Honda CR - V

Compact sports utility was in its infancy when Honda reworked the Civic’s platform to underpin a soft-roader’s shell. The CR-V was available with part-time all-wheel drive from the off (although it was slyly dubbed ‘Real Time’) and hoovered up regional sales on its way to becoming a global model.

Arguably, the concept of 4x4 ruggedness has never left much of an indentation on the Honda brand, but it hasn’t needed to. The CR-V, in three previous generations, has already breached five million sales.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that our in-depth look at the new CR-V comes barely a week after Honda was forced into a huge global recall but, faulty window switches aside, the firm’s long-running SUV has lived a rather blameless life.

The model’s mingling of car-like reflexes with a 4x4’s practicality was revolutionary when it was unveiled in 1995. Now, of course, it’s the segment norm. Every significant player in the mid-market features something along similar lines and, worse still for the CR-V, premium car makers and former budget brands have got in on the act, too.

Competition comes from the expected, like the Ford Kuga, but also from Kia, Hyundai and, arguably more worrying still if you’re calculating potential volumes at Honda, from BMW and Audi.

So Honda’s job now is to keep the CR-V well respected in this bustling and pretty saturated segment of the market. To that end, this new model has received a styling rebuff to differentiate it heavily from its predecessor. More importantly, it attempts to address some of the old car’s more objective shortcomings. Let’s see how it gets on.

DESIGN

Like the Nissan Qashqai, the CR-V is a British-built SUV. The latest European version is a product of Honda’s continuing investment at its site in Swindon. But while the CR-V’s critical market is the US, Honda stresses that this car has also been specifically tuned to succeed here.

Many of the broad-brush changes to the fourth-generation of CR-V will appeal to UK customers. Bowing sensibly to market conditions, the new range will include the option of front-wheel drive (only with the petrol motor to begin with) alongside the established four-wheel drive.

In a bid to improve fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions, the CR-V’s two engines – both carried over from the current car – have been overhauled. Reductions in internal friction mean that the 153bhp 2.0-litre i-VTEC unit’s emissions have fallen from 192g/km to 174g/km (170g/km with 2WD), and the 148bhp 2.2-litre i-DTEC diesel drops from 171g/km to 153g/km. A 1.6-litre diesel is set to join the CR-V range in 2013.

The diesel retains its 4WD drivetrain but this, too, has been overhauled, with an electronically controlled multi-plate clutch replacing the hydraulically operated ‘dual pump’ system.

The adoption of a flat underfloor and a longer roof contributes to a claimed 6.5 per cent reduction in drag coefficient and, thanks to an increase in body rigidity, Honda’s engineers have increased damper volumes by 10 per cent all round on its MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension.

Structurally, there isn’t much variation, although some clever repackaging and a styling polish have left the CR-V 5mm shorter and 30mm lower than before, with more luggage space to fill. Fold the rear seats flat and there’s an extra 148 litres, made more accessible by a 25mm-lower load lip.

INTERIOR

Honda is among the handful of manufacturers that linger somewhere in between the mainstream brands and the rigid European interpretation of ‘premium’. Fans of the marque will appreciate the CR-V’s teak-tough build quality and the robust material choices made inside. Detractors will bemoan its patent lack of flair and aesthetic imagination.

Both cases are easy to make but, for our money, the CR-V is a respectable place to sit. Although function has been given a higher priority than form, that is hardly a bad thing in a car aimed so squarely at the laborious business of carting a family around.

At this task, the cabin performs admirably. There’s plenty of space behind the front seats for teenage legs, and the absence of an intruding transmission tunnel means that even those poor souls condemned to the thinner middle chair will have little reason to complain. The experience is further enhanced by a 38mm lowering of the rear passengers’ hip point which, together with large and unusually rectangular windows, offers better light levels and headroom.

Usher the children out and there’s a substantial four-wheeled cavern to fill. Accessing it all is exquisitely simple: open the back door, pull a fabric handle on either side of the seats and, as if by magic, the base flops forward, followed quickly by the back. The headrest even tucks in all by itself. Such niftiness is a far more powerful patriarchal aphrodisiac than any artfully lit dashboard.

And that is a happy coincidence, because Honda’s attempt at such a thing is typically lacklustre. The Eco Assist’s glow-green tree meter migrates from the Insight and CR-Z to rate your right foot’s economy but fails to shine. As does the CR-V’s second digital display, which is relegated, most of the time, to simply showing a clock or repeating your selection on the heater controls. The sat-nav is more usable, but its touchscreen is flanked by far too many small buttons.

Such limitations deny the Honda’s cabin top marks (a familiar shortcoming) but there’s more inside the crossover to appeal than to put off.

PERFORMANCE

Remember when Honda introduced its first diesel passenger car engine? It was designed by Honda’s petrol powertrain engineers, who had pretty high standards when it came to refinement and driveability, and it showed. The Honda unit was, by comparison to its peers, hushed and responsive. Moreover, in the outgoing CR-V, it was easily the engine of choice.

But while Honda’s competitors have been furiously rewriting their own standards on quietness and responsiveness, Honda’s progress has, seemingly, slowed by comparison. It’s still refined but no longer anything like a stand-out motor in the class.

Not when you consider that this model’s price pitches it perilously close to the BMW X3 2.0-litre diesel, whose drivetrain would give the Honda a particularly thorough shoeing.

That’s also true when it comes to the amount of power it delivers. The BMW has 181bhp, the CR-V just 148bhp, backed by 258lb ft of torque. That’s enough to propel this automatic CR-V to 60mph in 9.7sec, which is respectable but no more than that.

The Hyundai Santa Fe we tested recently completed the dash 0.7sec quicker and also featured one more ratio in its automatic gearbox than the five that grace the CR-V. Still, the Honda shifts between gears cleanly and responds keenly to pulls on the steering-wheel-mounted paddles.

A return of 44.7mpg on a touring run and 36.1mpg overall are not shabby for a car of this girth, even if the four-wheel-drive elements of the drivetrain are mostly unengaged.

Braking performance is very good in the dry, with the CR-V needing just 2.51sec and 45.6m to come to rest from 60mph and 70mph respectively (another 0.3sec and 3m are perfectly acceptable). Its wet weather stopping performance is less impressive, but not to the point of disappointment.