FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2018 HONDA CR-V

There are two cup holders in the front of the Honda CR-V in the central console. They are a good size for a disposable or re-usable coffee cup and my large refillable water bottle fits in them too. They are also rubber lined so you can remove them and clean them out.

The door pockets in the front are not enormous, they will hold a 600ml water bottle or Pigeon baby bottle. There is also an area to the front of the door pocket that I found useful for my wallet or keys. The door pockets, however, are not lined so anything you put in them will rattle around so if you have a sleeping passenger onboard it can disrupt them!

The glove box had a large manual in it and I could just get my wallet and iPad in there too but it wouldn't hold anything else as it is quite a small space.

In front of the cupholders, in the central console, is a rubber lined well with a 12V socket. I found this area useful for my phone as the rubber mat stopped it sliding around.

The lid of the central console storage box doubles as your armrest, when you lift it up there is an L shaped, rubber lined shelf that you can slide backwards and forwards.

There are two USB sockets and a 12V socket inside the central console storage box. I haven't seen this style of central console storage box before but it does seem to work quite well and it's a nice big space.

The glasses case in the ceiling doubles as a conversation mirror, which is a FANTASTIC BabyDrive feature! It gives you the ability to glance at what is going on in the back without having to turn your head all the way around and take your eyes off the road. I often worry that when I turn my head to look at my child in the back that when I turn back to the road there is an obstacle there! I have found my daughter loves it as well because she can see me in the mirror!

Our daughter finds this really comforting to be able to see our faces whilst we are driving along, as mum it is really handy to be able to see when/if they have fallen asleep or helps to keep them awake by making eye contact if you are trying to get them home and into bed for their nap. Or just to check on them. I have pulled over many times to check my baby was still breathing as she has just gone quiet when a nap is not due!!

The doors of the CR-V do have the little wells where the handles are, which I find really handy for keys or little things my daughter has in her hands when I'm putting her in and out of the car.

For the second row passengers, there are solid map pockets on the back of both front seats. You can put an iPad in them and they are concealed no one would be able to see it is there.

The door pockets in the back are a little smaller than the front ones. They will hold a 600ml water bottle or a Pigeon baby bottle.

There are two cup holders in an armrest that folds down from the central seat back. They are a good size for a disposable or reusable coffee cup or a 600ml water bottle.

The boot of the Honda CR-V will hold 13 bags of shopping when it is empty! That is a respectable amount for a car this size!

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres ia not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

There are small plastic wells on either side of the boot that would be good storage for wet things or nappies etc.

The boot floor is nice, flat and carpeted making it good for an emergency nappy change!

The boot has a large retractable roller blind cover, I couldn't find anywhere to store it in the boot floor because there is a large spare wheel in the space.

The Britax Holiday 2 umbrella stroller fits across the boot against the seat backs.

With the umbrella stroller in the boot, I could get 10 shopping bags in there, which is a really good amount.

My Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller would fit both lengthways and widthways in the boot, which is unusual (and great) for this size of car. I found I liked it lengthways so I had a separate half of the boot for bags. I could get 7 bags in along side it which is an impressive amount!

With the double stroller in the boot I can get six bags around it and there is lots of room on top of the stroller too.

The CR-V does have a powered tailgate, there is a button on the key fob as well as the boot itself. When you open and close the boot it makes an initial loud beeping noise and then the mechanism itself is quite noisy.

I LOVE powered tailgates now I am a mum! When I go out to the car carrying my daughter, with my arms laden with everything I now appear to need even just to nip to the shops for some milk!! I can press a button and it opens without me having to do some weird contortionists move to open it manually whilst trying not to drop anything (especially my child!!) It is fabulous!! The only downside is I have sometimes thought I could get something out of said boot when my daughter is asleep in the car and the beeping has woken her up!

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The Honda CR-V has a camera view down the left of the car that you can turn on by pressing a button on the end of the indicator stalk. It also comes on automatically when you indicate left too. I really liked this feature as it gives you that extra bit of visibility especially when you have child seats installed in the back and I have found it really useful for parallel parking or manoeuvring in park carparks.

The indicators aren't particularly noisy, they have a gentle tick sound that I don't think would disturb a sleeping child.

The windows and doors in the CR-V are loud, the window mechanisms are loud and it closes with a very loud thump! The doors are equally baby waking! There is a beeping when you open them, the doors are heavy in the CR-V and I found they too closed with a real thump.

Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!

SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car I am not a bad mother!!)

If you come to a stop and turn the engine off you can get out without the doors being, however, if you have the engine still on you can't open the doors without them beeping!

You can adjust the sat-nav voice volume within the settings on the screen which is good! The sat-nav that comes with the system is quite simple and easy to use too.

Within the settings on the media screen, you can turn some of the noises off, like the beep when you touch the screen and the volumes of things can be adjusted.

The media system does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Connecting my phone was simple and with a few on screen instructions, the nursery rhymes I had playing on my phone played out of the car speakers quickly.

There is a seatbelt removal alarm that comes on, along with a light up o the digital display in front of you showing which seatbelt is removed. At the beginning of your journey, the same display shows you which seatbelt in the car are fastened.

There are ISO Fix connectors in the two outer, rear seats. The ISO Fix are located at the side of the bottom of the seat back cushions and they're labelled. They are within plastic casing located behind a slit in the seat upholstery fabric, so they are a little bit trickier to get to but not any harder to connect to though.

There are three top tether points in the CR-V, they are located in the ceiling just in front of the boot door. I have never come across any in this position before and I imagine the top tether straps will affect visibility out of the back for the driver!

There are two anchor points in the boot floor for a cargo net just behind the backrests. At first, I thought these would be the top tether anchor points but quickly realised they would not be strong enough and there was no top tether label on them.

The seats in the model I tested were fabric covered which always makes it a little more difficult for cleaning than leather. The seats are split 60:40.

Surprisingly I could install three child seats across the rear seats. I had the forward facing Infasecure Kompressor 4 on one side, the Infasecure foldaway booster seat in the central seat and the Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule rear facing on the other side seat.

The central booster seat uses the seatbelt but in reality, it would be hard to use it as the seatbelt buckle is underneath the booster seat base so it would be very difficult to get it fastened with a child sitting in it. It would be better to have a booster seat than is attached in with the seatbelt and has it's own child restraint built into it.

The child seats were relatively easy to install, the ISO Fix were simple and I found that having the top tether connections in the ceiling meant I didn't have to bring the seat backs forward or reach across the boot to fasten them so they were actually very easy. The down side is their effect on driver visibility!

There is a lot of legroom in the CR-V with the child seats installed, for both rear and front passengers and there's a lot of boot space. Honda haven't pinched the space from anywhere!! With the front seats in their furthest back positions, you can still have the rear facing capsule behind them!

Posting Bub into their child seat from inside and outside the vehicle was easy, the doorways are nice and open and there is plenty of space for getting Bub in and out. And because the ceiling is nice and high and you have all that lovely space for moving them around!

Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!

The rear seats are nice and comfortable and with only one child seat installed there is plenty of room to feed Bub in the back seat.

I actually didn't find the front seats comfortable in the Honda CR-V. The seat bases were too high and I couldn't lower them enough, the seat backs felt awkward and like there was no in-between so I felt too reclined or too upright. The seat bases are very firm to sit on too! Maybe over time they would bed-in and become less rigid. You definitely can not wear a ponytail with the headrests they lean forward at an angle.

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get it just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

The rear seats are actually more comfortable than the front ones, even the central seat! In the central seat travelling next to a child seat, you will be pressed up against it but it's not too bad. The footwell floor is flat, there is no hump to straddle with your feet and you have a lot of leg room!

For the first year of Tulsi's life when we would go out as a family, if I wasn’t driving, I would travel in the back with Tulsi so it’s important to check the back seat comfort as you may be spending a lot of time in them! They were never something I gave any thought to before but I definitely notice a good or bad back seat now!

The steering wheel is fully adjustable, in/out and up/down, with a lever down by your right knee.

I found the cruise control in the CR-V to be surprisingly accurate and did really well on my test at lower speeds on undulating roads.

In the front of the CR-V are four air vents along the dashboard, one in either end and two in the middle. There are also two vents in the back of the central console for the rear passengers. They are easily reached by the driver in this position which is good for keeping rear little passengers comfortable.

I do find the air-conditioning in the CR-V to be very blowy and has a loud airflow. It has cooled the cab sufficiently in a Queensland summer so big tick for that!

The dual climate controls are well positioned below the media screen and they are easy to reach and use while driving.

Visibility in the CR-V is good forward for the driver and down the side windows, even with the rear facing child seats installed. I think this is because the windows are so large and deep and the mass of legroom means the rear seats sit further back giving more visible window. It is just the rear window that is compromised with the headrests, booster seat, central seat belt and top tether straps going across it.

For rear passengers visibility is excellent! The large side windows and interior space gives them great rear and forward visibility.

There are lit vanity mirrors on both sides in the front and the interior lights are in front of the glasses case in the ceiling.

The rear lights are not reachable by the driver, they are too far back to reach.

I often will reach back to turn on the interior light if I am driving at night time, I find my little girl gets less distressed traveling at night that way. It helps if I can reach the interior light from the drivers seat so I can turn it on and off whilst driving. I often find my daughter will need it on as we start our journey in the dark but once she falls asleep I can turn it off.

It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.

The parking sensors in the CR-V have a loud beeping sound that you can turn off with a button by your right knee. You still get the reversing camera on the media screen but not the sensor visuals, they turn off too.

The rear camera has a very clear, high resolution image, you can choose between three angle options too.

The Honda CR-V scored a five star ANCAP safety rating in 2017.

It got an overall score of 35.76 out of 37. Getting 14.76 out of 16 for frontal offset test, 16 out of 16 for side impact and pedestrian protection was rated acceptable.

The CR-V comes 6 airbags as standard, dual frontal, front side and side (head) curtain airbags for front and rear side passengers.

The CR-V also comes with antilock braking system (ABS), blind spot monitoring (BSM), electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD), electronic stability control (ESC), emergency brake assist (EBA), emergency stop signal (ESS), fatigue reminder, daytime running lights (DRL), Hill launch assist and reversing collision avoidance. Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and lane support systems (LSS) are available on some variants.