CARS.COM — Some Cars.com editors joined Mark Williams, editor of sister site PickupTrucks.com, along with others to put five midsize pickup trucks through their paces for the 2016 Midsize Pickup Truck Challenge. We put them through a week's worth of tests, including a 165-mile fuel-economy drive (loaded and unloaded). We also took them to a track where we conducted acceleration and braking tests, and we took to them to an off-road course in south-central Michigan to see how they fared in the mud and muck.
Here's how they finished:
No. 1: 2016 GMC Canyon SLE
No. 2: 2017 Honda Ridgeline RTL-E
No. 3: 2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71
No. 4: 2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road
No. 5: 2016 Nissan Frontier PRO-4X
What was the surprise? The Honda's performance. While the Canyon edged out the Ridgeline to retain its title as Best Midsize Pickup, the completely reimagined Ridgeline stunned us at the track, where it drew top marks, and also on the off-road course, where it managed to climb sand hills far better than we had reason to believe it would.
It still has some issues the others don't: reduced payload and towing capacity, unibody construction, low clearance. But despite the complaints of many about the last-generation Ridgeline, this one is far more of a truck's truck than the previous version.
Click here to see all of the data and results at PickupTrucks.com.
