The daughter just bought the Honda Pilot even though the Highlander was in the running. They thought that the Honda had more usable room and more headroom. I was reading up on AWD vehicles this morning and the word is they are hard on tires and only help in straight line slippery acceleration, get worse mileage and if anything are even worse than a FWD in cornering. The Subaru gets the highest AWD rating compared to the others. I've never owned an AWD and sure would prefer a conventional 4WD system like in the truck only in an SUV.
We drove the new Subaru Ascent. It's probably the best driving of the bunch. However, it's stupid expensive. You have to buy the top of the line Touring to even get leather seats and GPS. It's about $48k. The lower grades give you a choice of black interior and fabric seats in black or white. Can you imagine what a white fabric seat will look like in 5 years? Only the Touring has a lot of other stuff that comes on mid levels in other brands.
