Ascent Wilderness….?

Daniel Acosta said:

Unless I'm mistaken the Ascent already outperforms all of those. I know for sure when I cross-shopped the 23 Pilot that the Ascent's 8.7 beats the TrailSport's 8.3 and 7.3 on the rest of the Pilot line.

Curious why you chose the Pilot over the Ascent. These were my final two, the interior dimensions were remarkably the same according to my tape measure. I was leaning heavily towards the Pilot because of previous good experience with Honda's V6, but ultimately our great experience with our last two Outbacks and the huge cost savings of an Ascent compared to the Pilot had us bringing the Ascent home. Only 2K miles so far and it has exceeded our expectations, the tuning of the turbo/CVT on the 23 is great.

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Honestly, we didn’t choose to go with the 2023 Ascent because of reliability for long distance trips. We felt that we shouldn’t have had that many warranty problems with our 2019 reaching just over 50k. I just had my ball joint replaced yesterday under warranty. My wife drove with a master tech and he said Subaru is pushing cars out too fast. He’s never seen so many issues in his years of working for Subaru (not just the Ascent). He also said not much has changed with the 2023 outside of cosmetics and fixing what they have recalled for prior years. That probably sealed the deal for my wife. Another reason, my wife was fed up with our dealer’s service department. We also had prior experience owning a 2010 Pilot. We didn’t have big issues until 60k (warrantied) and kept it past 100k. Traded the Pilot for the Ascent. My wife didn’t like how the next Pilot model drove and I wasn’t a fan of the mini-van look. The new Pilot reminds us of our 2010 but more refined. My wife also wasn’t a big fan of the lack of physical knobs after driving an Outback with the generous head unit which I like. I wanted to wait to see the Toyota Grand Highlander but that seemed way far off. In the end, she liked the new Pilot. The tech in the Elite trim is on another level and I think Subaru has to do more than just the head unit on their pricier trims. Like a full screen for the driver and lighting accents. I am curious to see what a completely new generation of Ascent would offer. I do wish the Pilot’s screen was bigger than 9.3 inches but again there is a 12 inch screen for the driver. The Pilot is wider and longer by a few inches than the Ascent. A little tighter in the garage, but she has 360 cameras on it to help park it. You are right, all that came at a higher price.

Now coming from the Ascent’s CVT, the Pilot’s 10 speed auto, we both feel, is different. A slight learning curve, like you really need to press on the gas for it to go. The Ascent (when it is working right, recall tweak) goes with a light touch. The Ascent’s engine learns the driver overtime. The Pilot does no such thing. My initial impression between the two, I kind of like the CVT and the turbo.

While I felt it was unreliable for long distance trips, I felt it was reliable enough for around town, always within 60 miles of a Subaru shop. Her Ascent became my daily driver. Not a bad deal. I gave up the Crosstrek which I thought was time. All the kids are over 100 lbs and it was starting to be a little tight with picking them up from school. I always thought the trek needed more power, more apparent when there is 1 adult and 3 teenagers. My first daily driver that wasn’t a manual in 32 years. Now, I was second guessing our decision when I had to bring the Ascent in for the ball joint issue but we did pay for the extended warranty so that kicked in. Drives as expected now. It’s a limited trim so it is a significant upgrade from a base Crosstrek. Wife is happy and I’m content. Keep moving forward with the Ascent until we can’t.