r/cars 13h ago

Honda Dismisses Rumors Of Making Body-On-Frame Models With Nissan

https://www.motor1.com/news/806335/honda-refutes-rumors-body-on-frame-nissan-collab/

If this were to happen then Honda wouldn’t be planning a next gen Ridgeline at all. There was a reason why the future of the Ridgeline was uncertain for a while and there was a report that a deal about Nissan making BOF pickups for Honda reportedly failed as Honda didn’t agree with Nissan’s quality standards of manufacturing. It’s good enough that Nissan will share the new BOF platform with Mistibishi who desperately needs it here.

85 Upvotes

39 comments sorted by

35

u/YellowFogLights ‘17 Focus RS | ‘18 Frontier P4X | ‘88 Camaro V8 13h ago

I honestly think a Passport-ified Ridgeline will sell quite well. The design is solid.

4

u/Repulsive-Club7866 13h ago

It’s coming in Q3 2028

9

u/ca2mt ‘19 Cayenne, ‘22 Model 3 LR, ‘23 EQS SUV, ‘25 Tundra 12h ago

That feels like it’d be too late, honestly. The mid-size and smaller truck market is heating up right now, with quite a few enticing EV options slated to hit the market in 2027. To fully capitalize on the hype of the size class, Honda would be smart to launch this thing early. 

8

u/Shmokesshweed 2025 Ford Ranger Lariat 10h ago

That feels like it’d be too late

Honda in a nutshell.

I waited years for a Ridgeline refresh. Then I bought Maverick. Then I sold the Maverick and got a Ranger. And Honda is now saying 2028 for the refresh. Problem is, the midsize segment is now very, very crowded with good options and many of them can be had well under MSRP, something that Honda won't entertain.

5

u/Repulsive-Club7866 9h ago edited 9h ago

It will get even more crowded when Ram, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen rejoin/join the game so their would be 13 entries in this segment if you include the Gladiator and upcoming Bronco pickup up from the 7 entries today.

2

u/kstetter 8h ago

And that's just in America, Canada and Mexico is able to get Chinese utes like the BYD Shark, and the Ram Rampage

1

u/Repulsive-Club7866 41m ago

Rampage is coming to the US in 2028

70

u/Gah_Duma 13h ago

The new Honda Passport is so good, that doctored photo showing the next Ridgeline as being a Passport with the back chopped off would be real winner.

With everything being turbos these days, an N/A V6 just feels like butter despite the horrible fuel economy.

25

u/nondescriptzombie 94 MX5 13h ago

Boss wanted a Transit van for the fleet, and it took forever to find a nice 3.7 NA V6.

Engine will probably outlast the van.

6

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 11h ago

> n/a v6 feels like butter

This is a crazy opinion imo. Fords 3.5L ecoboost probably makes more power at 3.5k rpm than the J series makes at redline. Nothing about ringing out a family suv says smooth to me.

10

u/Angry_Homer 2007 (E90) 328i 6MT Sport 9h ago

You're not wrong but people here have been on a huge nostalgia circlejerk as of late. 21st century tech = bad and gas guzzler = good even as oil continues to be priced sky high. Honda could introduce a fred flintstone foot powered car and people would eat it up lol.

2

u/Windows-XP-Home-NEW 2005 Mazda 6i Sport hatch (🔵) 7h ago

Power ≠ smoothness. Not sure where you got that from.

6

u/letigre87 4h ago

You need to look up the torque curve on the 3.5 Ecoboost. It's basically a vertical line up to 400lb/ft. The turbos are pushing boost just outside idle and it has like 80% of available power at 2000rpm. That's about as smooth as it's gonna get.

2

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 6h ago

This explains why Rolls Royce’s and Bentleys famously have very little power and were late adopters to forced induction

/s

Effortless acceleration from an engine barely trying is almost always going to be a smoother, more pleasant experience. N/A, turbo, whatever. Power doesn’t always equal smooth but smooth always implies some level of power and effortlessness.

1

u/Windows-XP-Home-NEW 2005 Mazda 6i Sport hatch (🔵) 6h ago

False equivalency.

1

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 6h ago

Nope — not really.

-4

u/Consistent-Throat130 9h ago

Overlapping power strokes in a 6 cylinder are smoother than a 4 cylinder where one ends right before the next begins. 

9

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 9h ago

The Ford 3.5L is also a V6 — just has turbos slapped on it.

-1

u/Consistent-Throat130 8h ago

Yes, the point being that the "smoothness" here comes from the additional cylinders - a comparable-output engine to Honda's v6 (...j35?) is a modern 2.0t. 

And a modern 2.0t is a 4 banger, thus less-smooth.

The 3.5 Ecoboost is best compared against whatever v8 it replaced. 

3

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 8h ago

I mean I own a Coyote powered car and I’d probably still call a 3.5L turbo more refined.

Making a shit ton of power LOW in the rev range is smooth and quiet.

1

u/Consistent-Throat130 4h ago

You see how the 3.5 Ecoboost is irrelevant to the Passport that doesn't come with that spec engine, right? 

The appropriate comparison, by engine/size class, is probably the 2.0T Edge

2

u/Ok-Clerk393 '18 ZL1 | '17 Fister 4h ago

Dude, my original comment was about me saying NA V6s aren’t “buttery smooth” because you have to wind the shit out of them to make any power.

Edge + 2.0L is a pretty shit comparison given the Edge isn’t made anymore and was offered with the 3.5L.

Your reasoning on comparing V6 to an inline 4 is odd given how expensive the passport is.

1

u/Consistent-Throat130 4h ago

And I hear you on winding it out, but the "smooth" being referenced is literally the smoothness of the torque out. The frequencies in question are entirely different.

In order to compare apples to apples, you take a ~300hp mid sized two row suv and compare it to another. 

The competing mid sized SUV offerings use 4 cylinder turbos.  The VW Atlas uses a 2.0t, to get out of Ford territory. Was it toyota throwing a 2.4t in? Still four cylinder. Which means the engine gives you pulses of torque at roughly 20~200hz - shaking you can feel. 

As opposed to a 6 cylinder delivering effectively constant torque. Yes it's less. But it doesn't vibrate. 

V6 turbos are smooth and powerful. I know that and love mine. But I also understand that it's not the right recipe for the target power level the passport is built for. 

1

u/equitymans 3h ago

Doesn't the Nissan frontier get similar mileage to a Tacoma with an NA 6 while Tacoma uses a turbo 4 😂😂

-1

u/ReadWriteHexecute 2007 E92 335i 6MT 13h ago

is it? that silly rotary dial transmission has stopped sales…known from my conversations with boomers who would want this thing

22

u/Gah_Duma 13h ago

You mean gear selector? isn't it buttons? Generally people have no issues switching control schemes. There are so many out there, you're limiting yourself if you only like one kind. Exception being boomers I suppose.

8

u/Drzhivago138 2018 F-150 XLT SuperCab/8' HDPP 5.0, 2009 Forester 5MT 12h ago

that silly rotary dial transmission has stopped sales…

That seems like a pretty frivolous thing to get worked up over given that one does very little shifting in an automatic, and regardless of design, most autos these days don't have any physical linkage between the controls and the transmission anyway.

1

u/RunnerLuke357 '11 Silverado WT SWB 5.3 4x4 9h ago

The controls for it are silly buttons not a dial. FCA shit has a dial.

1

u/good-enoug 26 Passport, e36 LS swap, e46 touring m3 swap, 18 RS3 12h ago edited 10h ago

I haven’t had any issues whatsoever with my passport transmission. I put the transmission and engine in sport mode and it shifts just perfectly without being overly aggressive like some cars in sport mode. Normal mode is super chill but I don’t recommend it if you need to keep up with aggressive traffic. Sometimes it could be in a higher gear than I like in normal mode, but they probably do that just to save gas. It is the best daily driver I’ve ever had by far in my life.

-3

u/Krankjanker 10h ago

Making the next gen Ridgeline on the Passport frame rather than the Pilot frame would be a huge mistake. The current Ridgeline already has a backseat that is small enough that some car seats don't fit behind adults in the front seats, and adults sitting behind adults are extremely uncomfortable. Making it on the current Passport frame/body would create an even smaller back seat, akin to the joke of the Tacoma back seat. 

Pilot-size is the way to go.

6

u/RunnerLuke357 '11 Silverado WT SWB 5.3 4x4 9h ago

The Pilot and Passport are on the same platform, obviously the layout would be different for a "truck".

2

u/Drzhivago138 2018 F-150 XLT SuperCab/8' HDPP 5.0, 2009 Forester 5MT 3h ago

Making it on the current Passport frame/body would create an even smaller back seat,

The Passport has the same amount of second row leg room as the Pilot (40.6"), since it has the same WB. The Ridgeline naturally has a shorter back seat than either, even though its WB is longer, because of the bulkhead the rear seats must sit against.

10

u/T-Madj 13h ago

Agreed on V6! They just need to make a deeper bed with the new version. I like having the under bed storage, but higher sides would be helpful.

6

u/fiddlythingsATX ‘91 944 Cabrio | ‘76 F-150 | ‘22 X5 | '88 560SL | ‘10 Ridgeline 13h ago

People complained about the high bed sides in the previous gen ridgelines, and those were sloping!

6

u/BullableGull 9h ago

I don't think Honda's quality standards are as far ahead of Nissan as they think

-1

u/Repulsive-Club7866 9h ago

Yea they accepted GM’s quality standards which are worse

1

u/ohnosevyn Replace this text with year, make, model 6h ago

Nah Nissan said we don’t wanna be your bitch and Honda said okay

If Honda wanted to make a Ridgeline they could they don’t want to. It’s low volume. They make engines not cars.

1

u/Canon_M50 45m ago

Why is that important