Wait, are we sleeping on the Hyundai Tucson’s off-road capabilities? – Jalopnik

If you’re in the market for a compact crossover, its off-road capabilities usually don’t even come up unless you’re talking about Subaru. And even then, it’s not like the Subaru Forester has become popular lately because people regularly drive it off-road. It’s more that the idea of ​​going on off-road adventures is appealing, and buyers love being able to tell themselves that they can go all out if they want to. Buy anything else in this segment, though, and you’re pretty much conceding that the most you’ll ever have to do is take you to a drive-up campsite. Or are you?

To test that idea, our friends at CarExpert in Australia rounded up 16 compact crossovers to see once and for all which ones are actually more capable off-roaders than you might think. Being an Australian publication, there are probably some minor differences in tuning and equipment between the cars they tested and the cars you can buy at your local dealer, and there are even a few that aren’t sold in the US at all, but that’s not a big deal. It’s still a pretty good test of a wide range of cars our readers could buy, just with a few bonus cars thrown in for good measure.

They didn’t exactly take all 16 compact crossovers to Moab either, but we’re still talking about a pretty serious test here. After an initial check to make sure the body didn’t flex too much with two wheels in the air, they then put each SUV on a ramp with rollers to test how well the all-wheel drive system could handle with only one wheel having traction. Then it was time for the hill test, where they did their best to drive up a very steep hill. So while it wasn’t the kind of testing that would humble a Jeep Wrangler, it does mimic several scenarios you might encounter in a compact crossover.

Perhaps the biggest surprise here is that the Subaru Forester didn’t win outright. You’d think it would be much more capable than, say, a RAV4 or CR-V, but it just wasn’t. They were testing an Australian spec hybrid, so it’s possible that a US spec non-hybrid would perform better, but in this test at least the Forester just didn’t have the power for it. Then again, if you’re one of those people who assumed that no crossover could ever be a good off-roader, that result might not be all that surprising to you.

If that’s the case, then the crossovers that did quite well here may be the bigger surprise. You may not like it, but based on the results of this particular test, the best off-roader in the compact crossover segment is none other than the Hyundai Tucson. Yes, that Hyundai Tucson. The one that no one would ever expect to have any off-road capabilities, other than maybe driving down a dirt road without setting themselves on fire.

Even if you don’t care about off-roading, there’s still value in what the roller test shows about each car’s all-wheel drive. If you want a car that can pass both the front and rear wheel tests, you should check out the Tucson, the Kia Sportage and the Volkswagen Tiguan. Alternatively, if you don’t live in the US, take a look at the Skoda Karoq. It absolutely dominated the roller test, even though it made one fatal flaw: Volkswagen’s continued refusal to let Americans buy Skoda products.