By Kevin Harrison

Not too long ago, I was asked at a party why there were so few wagons on the road these days. My response?

“What do you mean? I can’t leave the house without seeing wagons everywhere!”

The dumbfounded look on the gentleman’s face required me to clarify.

You see, despite what marketing and PR departments like to tell us, those “crossovers/SUV’s” you see on the roads are actually just jacked up wagons. True SUV’s are truck-based and are body on frame. Most CUV’s are car-based. They raise the ride height, add all-wheel drive and design them to look more like SUV’s than wagons or hatchbacks.

This seems to be agreeable with most of the North American buying public. As such, the top contenders have been enjoying steady sales.

But Honda has learned a hard lesson: you can’t rest too much on your laurels.  An “emergency redesign” was necessary for the Civic back in 2012 in order to quell all the negative criticism against it.

The CR-V has long been a favourite of automotive journalists alike, but Honda didn’t want to rely too heavily on that either.

So for 2015, Honda has introduced a significantly refreshed version of the CR-V.

 

One of the first things Honda did was clean up the front-end styling. I always found the front end styling to be a bit bulbous and cartoonish, but the new refresh adds a cleaner front grille, redesigned headlights which now include LED daytime running lights and projector headlamps. The top trim level gets redesigned, eye-catching 18-inch wheels along with splashes of chrome throughout. While the bulbous proportions still remain from certain angles, overall the look is much improved and is a big step in the right direction.

 

Inside, you’ll find a typical Honda layout, which is both good and bad. It is good in terms of design – everything is where you’d expect it to be – however there are a few issues with function. The touch screen can be maddening to use. Specifically, when the CR-V was delivered to me, the previous driver had the brightness of the screen set to dark – or pretty much off. No problem, I’ll just brighten it using the button located on the side of the screen. The issue is once you park and then return to the vehicle, the screen defaulted to black, rendering it unusable. I would have to bring the brightness up each time I got in the car. I searched in the settings to try to stop it from defaulting to black, but I could not get it to do so.

 

On top of that, the buttons that controls the brightness, volume, menus and home button were also irritating. They are far too small and don’t always respond. While I must admit, having an actual button to control the volume is better than the touch option found in other Honda’s it’s still way easier to use a conventional knob. The centre stack does include two screens however, making it easy to use the nav system all while being able to see what is being played on the radio.

 

However the top trim model gets lots of luxury goodies such as navigation, LaneWatch (a camera on the passenger side that allows you to see if anything is in your blind spot), a power lift gate and a lot more.

 

In terms of interior space the CR-V is a champ. It has much more passenger and cargo room than its exterior dimensions would suggest. It’s a bit Fit-like in that way, only without the smart folding seats. You can, however fold the rear seats relatively flat allowing for loads of cargo room, however the CR-V would likely swallow most of your stuff even with the seats up. On top of that, you get a low load floor making the CR-V a no brainer if cargo capacity is your main concern.

 

Honda is slapping CVT transmissions into a lot of their models these days and the CR-V is the latest to get the mind numbing treatment. I will say, however, as far as CVT’s go, it is relatively quiet and unobtrusive. When mated to the CR-V’s 2.4-litre 4-cylinder engine, which makes 185 horsepower, the CR-V is able to get up and go with a decent amount of pep. You can still feel the transmission fighting you from going any faster, but it will eventually comply. For most families, there is more than adequate power and the CVT likely wouldn’t be a deal breaker.

 

The advantage of the CVT is increased fuel efficiency and the CR-V’s consumption ratings are 9.1 L/100 kms city and 7.2 L/100 kms highway. In real world mixed driving I was able to average 9.8 L/100 kms, which isn’t bad at all – some mid-size sedans struggle to achieve that kind of efficiency.

 

The ride is quite good as in it feels close to premium. Bumps and potholes are soaked up by the suspension relatively well, though the 18-inch wheels can produce some harshness from time to time. The steering has a good weighted feel to it – more so than one would expect from a tall wagon, uh, I mean CUV. The CR-V feels nimble and compact – almost in the same manner that the Fit does – and that is very much a good thing for urban commuting.  While the CR-V can hold its own in terms of handling, don’t expect it to have the same abilities of the sportier Mazda CX-5. I was able to test out Honda’s all-wheel drive system in snowy conditions and as predicted it handled Canada’s treacherous winter conditions with ease.  The only complaint I had was that the traction control system did not appear to have much give, it would come it almost right away nullifying any speed you built up in the first place.

 

But as far as a tall wagon goes, it is still among the best. It is nicely balanced in every sense of the word and it now has agreeable exterior styling to boot. With all that said, traditional wagons and hatchbacks still make more sense to me, but there is no arguing the CR-V’s abilities to get the job done in style, comfort and ease.

Price As Tested: $38,335

Pros:

• Improved exterior styling
• Tons of interior room for people and cargo
• Surprisingly good engine/transmission combo
• Low load floor

Cons:

• Maddening touchscreen
• Buttons are too small
• Can look chunky from certain angles

Immediate Competition:

• Chevrolet Equinox
• Dodge Journey
• Ford Escape
• GMC Terrain
• Hyundai Santa Fe
• Jeep Cherokee
• Kia Sportage
• Mazda CX-5
• Mitsubishi Outlander
• Nissan Rogue
• Subaru Forester
• Toyota RAV4
• Volkswagen Tiguan