Is the 2026 Honda Pioneer a Ranger-Killer?

UTV Driver

https://dirthammer.com/ is the best place online to buy and sell side-by-sides! No more Facebook Marketplace weirdos, no more “is this available,” no more sketchy parking lot meetups. Just buying and selling side-by-sides, simplified. Check out www.dirthammer.com for your next side-by-side purchase!  The 2026 Honda Pioneer is a huge step up. Is it as good as the Can-AM Defender or Polaris Ranger? With throttle-by-wire, better heat shielding, redesigned interior and a host of new features like cruise control, it's up for debate. Honda unveiled the new Pioneer for us in Texas. Over three days, we bounced around the Hill Country and got to see how good the new Pioneer really is.  Become a Channel Partner: https://octanemedia.co/home/become-an-advertiser/ Looking to buy? Get prequalifed https://octane.co/vehicle-selection/?partner=A8PrQQB&a=298&flow=long-prequal&appTheme=3a49337c5724d18079602a4ca5a91626 Favorite Gear:  Packtalk Edge ORV: Code 'octane' for 10% off https://cardosystems.rfrl.co/z8qy5   For more stories, reviews, and first-looks check out https://www.utvdriver.com/   Want to see even more shenanigans from the UTV Driver team? Give us a like and follow:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTVdriver/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utvdrivermagazine/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/utvdriver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@utvdriver

Transcript

00:00One of the things that happens at UTV Driver is we go to a lot of different press launches.

00:03The idea of a press launch is to show off how sexy and cool the new model year, model, rig,

00:09side-by-side, buggy, whatever you want to call it, is. And that's really great. And they talk

00:13about what they've improved and what they've done that's better than the last year's. What

00:16they don't do, however, is they generally don't bring last year's rig to the demonstration. And

00:21you know what? Otherwise, it's just a bunch of spec sheets and it's kind of hard to sort of just

00:24imagine. Well, now we don't have to imagine because Honda has actually brought last year's

00:292025 Honda Pioneer 1000. And so we don't really have to imagine what it's like compared to the

00:35lovely new 2026 model. Having the 2025 here is that you can see it's got sort of the lower sort

00:39of door line. Previously, these opened up like this, but then you had to unattach the netting and so

00:45forth like that. It was kind of a pain. And now we walk over to the new one. And so

00:49you've got sort

00:49of a higher kind of door line that makes ingress and egress a lot simpler and easier. And another

00:54thing you're going to notice when you look at these two side-by-sides, no roof, roof, roof

00:59comes standard on the 2026. That's kind of a big deal, especially when you are baking in the Texas

01:04sun. Other than that, I kind of like it. You know what? Honestly, the front fascia and this sort of

01:08looks kind of aggro, you know, Pioneer isn't really aggro. The new Pioneer kind of looks a little bit

01:14more sort of grown up, a little bit more mature. And there's also a couple other differences that I

01:18want to tell you about. Honda has also upgraded a lot of the heat shielding. Now, you're not going to

01:21see it because it's behind these seats right here, but that means that your butt will bake

01:26slightly less than it did in the 2025 model. All of these things just are incremental improvements

01:31and kind of represent sort of like the spirit of Kaizen in a way. I don't know if they use

01:34that

01:34sort of terminology or nomenclature, but these are all ways that just incrementally make the model

01:38better and better with each year. All of these kind of together make for a fairly significant

01:44upgrade, or at least a good reason for a press launch. We are taking ourselves a little ride out

01:49here in the Rough Creek Ranch or whatever, and we're going to take these Pioneer 1000 Deluxes.

01:55Oh, that has some deluxe features on here. What about that? That is a backup camera there. Let's go into

02:01reverse. There you go. And we're going to take a little ride here in the Texas... Is this the

02:05whole country? I'm not exactly sure. All right. We're going to have a little pony ride here.

02:26This is the glamorous world of power sports journalism. We are part-time models. Everybody's

02:31getting their close-ups and all that and getting a run through being shot by videographers and

02:36photographers that are way better than I am. While we're waiting, though, why don't we sort of check

02:41out and see what life inside a Pioneer looks like? So one of the things we're always sort of

02:45concerned about is storage space. And honestly, that is one of the more impressive glove boxes

02:51I've ever seen. Is it a glove box if it's on a UTV? Probably not. Got a big cubbyhole there.

02:56Oh,

02:56look at that. They put a nice little cleaning cloth down there. Power down here, a conventional sort

03:02of 12-volt cigarette lighter type thing. Kind of odd. They don't have a USB connector, but anyway. Then up

03:08here,

03:08we got four-wheel drive, the diff lock. We got turf mode, and we got four-wheel drive and two

03:13-wheel drive.

03:14We've been in two-wheel drive for the most part. Got resume set. We got the speed limiter there.

03:20Importantly, cancel. And then we got the speed limit thing. I'm gonna check this outlet. And then we got

03:24here, we've got the drive modes. Automatic transmission, manual DCT. And we got some fairly nice

03:30conventional sort of bench seats here. Honestly, kind of look pretty nice. As is standard in this kind

03:35of industry, we do not have a horn. That would be kind of weird if we did. But you see

03:39sort of the

03:40paddle shifters here, going down, going up. And we got, oh, look at that. We'll do that. And we

03:45get a nice, like, little, uh, nice little interior light there. We're gonna go back to off. We got

03:50brights and so forth like that. We'll go off because, uh, oh, it's already kind of bright here.

03:55Oh, see? Towing, hauling, comforts. We got normal and, uh, my favorite, sports. Now we are in manual mode.

04:02So this thing will not shift unless I shift it. I gotta tell you, the DCT, the automatic, is kind

04:08of nice.

04:08Just sort of set it and forget it. It works pretty intuitively. It's kind of nice. It really never

04:12sort of gets in the way. That's some very beautiful horses. Wow, these horses. These ponies want to gallop.

04:22Looks like they want to join us. It's pretty nice. The DCT, the, uh, the, uh, paddle shifters are

04:28really nice and seamless. And what's sort of nice is that you can sort of shift it on the fly.

04:33So before, you see that I, I, I changed it from automatic to, uh, to manual on the fly. Which

04:39is

04:39kind of nice. You don't have to stop and readjust that. Let's try to hit this rock over here. There

04:44we go. Yeah. This is pretty gnarly. This is pretty fun. They told me to put it in low. Just

04:49keep

04:49everything squared up and we should be fine. Whoopsie daisies. Tip toe through the tulips. Spring

04:57break. Woo. Right now you're in tow, tow haul. We're going to just go to comfort mode. Okay. That's

05:03just standard mapping. Yep. We recommend running it in low gear. Okay. You get the most performance

05:08out of it when you're using it to its potential. What we're going to do is I want you to

05:12experience

05:12it in two wheel drive low. Yep. In standard comfort map. Then we'll switch into the next mode,

05:19which will be tow haul. Okay. And then you will drive the same route and feel the difference.

05:23Feel the throttle response difference. That's what we want you to experience. Okay. Comfort versus

05:27tow haul and all the capabilities. Okay. All right. You ready? I'm ready. Full throttle.

05:32Put it in low. See, I was just testing you there.

05:41Kind of feel this. What the, how hard the engine's working right now. Yeah. This is smoother than my

05:472005 Chevy Express 3500. Technology has definitely come a long way. Yeah.

05:52All right. Kind of feel that RPM luggage a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. You're making a slow

06:00turn like that with the weight. Uh-huh. Now going to tow haul. Now you're already on low. You're good

06:04to

06:04go. Okay. Now you can now feel when you take off the throttle response difference than what you just did.

06:10Okay. And then feel the shifting points are a lot higher because they're pulling weight and you're

06:14having the engine work the way it's designed to. Okay. And you're working this thing now. We've

06:19designed our engineers. This is the best mapping for this type of work. So they have the right

06:25amount of fuel ratios, the right amount of torque. Okay. The shift point. All that has been extended.

06:31Very cool. All right. You ready? Yep. All right. Try to pull a couple G's here. Yeah.

06:37Kind of feel it. Yeah. Very cool. Thank you very much for helping explain that, man. Yes, sir.

06:43So I have hauled a lot of things in my life. I have hauled rigs, crappy motorcycles,

06:48things belonging to ex-girlfriends, my stuff. One thing I have never hauled is,

06:53hey, I'm really good at strapping rigs down. But, uh, hey, anyway, we're here at Rough Creek

06:59testing out the new Honda Pioneer Deluxe. And there's a bunch of cool new features. This thing

07:03has a tow haul and they've got us working really hard out here. Hey, check out this 2023 Polaris

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07:46Now, back to the action. This is really nice. Now, we're in four-wheel drive right here. Manual

07:50transmission, automatic. I believe we are in automatic because this thing keeps just sort of

07:55shifting in opportune moments or whatever. So you can sort of go downshift. You can hear that a little

08:02bit there. It's really kind of a big can choose your sort of own adventure with the transmission.

08:06It's very seamless. Honestly, you sort of forget that you need to shift most of the time.

08:11One of Honda's great sort of superpowers, as it were, is really just the idea of like creating

08:16usable machines. Everything is really kind of just designed around the driver usability and experience.

08:22And this is obviously going to get a lot of duty on trails, private lands, and such like that. It

08:29is,

08:29in essence, a utility machine. But even as such, there's a lot of really, really nice features. Now,

08:35you look up here at this. You can see you can toggle back and forth between a front view.

08:40And now you get a sort of a split screen kind of view right there, which is sort of neat.

08:43And wow,

08:44there's even a light. Check that out. That's kind of wild. Anyway, this machine is just fantastic.

08:48They're fairly unapologetic about just making machines that each generation, each iteration

08:54of each model year is simply just easier to use and is better. Honda really does things their way.

09:00It really kind of represents like really one of their flagship models. They didn't come out with the

09:03talent until I believe it was 2019. There really was just a pioneer. Honda made very simple,

09:09very easy to use UTVs that could transport people. Probably sort of hung its hat on the

09:14fact that it was kind of a convertible in a sense that you could remove the back seat and for

09:20more

09:20storage and such that you're not just up with a four seater or a two seater. You have the capabilities

09:24to kind of have the best of both sort of worlds. And the pioneer really eschewed any kind of sort

09:29of

09:29aggressive image like a defender or a ranger or whatever. Honda makes friendly machines that do

09:35their jobs quietly and efficiently. Anyway, the concept of coming out to Rough Creek is that we

09:42are supposed to see the pioneer in a place where it's actually going to be used, which is a ranch.

09:47And there is nowhere in America that has bigger ranches than Texas.

09:50All right, now we're getting a little muddy. Apparently they got a fair amount of rain,

09:54so everything is still kind of lush green, which is pretty nice.

09:59Oh, it's so funny. It's so nice how Maddie and the lead car are diligently avoiding all the

10:05puddles for the sake of all of us journalists and influencers. That's very nice. However, I

10:11avoid to hit every single mud puddle standing body of water possible. Hey, we got some nice cows here.

10:18We are going to let these cows go where they want to go and we're not going to mess with

10:23them.

10:23It's a really great snappy throttle response, honestly. One of the things that they've done

10:27besides sort of the facelift kind of change, mine here gets throttle by wire, which makes it smoother

10:34and also snappier. This is nice. And obviously this is just a sort of utility vehicle. But if you

10:42punch the throttle, this has got a little giddy up and go. I believe these are restricted to 40 miles

10:47an

10:47hour. It's kind of a good time to point out. I believe we're in high. I would kind of like

10:51to go

10:51low, but I don't believe that we could shift while we're in motion. That's usually kind of bad

10:56in side-by-sides. Kind of nice. It still sort of rocks and rolls a little bit. It still kind

11:00of

11:01makes all the clunky noises, all the other stuff that kind of lets you know that ARMs are doing

11:06their thing and that stuff is rattling around. The bed is kind of, you know, on its bushings and so

11:11forth like that. Honestly, there's a reason why we drive these instead of pickup trucks.

11:16Oh, see? I think it's a nice little throttle response there. I do believe we are in sport.

11:21Oh, yeah, we are. See, right there. We will have to wait until we get a Pioneer press rig at

11:28UTV

11:28Driver. Maybe then we'll take it to Windrock. So apparently I'm supposed to watch out for rocks

11:33under trees. Oh, this is the place they're talking about here. Okay, we're going to get one.

11:39Hey, look at that. I got the cruise control to work. There we go.

11:44Yeah, just set it like there. Just go up, down. This is to set it so you get that little

11:49green

11:50button right there. And of course, if need be, just touch the brakes and rides all over. See,

11:56that's a great test of something. I have no idea how to make it work. I literally just looked at

12:00the

12:00controls and after a couple of tries, I just figured it out at speed. Not bad.

12:04Sorry, I just saw this one beautiful lone, what looks like a live oak tree. Kind of looks like

12:09that one that they had in England that those two guys cut down because they were jerks. Anyway,

12:13some final thoughts about the 2027 Honda Pioneer 1000 Deluxe. This is a rig that honestly kind of

12:19gives me the feels of the Yamaha R-Max. They're not really the same thing. It's kind of apples and

12:24oranges. Both the Honda Pioneer and the Yamaha R-Max kind of punch above their weight. The Pioneer is more

12:29than just the sum of a bunch of things on a spec sheet. The spec sheet will tell you everything

12:33that the Honda Pioneer is and what it can do and what it has and what it is and what

12:37it was and

12:38everything else like that. Honda just makes products that are supremely usable and that are great and

12:42that are really well put together and are just made for the maximum amount of usability by the user,

12:47ease of use and everything else like that. And although this rig has had a thorough redesign,

12:51the roof, the thrower by wire and everything else like that, it honestly just adds up to a package that

12:56is

12:57smarter, better and more usable. And Honda won't tell you this, but it's actually really fun to drive

13:02as well. Getting after some of the narrow rocky sort of hills and stuff, the suspension is absolutely

13:08dialed. Now, obviously, these are very new press rigs. And so, of course, they don't have the rattles

13:13and squeaks that all models get eventually over time. However, there is a marked difference between

13:19the 2027 and the 2026, even though wheelbase is the same, width is the same. A lot of things are

13:25really the same. But this is just a rig that's just put together that honestly sort of begs for

13:29abuse and not the kind of abuse that Honda normally asks for in terms of neglected maintenance, etc,

13:35etc, etc. This is a rig that really honestly punches above its weight. You know what? It's going

13:39to do all the things that you want it to do as far as utility goes, but there's a little

13:43bit of

13:43wreck thrown in there too. Anyway, this has been a really great time. Honda put on a great event. It's

13:47really gorgeous out here. It's lovely to get back to the Texas hill country. I think this is the hill

13:51country anyway. That about wraps things up from the 2027 Honda Pioneer 1000 Deluxe press launch,

13:57coming at you from Rough Creek Resort outside of Dallas here in the lovely state of Texas.

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14:23days a week. And we have videos coming out bi-weekly. See you out on the trails, America. You're welcome.

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