths are the ones with the lowest power rating, and then at the rear line up the SUVs that have the best tire equipment.
So, in order of their appearance on the obstacle courses are the 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe, 2014 Chevrolet Captiva, 2019 Kia Sorento V6, 2008 Honda Pilot, 2008 Subaru Tribeca, 2014 Toyota Highlander V6, 2019 Mitsubishi Outlander V6, 2018 Skoda Kodiaq, and a 2013 Ford Explorer.
As always, the channel has neatly arranged all the time markers so anyone can easily track of where and what’s happening with each model. That means we can go ahead and highlight some of our own impressions. First of all, we can easily say that Subaru’s Tribeca was a big disappointment both from a design perspective and a technology standpoint.
We weren’t surprised by the great performance of the Outlander, though, as much as we were by the performance exhibited by the Hyundai and Kia pair. Basically, the testers were so impressed that they even called out the Santa Fe for another run of the first obstacle course to make sure it wasn’t luck the first time. And that says a lot, so kudos to the South Korean automaker for having such great AWD expertise.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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