Hello Mike H, is your CR-V a diesel or petrol? Considering one for towing my caravan but have almost decided on diesel for the torque at lower revs, just wondering what the 1.6 Honda unit is like.

Cheers Concrete

It's a 1.6 120bhp 2WD. To be honest, it was a fairly short notice descision to go for this type of car. We needed reliabilty, and two of our friends had older CR-Vs and recommended them. It has good torque with no big step at the bottom end, unlike the 110bhp VW Golf Sportsvan we test drove, which was smooth, but had nothing at lower revs. The 4WD CR-V has a 160bhp version of the same engine with twin turbo.

It's a smooth engine, feels good on the road, and has returned a real overall 52mpg since new (now has c. 12,000 on the clock). We live in Austria, and although most of our driving is on the relative flat, it does need a bit of stick-stirring on the more hilly bits to keep it on the boil. If you were towing a caravan, you might be better off with the more powerful version, although our friends are only getting around 42mpg long term average from theirs. I've posted a review in "Owners Reviews" under the same name as I post here (but we've got over the seat problems and it's actually very comfortable on long journeys, and feels nicely pokey on the motorway). Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.