We’ve put 150+ miles on the CR-V so far, and I’m very happy with our purchase to date. It’s a pleasure to drive. It feels both nimble and solid on the road—a little chunkier than the 2006, which it is—but when I get on the gas it gets up and goes. We’re still getting used to the controls, and learning about most of the features. All of the new lane-sensing technology is a big shift; the display on the dash flashes SLOW when the car thinks you’re approaching something too fast. The lane-changing warnings are a mixture of lights and a chime; I liked how the Chevy flashed quietly in my peripheral vision better. The seats are firm and comfortable, and the adjustments make them even better. Overall, it’s a hell of a car for the money.

One thing that I don’t like is the rear bed situation: Honda cheaped out on the material they used to cover the spare tire well. At different times in the past, I have thrown a pressure washer, pallets of water, two Costco shopping carts worth of merchandise, several hundred pounds of tools, Scout car parts, and people in the rear of the 2006, sometimes all at once. I’ve often looked at the rear of the car squatting down over the wheels and wondered if I overloaded it a tiny bit, but I never once worried about breaking the rear deck. Maybe that’s because it famously uses a removable folding table as the rear floor. But in the 2024 it feels like cheap cardboard. I’m going to buy a 4×4′ section of 1/4″ sanded plywood and cut a custom floor to drop in under the carpet—or, better yet, just pull the OEM piece entirely and cover the plywood with an OEM Honda rubber floor tray.

I’m shocked to admit both Ford and Chevrolet have beaten Honda in CarPlay integration hands-down. Granted, we were driving upscale models of their SUVs, so we got upgrades like extra-large displays. Honda’s integration isn’t as technologically savvy, but it does get the job done. Having test-driven multiple makes of car over the last couple of years, I wouldn’t consider a car if it didn’t have CarPlay.  GM’s recent announcement that they’re going to discontinue CarPlay and go with some home-brewed infotainment system baffles me both because they did an excellent job with it in both examples we drove, and because it’s so monumentally difficult to do infotainment correctly. They’re going to have to hire a whole development team to build something half as good.