The Honda HR-V S CVT is a good crossover with one big flaw | Car Review

It’s tough to be in the market for a crossover right now. You have the traditional Japanese stalwarts, Korean models with a tempting price-to-feature ratio, and of course, the onslaught of electrified Chinese nameplates pulling buyers away with crazy affordable pricing and of course, and the benefits of having an electrified drivetrain in the country.

Of course, when it comes to cars from established Japanese brands like Honda, the HR-V has been known for its funky, eccentric approach to a subcompact crossover.

The HR-V is one of the more petite subcompact crossovers, measuring at 4,347mm long, 1,790mm wide, and 1,591mm tall with a wheelbase of 2,610mm and a generous 196mm of ground clearance.

The styling still stands out with its sleek fastback design compared to the rest of the crossovers with their bulbous shapes. In fact, our HR-V mirrors the Asian market model, as the United States gets a larger, Civic-based HR-V (called ZR-V in Japan).

The S and V CVT follow the Japanese market Vezel’s appearance with the widened horizontal bar grille and mesh lower grille, which is a lot cleaner to look at versus the RS’s in-your-face chrome cheese grater-esque grille. 

Otherwise, the rest of the car is still similar to the pre-facelift variant, with 17-inch two-tone wheels wrapped in thick Goodyear Assurance (215/60) rubber, the same taillamp setup, and the same general design language.

Inside, the absence of piano black is refreshing, and there’s soft-touch material on the dashboard and door cards to make it more upscale.

The black manual leather seats are very comfortable and supportive, but the polyurethane steering wheel feels a bit out of place in what is a very nice place to be in, especially for long periods.

The revised lower dash layout is more passenger-friendly, now sporting an open lower cubbyhole and a single USB-C port just for charging, alongside the USB-A port used for data and the 12V outlet.

The eight-inch touchscreen infotainment no longer looks like a CRT TV mounted within the dash, as it resembles a modern “tombstone” style touchscreen. It gets new software that’s responsive and supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, both wired and wireless (albeit a bit buggy), and pumps out sound through six decent-sounding speakers.

While generally a good head unit, I have two qualms: the right-hand drive market buttons are hard to reach (as we are a left-hand drive country), and the infotainment has zero integration within the car’s systems, meaning all other functions have to be changed via the fiddly menus of the 4.2-inch screen sandwiched between the gorgeous analog gauges. It would be nice to see the new Android Automotive-based head unit found in the Civic and CR-V with the physical volume knob.

The presence of Honda Sensing is welcome here, and it’s surprising to see features like adaptive cruise control with lane keeping assistance, alongside automatic emergency braking in a base variant car. It even has niceties such as walk-away auto lock, remote start, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, and subtle ambient lighting within the cabin.

However, it lacks the LaneWatch blind-spot camera, and parking aids are only a single rearview camera and rear parking sensors. 

But if there’s one thing Honda has always been good at, it’s packaging. Despite the HR-V’s unassuming exterior dimensions, there’s gobs of space inside, especially for the rear seats, which are very, very comfortable. There is a lot of leg and elbow room to share, save for the middle seat, which is best saved for a child. Plus, the transmission tunnel hump is minimal. However, the sloping fastback roofline and roof-mounted passenger belt eat into headroom.

Driving position is fine, but a little awkward for taller drivers like myself, as the top of the windshield obstructs the upper part of my vision. Otherwise, it has great visibility all around and a large rear window, and a quiet cabin, especially at highway speeds when the tires and wind noise are louder than usual in other crossovers.

It may have only 404L of cargo space (and a temporary spare tire), but this is complemented by Honda’s ULT seats.

Thanks to relocating the gas tank to underneath the front passengers, the rear seats can fold down into the floor to create a flat load space (Utility), the passenger-side seat can recline back to carry long cargo (Long), and you can pull the seat bottoms up and lock them into place to fit large items, like a pickup truck (Tall).

The HR-V now loses its turbo motor for both ICE variants, so the 1.5-liter naturally aspirated i-VTEC (L15) engine is shared with the likes of the Honda City. Despite only having 121 horsepower and 145Nm of torque, this power is delivered very linearly without feeling too labored, and enthusiasts will be happy to hear the VTEC crossover once you hit it at around 5,000-ish rpm.

Yes, it may bog down when going uphill, but here you can use the paddle shifters and the “S” mode of the CVT to get in the right rev range. This CVT is also what enables it to be so frugal in and out of the city, clocking in an average of 11km/L in the city and 23km/L on the highway. And despite the smallish 40L fuel tank, the car was frugal enough to consume only two bars of fuel while we were stuck idling for at least four to five hours during July 21’s NLEX gridlock.

Handling is one point where this HR-V shines, with the crossover feeling more like a lifted hatchback. The steering is weighted just right, with decent feedback and resistance, and the car is agile enough in the corners with controlled body roll. Plus, a big bonus to those 60-series tires as they make the ride very plush and comfortable even over bad potholes and pockmarked roads.

Of course, one common complaint is that Hondas are expensive, and this base HR-V S CVT finds itself in an interesting position in the market.

Yes, at Php 1,450,000, it’s on the expensive side, and you can easily get yourself electrified crossovers from several other brands even for less, but they don’t offer the same driving dynamics, excellent interior packaging, and standard ADAS features across the board.

The biggest competitor actually comes from within Honda itself, as the 1.5 V CVT costs just Php 69,000 more.

This slight price bump comes with a significantly longer list of goodies and changes, such as an eight-way power adjustable driver’s seat; a leather wrapped steering wheel; a wireless charger and two USB-C ports for the rear (S has none); silver accents in the interior; 18-inch alloy wheels, Honda LaneWatch, additional side-curtain airbags, automatic rain-sensing wipers, auto-tilting mirrors in reverse, and the ability to use Honda Connect.

As it stands, I would straight away tell you that the 1.5 V CVT is the one to get, as you simply cannot add these after for the same amount of cash. However, if there are dealerships that offer discounts that will significantly broaden the price gap between the two, the HR-V 1.5 S CVT is still a very solid crossover to get, even compared to other offerings today.

Photos by Sam Surla