Snow Battle! Subaru Forester Wilderness vs. Toyota RAV4 TRD Off-Road

[Music] today we have a competition between two of the most popular off-road ready crossovers you can buy on this side we have the Subaru Forester Wilderness and on this side we have the Toyota RAV4 TRD off-road which one can make it up our winter test Hill we're going to find out right now on driving sports TV [Music] foreign [Music] the Subaru Forester and Toyota RAV4 have been perennial favorites for buyers that are looking to answer the call of the wild with the new Wilderness and TRD off-road trims the manufacturers have certainly kicked things up a notch today we're going to put each of these to the test to see which one can climb all the way to the top of our test Hill and I'm going to start with the Subaru this is a 2022 Subaru Forester Wilderness like other Wilderness trims this Forester has been enhanced with 9.2 inches of ground clearance all-terrain tires off-road tuned suspension a trail camera additional recovery points and a factory skid plate approach departure and breakover are all improved over the standard Forester but the standard one is actually quite good too the Subaru is powered by a 2.5 liter boxer 4-cylinder engine producing up to 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque it's connected to a CVT with a wider ratio and revised final drive an extra transmission cooler is also included symmetrical all-wheel drive is standard and here it's enhanced with Subaru's dual x-mode off-road programs prices you see it here with no extra options 33 945 US Dollars including destination [Music] so you're probably wondering why we chose to do the Subaru first and the reasons is really just a matter of clearances now in a previous video where we put these two vehicles against each other at the tahuya off-road park we had clearance issues with the Toyota over the Subaru so because this Subaru has more ground clearance and because we have a thicker aftermarket skid plate we figured it would be the right guinea pig to use so here we go I'm going to put it in Drive putting it into snow dirt which is otherwise known as x-mode type one this is the X mode that is on most vehicles and what x mode will do is it'll apply individual wheel braking as necessary because that's normally where power would Leach out of the system what it'll do is it'll apply a break to an individual wheel so that that power can then go back into the system and of course with symmetrical all-wheel drive this is a full-time all-wheel drive system there is no completely off when I tip in the throttle all-wheel drive when I floor it on the freeway all-wheel drive and right here all-wheel drive now this is a fairly steep climb so this is about as steep as you would ever find in the real world outside of trails and driveways this is currently at about seven degree climb I think it Peaks out at around 10 degrees and so far this Subaru is just a tank and I spoke too soon now the air pressures I we do have on this are stock right now they are currently at I think 30 PSI all around let's check I can just check the little gauge cluster there oh they haven't turned on because we haven't driven far enough let's get a little momentum in it now this is snow and ice on top of gravel so once we actually get past the snow we get to the ice we go through the ice we then hit a little gravel which itself does not have a ton of traction but it's in it oh it is very difficult so we actually did this yesterday too in the Ford Raptor the Bronco Raptor so you will note that there's actually some tire tracks here yeah Bronco Raptor tire tracks what it's making it up the first bit of climb we're at 10 degrees right there come on you got to do it oh soundclouds basically when it hits 10 degrees that's when things get really kind of difficult so we're going to reset push forward a little momentum to that spot yes X mode is killing it we got one more leg to do here before we completely claim victory though wow X mode doing a phenomenal job here so that first section is ice and snow on top of gravel now we have ice and snow on top of mud there is no gravel on this portion of the road so uh once we get past the slippery stuff yeah then we find more slippery stuff this is a slightly less of an angle though so I'm expecting if we did that we should be okay here fingers crossed now I am going to keep this in snow dirt Drive and uh I think we're going to keep some momentum through this mud so let's floor it oh yeah check clearances now those big lumps of snow on the side look all soft and fluffy they're not they're as hard as rocks they are large chunks of ice so we do not want to hit them just keeping my foot in it and that's how you deal with Subaru symmetrical drive and all of these brake vectoring type systems you want to keep your foot in it oh yeah there we go there we go and and we did it nice okay so far this one has taken the victory but we still have to try the Toyota and while we go down we can try out the Hill descent control system which is also built into X mode and if the Toyota gets up this hill well then we have a tie breaker the next Hill over it's got a lot more snow on it it's a lot more treacherous so here we go I'm just gonna go ease it down ah it's funny how trenches kind of have their way with you okay we have snow dirt mode on and if I take my foot off the throttle at whatever speed I'm going the hill descent control system should kick in let's see there we go the hill descents if you're going slow enough if you go too fast it doesn't kick in but at about yeah I'm probably doing about three miles per hour here it's letting us down easy it's breaking individual wheels so that we can basically maintain traction on the downhill portion of the drive now how well does the Toyota do now there are a couple downsides with the Toyota first off the clearances aren't quite as good as the Subaru also the tires are not Peak rated even though they are all terrains and yes they are wild Peaks they are an oem version of the wild Peak that is not three Peak rated which means it is not rated for deep snow that might be the biggest Factor here well let's change vehicles find out now let's see if the Toyota can do any better this is a 2022 Toyota RAV4 TRD off-road it features specially tuned suspension 8.6 inches of ground clearance a skid plate and altering tires all as standard equipment under the hood is a durable and economical 2.5 liter four-cylinder engine producing up to 203 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque this is connected to a standard 8-speed automatic transmission power goes to all four wheels with Toyota's Dynamic torque vectoring all-wheel drive system enhanced with multi-terrain select off-road programs as you see it here with tech and winter packages you're looking at 40 460 US Dollars including destination so here we are in the RAV4 TRD off-road now for the name TRD on this you would expect this to do great things because of course the Forerunner TRD the Sequoia TRD they're all extremely capable Vehicles so does this RAV4 get to join its cousins in awesomeness let's find out so this has more of an overhang in the front it has lower ground clearance overall it does have a front skid plate which is good the tires are not three Peak rated now a three Peak weight rating does not make them Super Tires it really doesn't you really need a proper winter tire for conditions like this however in most circumstances manufacturers will not let us change the tires of a vehicle so we are stuck with what we got also here in the Pacific Northwest I see people do it all the time they buy a vehicle they then go up to the mountain passes like almost instantaneous because you know skiing is like 30 minutes away from Seattle 40 okay fine this is not that unusual should you have winter tires yes yes yes yes yes yes however this is what we got this is what we're doing uh so as far as setup goes even though this has a mud sand setting and a rock setting clearly that's not what we're really dealing with here we are dealing with snow so I think I would be remiss if I didn't start with the snow option so snow will immediately push power to the back like the Subaru this is a brake vectoring type system in that it uses a clutch in the middle to shift power front to back it then uses individual brakes to shift power around the rest of the system so that in the event of a wheel spinning I got to turn off Those sensors where are those sensors anyway as I was saying we're oh there's there's a there's a steering wheel warmer Subaru doesn't have that let's turn that off yeah it's funny if you get the Forester Wilderness does not have a steering wheel warmer you can get it on other trims though it's the weirdest thing anyway um I am of course driving okay to mute temporarily Ah that's where it is you have to hit it while it's nagging you so anyway when slow mo in snow mode here got it in snow mode it'll ship power to the back immediately it'll also reduce our power on tip-in of throttle so that we don't spin the tires because once you start doing that that's actually when you start to lose grip now as we saw in the Subaru which has an inclinometer the steepest parts of this drive are 10 degrees and that's that even gave the Subaru a little bit of a problem so we're gonna back up there this is I think the same spot where the Subaru had a little bit of a hang up we're going to charge through it oh yeah there's a little bit of bump there now this is snow and ice on top of gravel so far it's doing fantastic now one nice thing about this particular trim is it has a dual clutched rear drive unit in that it can it doesn't just use wheel braking it'll also proactively put Power to individual rear wheels which is pretty cool it also kind of acts as a pseudo Locker when it feels it needs to but there's no button to override that like Ford includes in their vehicles wow that was no drama no drama of course it only gets harder from here so far snow mode has just done an amazing job of Shifting power when I need it getting through all the tough conditions we just needed a one momentum push now one thing to keep in mind is that the Subaru's already been through here which does make the tracking a little bit easier for the Toyota Toyota has just a love affair with beeps too many beeps okay oh are we gonna get this I feel like it's struggling but on the other hand I'm not worried I feel it's going to get up this climb no problem at all this section uh beep this section of course is snow covered uh on top of mud so it's a little bit more challenging than that lower section but again the Toyota is doing just fine okay well uh we made it to the top of what I thought would be a challenge for at least one of these so in real world conditions both the Toyota and the Subaru did great you might be asking do we have a harder challenge next yes of course we do this driving Sports CD this is what we do oh can I also mention this car is rubbing this ice way more than the Subaru did if that little that inch of clearance can make all the difference does this have downhill um assist yes there's a button right there for it I release my pedal off and it will ease me down without me having to put my foot on the brake at all it'll individually break the wheels to keep us nicely aligned and there we go is that a feature I ever use not really but it is there for people who lack the confidence in tricky situations okay now let's move on to the finale so this is the next challenge this is a very steep very long hill it is lightly plowed but we did not plow it as nicely as the other Hill what we're dealing with here is of course ice and snow we've got layers of it and then underneath that there's more mud than there is gravel in fact there's like hardly any gravel at all on this road I think it was graveled like 10 years ago so it's mostly muddy watery runoff um because of that we have a lot of ice in spots very thick ice on this side very little ice on this side that means we have mixed traction situations we also have the potential for the vehicle to slide into the ditch on this side we're going to look for that now the we did take the Ford Bronco Raptor up this same course yesterday and those are the tracks that you are seeing here and the Bronco Raptor did have some issues here but the weather conditions were actually very different yesterday and weather can make all the difference in whether or not you're successful or not so if the Subaru gets up this hill can you say it's as good as a Bronco Raptor no clearly that's ridiculous however it will still be impressive if we get either of these little crossovers up this climb okay let's do it [Music] this will either be great or it'll be a catastrophe I don't think there's going to be any middle here so let's see what we can do ah um so I am seeing that on the left side it's still muddy and wet on the right side it's rock hard ice that is definitely going to cause a weird traction situation foreign and I need to make a decision here if I'm going to do snow dirt or if I'm going to do deep snow and mud now when we took the Bronco Raptor up here last time ultimately we needed a lot of wheel spin we needed to air down the tires uh and those were honking 37-inch ko2s so yeah let's give it a try come on little Subaru do us proud so momentum is King and I'm going to go ahead and switch into deep snow mud because that's going to add additional wheel spin which I think we will need especially in some of these really rough sections that's a clearance issue for the for the RAV4 oh are we doing it yes we are doing it so far oh boy this is uh this is almost where we had to dig out the the Bronco so I'm gonna try to stay in the Broncos track so I don't get stuck and pulled into that ditch and so far I am not I'm not doing anything the Subaru is killing it there's another ditch oh let's not commit into that ditch that would be a problem almost bit it so even with the Bronco we had to cut far right to get on top of the ice and not into the ditch because otherwise the ice is just naturally wanting to throw us in that direction let's see if we can get momentum to get up on this ledge no if we don't get on this ledge we are not making it so we need a little momentum here I did bring a shovel should I break the shovel out getting a sense of deja vu here uh let's give it a try without the shovel get up can we do it can we do it can we do it no we're just gonna dig in the ditch and if we put the wheel in the ditch we're gonna end up high centered because that is enough ice I mean that is like a cliff of ice let's go back a little further and see if we can get up on this ledge okay you know what Drive smarter I feel if we can get past this ledge we'll be fine [Music] ice where can I open my door even oh boy Let's uh get into a spot where I can open my door bump to the back okay well at least I can open my door now hey oh look at that ah wow okay see how we're doing here wow I think if we can clear some of this get up on this ledge and this is where I kept bottoming out so if I can chip that away oh my gosh that's hard so good news all the body panels are still attached oh shut up seat belt okay give this another try uh if I can move where I maybe I was overly optimistic here just leave leave throttle in now the issue here is also I don't want to rotate my tires over 25 because at that point X mode kicks off oh boy am I stuck where I was parked okay let me check the situation out here [Music] elf in a hole foreign it's a lot of work so we can back out of our hole the hole which we dug for ourselves now we're all the way to the mud the sad part is mud does not have any more traction than snow whole oh yeah we got this and we continue our adventure can I get up on the ice no I simply can't get up on the ice so this is where you might ask hey why don't you air down we're not going to today and the reason is that is not something a normal person would do I did lift the throttle I shouldn't have but I was heading toward the cliff so give me a little bit of credit here okay and thrust yes I do not want to back down this hill whoo yes oh wait okay here we go oh that's the wrong trench that's the cameraman trench sorry Nick okay here we go we got this let's see if we can keep this party going and fully oh that's a lot of snow there okay let's be realistic here I don't know if it's gonna make it up this last leg because this is this is super steep super icy super muddy and this is the part where the plow never came all this markings that you're seeing are actually from the uh from the Bronco come on I'm just gonna lay the throttle in keep speed down oh and then it kicks in let's try snow dirt which will be a little more conservative won't spin the tires as much back up a little bit here now let's do this I really just want to get up there so I can turn around okay there we go just keep the throttle light throttle light and yes we made it to the landing and rotated the vehicle yes oh I don't have to back down after all that's a lot of snow so the one thing I'm going to say about the RAV4 is it does not have such a big plate on the front and the reason why we put this primitive racing plate on the front which is way thicker than the stock aluminum plate simply because we have this vehicle loaned to us for three and a half months and in that period of time we're going to do some stuff that's a bit more extreme than we would do with a press vehicle so that is the part one of several things we're going to be doing to this vehicle over the next few episodes so yeah we didn't really want to take this vehicle all the way back to stock just for a comparison can I get back down okay moment momentum momentum just keep momentum even if I'm in the ditch momentum is fine keep this going ah those are the holes I was stuck in earlier boy getting down is almost sketchier than going up [Music] okay now it's time for the RAV4 and all of it's beeping to assault me now uh now it's time for the RAV4 to tackle the same challenge now this ah this has a lot of really big bumps so we have to maintain momentum so to do that I'm actually going to go I mean what do you want to watch do you want to see snow mode or do you want to see mud and sand ah snow mode we did it on the other one let's see what mud and sand does this time that should be equivalent to the type 2 x mode in that it has extra wheel spin to help churn through challenging situations so that kind of puts these two vehicles on par so I got a nice little gauge cluster here showing me my power distribution when it's not getting wigged out from the uh the parking sensors triggering like mad we are scraping a lot because of one uh almost an inch less of ground clearance not quite and yeah that can make a difference like the Subaru or at stock tire pressures here we're not doing anything crazy and we're just going to try to make it up now we have the one advantage of a pretty clear dissection of the course to get the Subaru through also we have Subaru tracks to help us but also like this we have a big Subaru hole also to hinder us so oh good I just threaded those tracks let's try to keep this up on the right ah oh I was trying to stay up on the ice and uh instead I got crossed up okay hey look at that another beep thank you Toyota just gonna ah okay too much wheel spins so let's put it into snow mode try to ease ourselves out of this without getting in a worse situation oh thank you Toyota I haven't had a beep in a couple minutes wow snow mode actually works really well got us right through that okay snow mode is is the mode apparently oh high centering right there on Ice oof oh for the love of God I'm already stressed as it is quit bugging me uh every time that comes up I'm hitting okay which should clear that alert that's actually how you mute it but it mutes it just until the next time it triggers which is super annoying uh if I own this I'd probably know where to turn that off but there is no place that is obvious here actually I gotta turn it off let's see if I can go into um a menu here let's go to settings there we go parking alerts off let's see if we can get through here without creating more chaos for ourselves come on I'm hearing that the braking system work as it's shifting that power around or at least trying to get on to a little bit more traction here oh as I drag the Bodywork on the ice never a good thing okay and go get a little momentum to get up this hump come on fake wild Peaks actually OEM wild Peaks they are made by Falcon so they're not really fakes but they are OEM and not as they're not Peak rated like the real ones come on let's go can we do this I'm just keeping the throttle in that's how you use the system and it's trying to figure out traction and it's got none feeling like we're making much progress here at some point we're going to throw the towel in of course I was almost ready to throw the towel in with the Subaru and then it decided to go ahead and win hmm feeling like this is sorry sorry now unlike the Subaru's issue where I was there was a specific feature I wasn't able to get over the problem here is merely the traction I'm not able oh oh it pushed the power and I ended up in a ditch oh boy I'm in a ditch uh yeah I know when I'm stuck that's a I don't think this is necessarily A try to go forward and back to get yourself out of it type of situation leave that time that actually felt pretty good yeah you're gonna do it I'm just keeping the throttle in and it's sorting it out kind of digging us out a little bit with this little steering maneuver keeping the throttle low so I'm just keeping it about 10 percent of throttle and it's doing everything to move that power around best it can feel like we're actually going to get out of this we did impressive Toyota can we get through that though no we still need to go backwards we're still not quite too uh clearing yet oh and I think we're going even deeper in the Ah that's worse that's worse hey sideways did I mention there's a cliff right there ah yeah okay I would love to reverse this but there's no place to reverse to let me let me see what we got going on here okay hey I can open the door that's nice holy crap oh that was way harder than I thought it was going to be oh this is super soft back here yeah that's uh that's soft and then we're hitting the Bodywork up there shovel time so in case you're wondering why it didn't just go down in get the Forester and put a tow strap on this and yank it out first off I gave the Forester one shovel so I'm gonna give this one one shovel also there's no attachment points on this vehicle for towing my God I brought a shovel every once while I forget and that's a very long day at the office huh anyway okay let's do this so we're going to keep it in snow mode let's change this display so I can see the all-wheel drive system functioning just trying to get out of my ditches okay easy we're gonna do like a multi-point turn here and we're going to get completely reset foreign before I continue on [Music] so I can see that the wheel braking is trying to do its thing but there's just no grip back up just a little It's tricky to back up because oh that's pretty good okay now I've made progress a little less ditch in my life hey oh okay I'm kind of aligned almost don't have that ditch on my left though so let's try to get out of here without making it worse ah recovery done whoo okay time for another charge so the Subaru got one recovery kind of it wasn't as bad as this and uh then I did one more charge it got through the charge but uh I'm Gonna Keep It In snow mode I think because I actually got stuck I don't if I don't recall I don't think I was in snow mode at the time stay to the right still oh on top of the ice yes yes rev four RAV four RAV four what okay I take back any and everything that I might have ever said negative about this vehicle it can perform when it needs to I can't believe it made it all this way what that was kind of expected right let's get it turned around oh that's I think with snow it doesn't always put you where you want it but yeah there is still that Cliff behind me and there we go oh so if snow is where you plan to use your all-wheel drive then I'd say that either the Subaru or the Toyota are a great choice I mean the Subaru got up this one got up this one actually has a few more Drive modes because it has those two off-road modes plus a snow mode where the Subaru has two off-road slash snow modes they both did it very different and it's hard for you to kind of experience that without actually being in the vehicle but I could really feel the all-wheel braking really doing a lot here but I could feel a lot more balanced you know really symmetrical all-wheel drive it just has a very unique feel to it and I think that you know at the end of the day the biggest reason why I would still pick the Forester is simply value you look at the price of this one it is way more expensive than the Subaru however you do get the power trunk which I don't love but it's okay um some people want that you get the heated steering wheel you get the heated and cooled seats and of course you get something that says Toyota we with the TRD badging a lot of people pay a lot of money for that which one would you pick post a comment below for driving sports TV I'm Ryan douthit thanks for watching be sure to like subscribe share videos we make it for you and I hope you enjoy them now I just need to get back down this without stuffing it fine let me

Channel: Driving Sports TV

Views: 563,908

Keywords: car review, driving sports tv, toyota rav4, toyota rav4 review, toyota rav4 trd off road, snow, best snow crossover, snow driving, snow crossover, rav4 snow, forester snow, wilderness vs trd

Id: fo_urCFmY_I

Length: 34min 41sec (2081 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 28 2023