Honda CR-V VTi-L 2018 Review

If there’s a body type I have discussed, driven, dissected, obsessed over and been asked for advice about more than any other this year, it’s the SUV. To say the segment is crowded would be a wild understatement. Standing out from the ever-growing crowd is becoming nearly impossible and achieving any degree of differentiation requires true ingenuity.

Honda’s recently updated CR-V, has perhaps been around the longest (it started manufacturing in 1995) but, for me, it fades into the background in terms of style, performance, behind-the-wheel enjoyment and general X-factor – all this despite delivering a well-equipped, reasonably priced, practical and comfortable product.

Let’s kick off with the CR-V’s looks which, to be brutally honest, lack elegance. I personally love the sleekness of the otherwise bulky Mazda CX-5, and don’t start me on the stunning minimalism of the Tesla Model X, but obviously that’s in a completely different sport, let alone ballpark.

The CR-V essentially looks like any other nondescript SUV, with an over-crowded front and a bulky rear. Inside, nothing is too precious. Large, rubbery trays, sealable bins near the gearstick and cavernous pockets in the door provide ample storage for drink bottles, parking permits, pens, kids’ toys, L-plates and all the other junk you can accumulate in your car seemingly overnight.

The VTi-L I drove came equipped with an expansive sunroof that felt like a nice touch, plus little practicalities like roof-rails and plenty of cup-holders (including two in the back for the passengers). I noted the impressively large air vents in the backseat as a well-considered addition given the car seems targeted at people who are more concerned with their passengers than they are themselves.

First thing’s first, I’ll admit I’m not the target market for the CR-V. When I picture its intended buyer, I see a harried parent trying to stop the kids from fighting in the backseat while they simultaneously mop up a spilt milkshake and try to navigate their way to the local IKEA to pick up some outdoor furniture.

For that imagined person, the CR-V is perfect. The hypothetical IKEA trip would be made far easier with one of the CR-V’s standout features –the user-friendly satellite navigation system. Unlike others of its ilk, it doesn’t demand the driver to enter an address category-by-category (suburb, city, postcode, street, number, etc.) but rather to search for it as a whole. Once that’s sorted, getting to where you need to go is fuss-free, with the navigation switching from bird’s-eye-view to driver-point-of-view at important turnoffs.

A drop down mirror in the middle of the roof between the driver and the passenger allows you to check in on your warring children without even having to do a head check. Further optimizing the child-monitoring experience is a bonus feature my astute driving companion figured out in a moment of experimentation: you can adjust the positioning of the middle row of seats from the front seat without too much trouble. That means a misbehaving child – or an unruly adult passenger – can be brought closer to the front for a good scolding. It’s probably not one to try when the car is in motion though.

Speaking of seats, did I mention how many there are? One of the main advantages of the CR-V is the sheer amount of space for passengers – friends, friends of friends and those pesky distant relatives who make surprise appearances every so often (we’ve all got them).

There are seven seats all up and the five in the back fold down. The extra seats do substantially reduce the boot size, which isn’t all that impressive to start with, even when the third row is folded down.

The boot is accessed via an automatic door mechanism that would be helpful if it weren’t so darn slow. What’s that saying again? If you want something done well, do it yourself? Yeah, that’s evidently true when it comes to boot operation.

As for on-road experience, I found the CR-V lacked guts. The sheer size of the car makes you feel like you’re driving a tractor and even though its turbocharged, the engine doesn’t feel like it has much power and the CVT feels a lot less nimble than other cars I’ve driven of the same size (the Mazda CX-5 for example). It is relatively quiet and smooth though.

Given its price the CR-V VTi-L is impressively full of equipment. For starters, there’s a great parking camera, rear and front sensors, push-button start (but no keyless entry) and a blind-spot camera that takes over the display screen whenever you start indicating to the left.

My week of city driving clocked around 10.6L/100km in fuel consumption, well over the advertised 7.4L/100km but understandably so given the kind of traffic I was encountering! There’s an economy mode – activated with a green leaf button – but I mostly left that off.

One bugbear – I found the gearstick to be frustratingly imprecise. Operated by a big chunky lever, it felt there wasn’t enough space between the gear markings to really decipher whether you were in neutral, reverse or drive.

One comment that’s really set the stage for my verdict on the CR-V came from one of my more vocal passengers who said: “If it’s cheap then fine. But if it’s regularly priced, I don’t really get it.” That’s perhaps too brutal of an appraisal for a car that really does hit the mark in every aspect except perhaps the elegance of its overall execution. All the parts are there; they just don’t feel like they work together particularly well.

Given that the CR-V’s pricing – which starts at around $30,000 for the base and levels out around $44,000 for the top-spec – is fairly on par with other impressive cars I’ve driven in the sector, like the Mazda CX-5 or Ford Escape, perhaps it’s just a matter of comparison being the thief of Honda’s joy.

Regardless of my thoughts on the CR-V, if there’s a navigationally challenged parent out there battling multiple messy children, regular IKEA trips and a car with not enough cup-holders, head on over to Honda. They’ll hook you up.

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