Gadgetory

when you hear about legends in the auto business you always hear about f-150 and Camry and Accord but there's another one I'm gonna point out to you that I'm in it right now Honda CRV it's the rock star of a category full of rock stars but it just got a facelift let's find out what they did when they tampered with success as we drive 215 CRV touring all-wheel drive and check the tech so far in 2015 the CRV is running comfortably ahead of a very tough feel like the hard to beat rav4 that invented the category Nissan's resurgent Road and the ever-popular Ford Escape now as you can see to be sure they didn't do major surgery on this latest CRV but enough to make its potable take a look at the front face it no longer has these kind of fussy 3 chrome bars of the outgoing model now it looks more like a Civic and it's a little more aggressive or sporty looking out back they got rid of this kind of goofy smile like feature line straightened it out in general the car looks a little more macho a little more present now inside the CRV one of the first things you'll notice is a new set of head units that are the big 7-inch touchscreen type this is the high-end one in this vehicle I've never been a big fan of Honda navigation as you know it's a clunky interface it's kind of poorly rendered since Honda locks out lots of inputs while the car is moving and has no control a knob or hand riding pad yeah better love their voice wreck I often don't go to nearest Chinese restaurant hardened Yocum and basically they can't put any bins in this car that hold razor blades cyanide or a gun but you use one or all three after you try to figure out what mode you can be in to issue what voice command GAC luckily you've now got a new option at least on your iOS device for 60 bucks you can download and install this Honda link navigation app which is cloud connected you can enter addresses via voice here in one phrase it's fundamentally better than this you've also got a new AHA app in here that runs from the phone shows up on the dash as does the nav now to get what's on the phone on the dash you need to get a $100 cable kit that they sell which is a combination of USB and HDMI from your iOS device no Android yet to get that on the screen that is a horsey expensive mess but here's what they call their amid their multi information display this button on the wheel takes you through a few helper screens it allows you to split things up put entertainment away up there while you focus on nav down here is a common scenario when it comes to your media sources you've got the usuals plus nice touches include Pandora integrated here HD radio you now have two USB ports here in the console and the uh nympho tainment your drive controls in this vehicle are going to be a one choice only CVT gearbox you've got a sport mode here as a gear position not as an overall powertrain modifier there's no sport button for example beyond that all of this is nestled in one of the nicer looking cabins in its class this is a mature quality feel for not much money and if you thought Mazda's SKYACTIV was a stupid name for an engine try earth dreams what does that mean well it means different things in different Honda engines in this one it means they've introduced direct injection and reduce the friction of the internal moving parts the results are good 185 horsepower same as last year but it comes at a lower rpm and 181 pound-feet of torque that's 11% better than last year while the mpg went up for City and up three Highway that means 26 City 33 highway through this all-wheel-drive powertrain with now a CVT continuously variable transmission that's also new in this year's CRV now CRV is not a high-performance vehicle power though is adequate I don't have any problem with it and clearly that additional torque and lower rpm ceiling for max horsepower are helping and an awful lot of a kind of a crappy engine note coming through the engine bay you know they supposedly put a lot more sound insulation in they could add some more to along with that rather grading engine sound coming in is a rather grading ride quality and it's been improved they tell me from the last generation but it could use some more it's a nervous ride that can be fatiguing you feel every crack in the pavement unless the pavements really nice this transmission the CVT I give a lot of these knocks this is a real nice one I didn't even know it was a CVT when I first drove the car I always drive these cars knowing nothing about them to try and feel them without preconception I thought this had a standard automatic which is high praise for the CVT no paddles or any other nonsense as I showed you earlier it's a straightforward drivetrain there's also no settings for the all-wheel drive it's just there and it's working now all new on the CRV this time around our driver assist technologies like lane keep warning and active lane keep assist you hit a button right here on the right side of the wheel and this guy is gonna steer itself within the lane lines and it's actually really aggressive in fact it's kind of earring to be driving the car and feel how how hard it's pushing the wheel when it wants to keep you in the middle of the lane the various adaptive Drive technologies take over in a patchwork of speeds Lane cape tech works from 45 to 90 miles an hour forward collision braking up to about 62 miles an hour and adaptive cruise only above 22 miles an hour so it can't handle a really congested freeway mess still this is a lot of pseudo self-driving tech for an inexpensive little compact crossover and one of the most useful driver assist technologies is this one I hit the right signal and there's a camera over there on the right hand mirror that gives me this excellent view on the dash to see if I'm about to cut off someone like a cyclist over there or whatever is on my right side that's one of the best visual technologies in a car today I don't know why no one else does it unless these guys have it the back our CRV is a touring model so it's got just about all the bells and whistles included bass that's about thirty to five if you want all-wheel-drive its 1250 more there are a couple of dealer-installed options you might want remote start and some rear sonar to augment your rear camera all in we're looking at about thirty four seven is about as hard as you can push one of these overall as you can see Honda has not changed the mission or the role of the CRV they just made it nicer all around under the hood you're getting better power and more mpg inside the cabin a better attempt at cabin tech though it's still a work in progress and the adaptive driver assist tech is all new in this vehicle if you like the CRV before there's more to like about it now it's basically grown up marketing more realities of modern driving revealed now at CNET on cars.com click on smarter driver