CR-V Better in Almost Every Way

MONTEREY, CA – Nine years on top. That’s how long the Honda CR-V has spent as the No.1-selling utility vehicle, cross or sport, in the U.S.

And in those nine years, Middle CUVs have become the most popular vehicle type in the country, standing at 2.683 million units through October, WardsAuto data shows, topping the former No.1 segment, Middle Car, by 600,000 units.

As with any high-volume group the competition is fierce, evidenced these past few years by slowing growth of the CR-V and rising sales of other C-platform CUVs, namely the Toyota RAV4, up 12.0% through October vs. the CR-V’s 1.8% increase.

But Honda thinks it has hit upon the right formula to fend off the competitors and keep the CR-V on top. The new fifth-generation CR-V, on sale Dec. 21, is bigger inside and out, plus it has a more powerful engine, better interior materials and more infotainment and safety technology.

Unlike the fourth-gen CR-V, which stayed close to the dimensions of the first-, second- and third-generation CR-Vs, the new model grows 1.2 ins. (30 mm) in length from ’16 and 1.4 ins. (36 mm) in width. The new CR-V is just 1.6 ins. (41 mm) longer and 3.0 ins. (76 mm) wider than the first-gen model introduced in 1997 in the U.S., making it one of the smaller midsize CUVs available in this market.

While Honda touts the new CUV’s class-leading interior space, it has more of an advantage on cargo room than passenger volume. It appears to be on top in cargo volume (39.2 cu.-ft. [1.1 cu.-m]) with the rear seat up, but its 105.9 cu.-ft. (3.0 cu.-m) of passenger volume is topped by the ’17 Subaru Forester, which has 108.3 cu.-ft. (3.1 cu.-m) for people, but 34.4 cu.-ft. (1.0 cu.-m) for their stuff.

Compared with the outgoing CR-V, rear legroom increases 2.1 ins. (53 mm) in the new generation, and the cargo area is 9.8 ins. (249 mm) longer for 5 ft. (1.5 m) of cargo length behind the first row to the tailgate.

The CUV’s look is nicely advanced for ’17, with LED daytime running lights and turn signals on all grades, even the $24,045 LX base model. Full LED headlights, as well as LED taillights and brake lights come on the top Touring grade.

Taillights are more horizontally arrayed than vertical, and the midpoint of the tailgate is higher, with a stronger, straighter chrome trim piece. On the rear-quarter panel abutting the tailgate there are interesting crevices and creases in the sheetmetal, a stamping success.

The D-pillar is more upright than before, which helps improve the cargo volume.

The CR-V’s face is similar, but now the bottom portion of the upper grille is blacked-out, losing the ’16’s chrome trim piece.

New Engine Not Necessarily Better

Honda is heavily touting the fact the new CR-V has a more powerful engine than its predecessor, the 1.5L turbocharged inline 4-cyl. from the ’16 Civic. However, that is just in EX and above grades. The CR-V LX keeps the 2.4L naturally aspirated I-4 from the ’16 CR-V.

The 1.5T is nominally more powerful than the ’16’s 2.4L, making 190 hp vs. 185 hp. It has slighty lower peak torque, 179 lb.-ft. (243 Nm) vs. the ’16 2.4L’s 181 lb.-ft. (245 Nm), although the peak arrives sooner, at 2,000 rpm and lasting until 5,000 rpm. The 2.4L peaked at 3,900 rpm.

Even with such a wide peak-torque range, this engine is a bit underpowered to propel the 3,512-lb. (1,593-kg) Touring AWD grade we drive here, at least up hills. Acceleration is pokey even on more gentle grades. The 1.5T is paired with a CVT, which creates engine droning under hard acceleration.

However, if you don’t live in Northern California or another similar hilly locale, the CR-V is great on flat roads, with less noise and providing more readily available mid-range torque.

To give it more power over the Civic’s 1.5T, rated at 174 hp and maximum 167 lb.-ft. (226 Nm) of torque, Honda engineers eliminated two of the Civic tubine’s 11 blades and reshaped the remaining nine. The compression ratio is lowered, to 10.3:1 from 10.6:1.

We net a hybrid-like 31.6 mpg (7.4 L/100 km) and 33.0 mpg (7.1 L/10 km) on two mostly highway stretches from Monterey to San Francisco. The latter figure is the EPA-estimated highway mileage for all-wheel-drive models and up from 31 mpg (7.6 L/100 km) highway in ’16 CR-Vs with AWD. Helping improve fuel economy for ’17 is Honda’s first active grille shutter system, reducing drag at higher speeds.

The ’17 CR-V rides on Honda’s new C-segment platform, also underpinning the Civic, which has more high-strength and ultra-high-strength steel than the outgoing CR-V, resulting in a lighter, more rigid body. The new model has 13.8% ultra-high-strength hot-stamp steel content (1500 MPa), up from 3% in the '16 CR-V. New for '17 is the addition of 11.8% 980 MPa-grade ultra-high-strength steel content.

The CR-V retains its MacPherson-strut suspension up front, but in the rear swaps the ’16 CR-V’s reactive link double-wishbone design for a multilink setup. The new CR-V also adds fluid-filled suspension bushings.

Honda provided competitors the ’17 Ford Escape SE with all-wheel drive and the ’17 RAV4 Limited AWD here, plus the outgoing ’16 CR-V, for comparison drives here on the curving La Honda Road (no relation) in Woodside, CA.

The Escape, with its European roots, is the most road-hugging of the bunch. It has thicker stabilizer bars front and rear vs. the CR-V, but they all perform admirably in a test not many would think is well-suited to a midsize CUV.

The new CR-V has better stability at higher speeds on La Honda Road than the outgoing model and feels lighter and more toss-able than its predecessor.

Honda upgraded the outgoing CR-V’s electric power steering system for better maneuverability at low speeds and requiring fewer turns to lock, 2.3 vs. 3.1. The ’16 CR-V, as tested here, requires a huge turn to move the vehicle a small amount left or right.

More Soft-Touch, Style

The CR-V’s interior is nicely updated from the heavily hard-plastic cabin of the outgoing model. The upper instrument panel is soft-touch, although the lower IP still is made of hard plastic. The seats have an attractive horizontal stitching pattern, reminiscent of VW’s and adding design flair.

Also adding style is a blocky/swirly design on the center console’s hard-plastic phone tray.

Honda touts the CR-V’s full-color TFT display between gauges, although the colors shown mainly are black, grey and white, with a bit of red. The refreshed ’17 Escape has an edge here with a bright blue interface. The Escape’s TFT packs in more information at a glance, while the CR-V’s is relatively uncluttered, but requires delving deeper into menu settings.

The CR-V’s Garmin-based navigation system works well in our testing, and the CUV’s voice-recognition system is top-notch, too. We ask it to tune to SiriusXM 80s on 8 and find a specific address in Michigan, and it does both on the first try, quickly. It’s also great at finding points of interest such as store names, a failure point for many voice-recognition systems. Slightly annoying though is having to confirm each result.

The return of a volume knob has been much ballyhooed. It is great to have it back. It was too easy to overshoot your desired volume level with the previous CR-V’s slider control.

The CR-V Touring grade boasts standard adaptive cruise control, which will bring the vehicle to a full stop.

In our test, once we figure out how to turn on distance control to set the gap between us and the car ahead, the CR-V’s ACC brings us down to 6 mph (9.7 km/h) as the car we trail makes a left into a driveway. It resumes on its own as we don’t come to a full stop.

Lane-keep assist is very sensitive, signaling if we even think about leaving the center of our lane. Still, on the twisty mountain roads here it is appreciated. ACC and LKAS are part of the HondaSensing suite of safety technologies, standard on EX and higher grade levels.

Bringing the CR-V into the modern age are added USB and/or charge ports in the rear. They get extra points for being lit at night so you can find them.

The ’17 CR-V sees pricing rise $200 from ’16, despite the higher levels of content, reflecting how cutthroat the Middle CUV segment has become. The LX grade, expected to account for 25% of sales, starts at $24,045. The EX, to take 30% of sales, is $26,695, while the EX-L is $29,195. The EX-L should account for 20% of sales, while models with a $1,000 navigation system should take another 10%. The top-level Touring grade, $32,395, is forecast to comprise 15% of sales. Adding AWD to any grade raises prices $1,300.

The pricing is competitive, but this year Toyota’s growth has been proportional to the availability of a hybrid, which Honda is planning but doesn’t offer yet. To stay at the top of its class, CR-V must be competitive on leasing. We expect it will be, as through October the RAV4 was within 7,000 units of overtaking the Honda CUV.

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'17 Honda CR-V Touring AWD Specifications