January 2008 was bound to be a stressful week with the Auto Expo, OVERDRIVE Awards and issue closing - all coinciding over a week. So before stress levels reached an all time high during this extremely busy week I decided to head out to Mangalore, my native place to get a much needed break. So with the Christmas holidays looming up I packed the family into the CR-V and headed down the not so scenic but much faster Golden Quad. From Mumbai you hit the Pune expressway and then continue on past Pune through Satara, Kolhapur before you divert from Hubli to Mangalore. The G-Quad is a brilliant highway that fully utilises the mile munching abilities of the CR-V. The roads are relatively straight for miles, traffic sparse and the surface even. This let me hold the CR-V is sixth gear for a major part of the way, rarely needing to downshift. The meaty mid range torque dispels any need to downshift when encountering traffic, even when in top gear. This not just provides great driveability but as I was praying also helps keep the fuel efficiency in check. However once the rev needle crosses 3500rpm and the speed crosses 120kmph, you can clearly see the efficiency indicator on the instrument console swooping below the 5kmpl mark. And that is the only tragedy with the CR-V; her 2.4-litre inline 4 is one of the thirstiest Honda engines I have come across.
Nevertheless her dynamic character, complemented by a fantastic ride quality more than makes up for her thirst. From Hubli you have to divert off the G Quad and hit the road going towards Karwar. This is a winding road though wide with smooth tarmac. Inundated with heavy trucks carrying iron ore to the ship yards at Karwar, the continuous flow reduced our pace considerably, inducing a lot of gear shifting. We had now driven over 800km constantly and after an hour on this stretch I noticed a slight knottiness in the gearshift, every time I moved it from second into third. This persisted until I reached home, a couple of hundred kilometres ahead and let her cool. Since then I have not encountered the problem. I am waiting for an opportunity to put her through a really long drive to see if the knots creep back again.
On the space and comfort front the CR-V has little comparison. She easily gobbled up all my Christmas shopping into the massive boot and still provided a no fuss ride. Much larger SUVs I have driven have a horrible ride with or without a full load; so the CR-V was real delight to have on a family outing such as this. The rear bench is respectably wide and the backrest properly angled to provide optimal comfort over longer distances. Even my 4-year-old son who had the best time of his life reclined in that back seat can vouch for this.
