2001 Honda CR-V

The 2001 Honda CR-V was sitting in the driveway.

On the TV, the weather forecasters were predicting the latest Millennium Storm.

Next door, my giant-but-ancient snowblower had been gassed up and tested. It was ready.

As for me, the excitement was building. It was a weekend, there would be little traffic, and I’d get a chance to see how the Honda stood up in the tough going.

The CR-V definitely fits into the small SUV category – I refuse to use the cute-utes term because it’s not particularly pretty. But it has some other superb qualities going for it – it’s small enough to be city-friendly, the Real Time four-wheel-drive system is effective, and (for an SUV) it’s economical both to buy and operate (Our LX all-wheel-drive model checked in at just under $20,000).

Well, the snow never came – that weekend. So we never got to give the CR-V a full suburban four-wheeling test of descending and reclimbing the minimountain where we make our home. If a vehicle can get us home before the plows come by, it should get you anyplace where there are paved roads. The Real Time AWD on the CR-V is an appealing feature for an urban-suburban all-purpose vehicle. For the vast majority of its life, it’s a front-wheel drive vehicle. When the drive system senses the front wheels need added traction, it transfers power to the rear wheels. No driver input in the form of levers, buttons, or switches is needed.

This Honda definitely isn’t an off-roading warrior. No big-lugged tires, skid plates, transfer case, or super-low gears. Instead, it’s designed for lugging folks and their gear around town with economy and comfort. On the highway, it’s most car-like, thanks to a double wishbone suspension both front and aft. The overall length is only 177.6 inches with a 103.2-inch wheelbase. It’s a combination that keeps the ride smooth (very car-like) and minimizes the pitching and jouncing you might suspect from a first glance at the vehicle’s configuration. It also earned a three-star rating in rollover tests – at the top of the SUV heap. And you have the SUV benefit of sitting up high enough to see out over traffic – to me, that’s still a big side benefit of driving a pickup or SUV.

The 2.0-liter dual overhead cam four produces 140 horsepower and has no trouble keeping up with local traffic while giving you 22 to 25 miles per gallon with either the four-speed automatic (which our test vehicle had) or the optional five-speed manual (recommended if you don’t mind the shifting). Once you hit the hill country, however, the CR-V will downshift out of overdrive.

On a trip to Connecticut, the transmission would downshift on the bigger hills on the Massachusetts Turnpike. You could squelch that by hitting the overdrive override button.

Torque, the other half of the power equation, is a measly 133 foot-pounds, enough for normal driving but not for towing (hauling capacity is only 1,000 pounds).

Another day, heading to work just around noon on a s nowy/sleety morning, I drove past a nursery school just letting out in Malden.

It was SUV heaven. Both sides of the road were jammed with SUVs. There wasn’t room for two lanes of traffic to pass so I got a chance to see the behemoths being loaded – mostly with one child.

Near the end of the line was a CR-V – a twin to the one I was driving. It wasn’t as wide as the other SUVs in line, meaning it didn’t stick out far enough to block traffic (or to get hit by a passing vehicle). A mother was loading two youngsters into child seats in back (built-in child seat tethers are a feature of the 2001 model).

It seemed like there was plenty of room for kids and their stuff, plus whatever shopping had to go in the back.

Between the front seats is a fold-down tray/table/cupholder platform. Drop it, and you can move back to tend to a young one in a car seat or fetch something from the rear cargo area without going outside the vehicle.

The Honda isn’t a new design, so it doesn’t ve the new-and-better cachet. What it does have is a tried-and-true history, having hit the showrooms in 1997. It’s in a crowded market segment where it battles the likes of Ford’s new Escape, Mazda Tribute, the Toyota Rav4, Nissan Xterra, Kia Sportage, and Subaru Forester.

Still, it’s up to the challenge.

Annoyance:

The buzzing of the engine when it’s working on sustained highway driving under a load.

Nice touch:

The fold-down tray between the front seats.