I drove down from the PNW to Arizona. I explored AZ and southern Utah for about two weeks.
Some of you may have seen my posts about upgraded brakes or adding skid plates. These were the tweaks I needed for this particular ride to get comfortable with some of the situations. I also changed the oil and filter right before the ride and added the yellow diode dynamic fogs a few months ago.
The mountains in Utah and Arizona are no joke. They don’t call it the Mountain Time Zone for no reason. I was happy to have my new power stop jammers and spinners as they worked perfectly. I had to brake hard a few times and they were very smooth and lived up to their brand name in terms of effectiveness.
One instance was a sedan passing a truck, in my lane, going around a blind corner. The sedan was about to hit my head so I hit the brakes really hard, going from 75 to 45 mph. This gave the sedan enough room to barely back up.
I haven’t done any off-roading, but I have taken it on a number of clean roads and unimproved areas like the image below. This is from knoll lovers in Sedona.
As for gas mileage, I averaged about 21-22 mpg for the duration of the trip. I definitely have a roof rack and tire that hurts my mpg and for this trip I had a good £4-500 rig on me. Including a 3-ton floor jack that fits snugly between the 2nd and 3rd rows.
I managed to hit a number of points with the Climb and even took it on the Monument Valley Scenic Byway.
The only problems I had was my well sealant starting to melt in the Arizona sun. I went kayaking and left the car exposed for about 6 hours. After doing 80 mph I started hearing excessive wind noise. On the next fill up, I pressed the top of the rain deflector on the car for about 30 seconds. It seems to have fixed the problem.
I also had some brake squeal after driving through some of the dirt/dust in Sedona, but so did about 75% of the off-road vehicles there. The noise went away after driving on the highway for a while. It hasn’t been back since.
Overall, I’m happy with the Ascent as a highway/street touring car. I’m still on the fence about its off-road capabilities. I’ve had my eye on the Eibach Spring lift kit for about 6 months now, but I’m not sure if I’d be happy with the new ride quality. The lift would definitely help, but I feel like it’s still nowhere near even a capable Jeep or Tacoma in terms of capability.
I rented a UTV and the difference between it and the Climb is ridiculous. Honestly, it made me appreciate even more how comfortable the Ascent is and how easy it handles.
I’d be interested to know people’s thoughts on the Ascent for both road trips and off-roading/landing. Do you have a lift? If so, is it a space or spring opener? And is the quality of the ride affected?
TLDR: ~5k mile road trip to Arizona for two weeks. Great highway car and good on rough roads. Glad to have upgraded brakes, tires and fog lights. Still on the fence about getting it up.
