Honda CR-V: Perfect addition to the family

For the past few years now a Honda has been our chosen mode of transport. And just as my family’s demand for space has increased, so have we moved from Civic, to Accord, now to CR-V for the past two years.

Anybody with a house full of girls, my wife Andrea and two daughters Bronwyn, 13, and Courtney, 10, making up mine, will know that you need a casual outfit, a beach outfit, a going out outfit, a cool weather outfit, a warm weather outfit and a just in case outfit per daughter per day, no questions asked.

And this is before we must pack the boogie boards, toiletry bags and find space for a pair of baggies and flip flops for me. So a CR-V it had to be.

And the perfect addition to our family for this year was the all-new and first-time offered by Honda front-wheel drive 2.0-litre Comfort model.

From the outside the CR-V is instantly recognisable and despite being slightly shorter by 5mm and lower by 30mm, and running LED daytime running lights with LED tail lights, you still get the same amount of interior space as the old model.

The interior of the new CR-V is a great place to spend a lot of time and is spacious and very stylish and functional to boot. Almost everything you could want in a family SUV is available too, with me really being grateful for the addition of speed cruise.

The 2.0 Comfort comes with a six-speed manual transmission only and is coupled to a free revving 1997cc i-VTEC, 16-valve, in-line four-cylinder petrol engine, that delivers 114 kW of power at 6 500 rpm and 192 Nm of torque at 4 300 rpm.

But there is a downside – the combination of the long 6th gear and relative power output means that you need to make liberal use of the gearbox if you want to keep the car on the boil when climbing inclines.

And this means that you won’t get near the claimed average fuel consumption figure of 7.3 litres per 100km. Going down we got 8.5 litres per 100km, taking it real easy, but coming back up home we got around 10 litres per 100 km.

Obviously the more powerful 140 kW/220 Nm 2.4-litre petrol version and the 110 kW/350 Nm 2.2-litre turbodiesel would make for slightly better fuel consumption but then you will have to pay around R100 000 more for the petrol and R200 000 more for the turbodiesel.