Honda ZR-V long-term review

• Report 1: Honda's new family SUV joins our fleet
• Report 2: Using the ZR-V to carry bikes
• Report 3: Honda ZR-V vs Kia Sportage
• Report 4: Taking our ZR-V on a European road trip
• Report 5: It might lack the wow-factor, but it works
• Report 6: It's goodbye to our Honda ZR-V

Report 1: Honda's new family SUV joins our fleet

Sharing the same underpinnings and tech from the Civic, will the Honda ZR-V win us over like it's hatchback sibling did?

Date: 18 March 2024 | Current mileage: 7456 miles | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 44.5mpg

Last year we ran Honda's Civic hatchback for three months and loved it. We're back in another Honda, but this time it's the brand's new family SUV, the ZR-V. With the same underpinnings and lots of tech from the Civic, are we going to be just as smitten this time round? 

You don't need me to tell you that the family SUV sector is hugely competitive, with the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage and Skoda Karoq just some of the popular options out there. It's perhaps a little strange then that until the arrival of the ZR-V in 2023, Honda hasn't really offered a direct competitor - there's either been the smaller HR-V or larger CR-V to choose from. 

Our Honda ZR-V long-termer is kitted out in top-of-the-line Advance trim (above Elegance and Sport trims) and finished in Diamond Dust Pearl (a £650 upgrade) and while there are some nice details on the pretty sleek exterior design, I can't help feeling Honda's designers could have been a bit braver with the styling. Some buyers might prefer the ZR-V in Sport trim that comes with a honeycomb-style grille, a sharper-looking front end and different bumpers. That said, it's a nicely balanced design overall and is less divisive than some rivals. 

As you'd expect, our top-spec Honda ZR-V Advance is pretty comprehensively spec'd. There's some nice diamond-cut 18-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic roof, heated front and rear seats, large head-up display, 12-speaker Bose stereo, 9-inch touchscreen and a 10.2-inch digital instrument display. 

There's also front and rear parking sensors (and rear camera), LED lights front and rear (with our Advance model enjoying active corner lights), wireless charging and both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay is wireless, but just as I found when running the Civic, Android users still have to plug in their device in rather annoyingly to get the benefits of Android Auto. 

What trim you pick (and what colour paint) are going to be the only big decisions you're going to have to make if you're looking to buy a ZR-V, as there's only one engine to pick from. The good news is though that it's the same hybrid engine that impressed us in the Civic. This sees a 2.0-litre petrol engine powering two electric motors, which in turn drives the wheels. You'll find at low speeds that the ZR-V will run along in EV Drive mode, but push on a bit and it'll automatically swap to Hybrid Drive, with the engine kicking in to generate the additional power required. At higher speeds the wheels are directly powered by the engine and assisted by the electric motors. 

It's a clever system (and for clarity, it's not a PHEV either) and promises a combined fuel economy of 48.7mpg, but you could expect upwards of 60mpg with some careful driving. Just like the Civic is produces 184PS and 315Nm of torque, while despite the weight penalty over its hatchback sibling, is only a bit slower at 0-62mph, taking 8 seconds (compared to 7.9 seconds for the Civic). 

After the Civic and the ZR-V all feels very familiar. Question is, would I be prepared to pay the extra £3000 premium for a ZR-V over a Civic? I'm not sure yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out over the next three months. 

Report 2: Using the ZR-V to carry bikes

The ZR-V is fitting into family life with ease, and with a towbar fitted its now much more practical.

Date: 8 April 2024 | Current mileage: 7841 | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 43.9mpg

One of the negatives that's been levelled at the ZR-V is it's boot size. At 370 litres with the rear seats up, the amount of space available is actually less than the Civic (at 410 litres). That's before you've started to compare it to the competition - the Nissan Qashqai enjoys 504 litres, while the Skoda Karoq trumps them all at 588 litres.

Now I'm not going to say that a smaller boot is better, but for a family of four (and a dog), I don't think there's been an occasion yet when we've missed the bigger boot capacities offered on the ZR-V's rivals. Our girls are past the stage of needing buggies and the extra kit that comes with small children, so it might be a different story for those with younger families, but the ZR-V's boot is a useful shape and there's been no complaints from our dog Mary when she's travelled in the boot.  

The constant rain has also meant we've come to appreciate the ZR-V's fitted boot liner. It does make it look quite functional, but it's a small price to pay to keep the carpet underneath relatively clean when we come back to the car after some pretty muddy dog walks. 

Before the ZR-V arrived I was a little worried that the girls bikes wouldn't fit in the back considering the boot size, but I was relieved to find that both fitted in the back nice and easily. The larger bike needed the front wheel to pop off, but as I've found in the past, this isn't unique to the ZR-V. 

That's the kids bikes sorted, but what happens if we want to ride with them? Before our ZR-V arrived I asked if it could be fitted with a towbar and Honda kindly obliged. 

It's a retractable system so for the times you're not using it, it's tucked out of the way and won't spoil the lines of the car. Then when you want to fit a bike rack or pull a trailer, there's a opening mechanism positioned in the boot sill, and all you have to do is pull this upwards and out pops the towbar. There's a 13-pin harness and a maximum towing capacity of 750kg, while there's a vertical load capacity of 75kg - even if you're planning to mount two heavy e-bikes that should be more than enough. Only drawback is that the Handsfree Tailgate Access functionality on our Advance spec car is sacrificed to make way for the towbar, but it's more than a fair swap for my needs. 

This meant we could easily fit a towbar-mounted bike rack, in this case a Thule Epos 2 bike carrier. Ours fits two bikes, but there is a version that accommodates three if you don't want to fill up the boot with bikes. It was a doddle to set up - it locks onto the towbar and once you've hooked up the 13-pin lead, you've got power to the lights. Only thing you need to do is disable the rear parking sensor - not to dull the noise of the beeps when you go into reverse, but to stop it automatically slamming on the brakes when it thinks you're going to smack into something. 

It might sound daft, but this has been a great addition to the ZR-V - it makes it much more versatile for our needs, meaning we can have days out as a family that we wouldn't normally be able to do. So much so that we're off to The Netherlands in a couple of months with bikes in tow. 

Report 3: Honda ZR-V vs Kia Sportage

How does our Honda ZR-V long-termer stack up against one of the best family SUVs going, the Kia Sportage?

Date: 26 April 2024 | Current mileage: 8253 miles | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 45.7mpg

As I've touched on earlier, the Honda ZR-V is pretty new to the market when it comes to mid-size family SUVs, so I thought it would be a good idea to see how it stacked up against one of its most popular rivals, the Kia Sportage. 

Unlike the relatively streamlined ZR-V model range, there's a wide list of permutations you can have your Sportage in, with the choice of either petrol, mild-hybrid, hybrid or plug-in hybrid engines to pick from. It's the hybrid version that naturally lends itself be compared with our ZR-V's engine, but they do things a little differently. The Sportage HEV uses a 1.6-litre petrol engine and battery combination that delivers 230PS. Officially it's a bit quicker 0-62mph at 7.7 seconds, while a combined fuel economy of 51.4mpg also promises slightly better fuel efficiency. 

Alongside our ZR-V long-termer and the design of the Sportage is much more striking, especially round the front of the car. Which one you prefer will come down to personal taste, but I found I had a new appreciation for the ZR-V's restrained styling. And once inside, there's an even wider step-change in design philosophy.

While the ZR-V has a much more traditional look, the Sportage's interior is dominated by two 12.3-inch displays (on '3' trims and above). One for the digital instrument display and one for the infotainment and coming from our ZR-V's rather dated looking 9-inch display, it's like going from using a Sony Ericsson phone in the mid-2000s to picking up Samsung's latest smartphone. It looks very slick and it's nice and responsive, while the clarity of the reversing camera is a noticeable improvement over the ZR-V's. However and despite all of this, I still find the ZR-V easier to use. Some of that could be familiarity, but the amount of physical buttons dotted round the dash make it more intuitive to use. 

The other big difference is the boot space. We've mentioned this already, but the ZR-V has a pretty compact boot at 380 litres, but the Sportage enjoys a much larger 562-litre boot. That's quite significant and can't be ignored, especially if you've got a young family with buggies and prams to cram in the back. 

Price-wise and the OTR price of the Sportage in top-of-the-range GT-Line S trim is about £2500 less than the top-spec ZR-V Advance at just over £40,000. That's a decent chunk of money, but depending on the deal you can track down, there might not be too much in it on finance. So which one should you choose? I'm leaning to the ZR-V at the moment, but it's easy to see why the Sportage has proved so popular. 

Report 4: Taking our ZR-V on a European road trip

A half-term holiday to The Netherlands gives us a chance to really stretch the legs of our Honda ZR-V.

Date: 3 June 2024 | Current mileage: 8979 miles | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 48.6mpg

Since my last update our long-term Honda ZR-V has slipped effortlessly into the day-to-day demands of family life, with most of its miles clocked up on short trips. That all changed last week with half-term and a 600-odd mile round trip to The Netherlands for a few days away. 

As I've mentioned in a previous update, the modest boot of the ZR-V hadn't proved to be too much of an issue for us, but how would it fair on a much longer trip? With some careful packing (that included squeezing in two children's bikes) we managed to fit in everything we needed. Would some more space have been handy? Yes, but we could fit in everything we needed and the girls weren't too hemmed in in the back. 

With two adult bikes mounted onto our Thule Epos bike rack, our ZR-V was properly loaded up. Setting off early, the journey to our holiday accommodation just north of Amsterdam took around seven hours or so via the Channel Tunnel. 

With the adaptive cruise control set and Android Auto hooked up, what could have been a pretty tiring trip became pretty stress free. Even swapping over the ZR-V's distance measurement from miles to kilometres was remarkably easy via a couple of taps of the menu - just remember to do it when stationary otherwise you're locked into a game of miles to kilometres conversion when you roll off the train the other side of the tunnel. 

Even with the bikes on the back, the ZR-V felt nice and stable at motorway speeds, and while the additions of bikes and a carrier added quite a bit of extra weight (and drag) to the car, the 48.6mpg average when we arrived at our destination really impressed. 

The return leg took a bit longer thanks to some pretty horrible weather and slow traffic round Antwerp, but again, the ZR-V didn't put a foot wrong. The only downside this time was I didn't have space to squeeze in a crate of Texels Blond beer in the boot as it was jam-packed with everything else. 

Report 5: It might lack the wow-factor, but it works

It might not be flash, but the ZR-V's infotainment gets the the fundamentals right.

Date: 10 June 2024 | Current mileage: 9034 miles | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 47.5mpg

I've been driving the new Volkswagen Tiguan for the last week. There's lots to like about it, while my test car was fitted with the optional 15-inch touchscreen infotainment display. It's huge and will embarrass many laptops and tablets. You can also imagine buyers wondering round one in the showroom, looking inside and being wowed by the level of tech on display.

You can then imagine that same customer driving over to the Honda dealership and having a poke around a ZR-V and looking at the 9-inch screen with its dated graphics and feeling like they were looking back into the past. 

I've moaned before about the graphics on the ZR-V (and the Civic for that mater), but it still amazes me that no one in Honda's R&D has looked at it and wondered if they can do better. Actually, we know they can - the now discontinued Honda E and the relatively new e:Ny1 both have sharper looking interfaces. The e:Ny1 was launched at a similar time to the ZR-V, so it seems strange that there wasn't more crossover with the infotainment. It also still baffles me why I need a USB lead for Android Auto to work.

That said, after a week with the Tiguan I was craving to be back in the ZR-V and it's no-nonsense infotainment system. It's not without its faults, but it's a breeze to navigate compared to the overly complicated interface found on the Tiguan. 

Report 6: It's goodbye to our Honda ZR-V

After three months it's time to say goodbye to our Honda ZR-V long-termer.

Date: 19 June 2024 | Current mileage: 9359 miles | Claimed economy: 48.7mpg | Actual economy: 45.7mpg

My three months with ZR-V has been pretty uneventful, and that's not a slight levelled at it either. Reality is that if you're buying a family SUV like this, you probably want your motoring and ownership to be low on drama. 

With the exception of some unwanted wheelspin when pulling away and looking like you're pretending to be in a Type R and not a ZR-V, the ZR-V is a comfortable and composed drive. It won't make the hair on the back of your neck stand on it, but the hybrid engine is excellent and certainly one of the most polished options out there. The electric power delivery is smooth, while it doesn't sound stressed when you need to get a shift on. And we've been nothing but impressed by the fuel economy we've been able to achieve with it, regularly finding it hitting the high 40s and beyond in some instances.

Inside and even after covering almost 10,000 miles and there's not a single creak or rattle echoing around the ZR-V's cabin. As I went into in my last update, while the interior might lack the wow-factor of rivals, there's a lot to appreciate. While every other new car seems to have ditched physical controls in favour of having to control everything through a touchscreen, the ZR-V shuns this and is all the better for it. A simple twist of the dial to change the temp for example - lovely. 

You can't argue with the quality either, while our Advance trim comes with pretty much everything you could want and there's plenty of space for a family of four. However, there might not be space for a family of four's luggage - the boot is only 380 litres. It has to be said that we didn't find this an issue with our three months with the ZR-V, but I'm sure some buyers will be put off by this - especially when rivals have significantly larger boots for similar or less money. 

And speaking of money, it's one of the pricier options in the world of family SUVs and while viewed in isolation it's a very capable car, I don't think it does quite enough to stand out from the crowd or justify the premium price tag. 

And perhaps its biggest competition doesn't come from rivals, but closer to in the shape of the brilliant Civic. Costing some £3000 less, you still get that brilliant hybrid engine, but cloaked in a much sleeker and stylish design, while it also benefits from a bigger boot than the ZR-V.