Month: April 2014

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Tuesday – Learning A Lesson

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Oh dear… No sooner had I stated that an SUV doesn’t need four-wheel drive to be a decent car than the worst happens! A quiz night in the Cotswolds usually involves a pub and a car park – but not this time.

The marquee for this fund-raiser was on the side of a hill and although metal tracking had been put in place to help cars slip up the slope, our two-wheel drive CR-V made a complete hash of it.

What made it especially painful was that an old Saab 9-5 estate seemed to cope with the include better than we did. There was an air of oneupmanship as the Land Rover drivers looked and questioned why a CR-V – usually a four-wheel drive machine – was struggling so badly.

What I discovered the hard way was that just because a two-wheel drive SUV looks like it has 4×4, it doesn’t mean it will do the same job in the dirt. Lesson learnt.

 

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Monday – Chris Who?

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Why is it that when motoring writers become famous they seem to forget about the cars that 99 per cent of the rest of us have to drive?

Clarkson is a great comedy act, Top Gear pure light entertainment. Yet when I read Chris Evans’ road test of the CR-V in the Mail on Sunday (eek!) it just smacked of a guy who is completely out of touch.

He may have grown up doing a paper round but having a garage full of exotica doesn’t exactly lend yourself to writing about, well, ‘normal’ cars.

‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ read the headline. I doubt he wrote that but branding the CR-V dull, lacklustre and joking at the great fuel economy seems a bit bizarre.

So, if you’re a Mail reading, web surfer I apologise. The CR-V is a great family car that Chris Evans hates – which is another good reason to buy one.

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Sunday – Earl Grey Without Milk

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The D-TEC is the first SUV that has convinced me you don’t actually need four-wheel drive in a multi-purpose vehicle. Just like Earl Grey without low fat milk, porridge without honey, it’s actually OK not to have the complete package sometimes.

Provided you think of the two-wheel drive CR-V as a roomy estate with all the benefits of a raised seating position, it works exceptionally well. And besides, living in the country, there have only been a couple of times in the last 12 months when we’ve actually needed four-wheel drive.

With this particular model, the CR-V is all about economy. The vast majority of the CR-V range is four-wheel drive – the 1.6 i-DTEC just offers the maximum miles per gallon and a lower tax band too (C).

I can’t say I noticed much difference in performance either over the best-selling 2.2 diesel unit (48mpg). The 1.6 lacks a little overtaking power but it doesn’t feel stretched on the motorway and remains quiet and refined in the cabin.

SUV looks without the extra cost? Try this one – it’s excellent.

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Saturday – Honda’s Super frugal CR-V

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I find fuel economy runs a complete nightmare – and more dangerous than tootling along at high speed because you are forced into unnatural driving techniques. Let’s face it, nobody drives for hundreds of miles trying squeeze every last drop out of a gallon.

Honda recently persuaded two motoring writers to see how far they could get in an MPG Marathon. Although the new i-DEC engine is meant to top out at 60.1mpg, they achieved an impressive 77.8mpg.

Now, don’t try that at home, whatever you do. But at least this shows just how SUVs have managed to change their image in 2014 are strive just as much for fuel economy as they everyday hatchback.

After two weeks driving lumbering 4x4s around Australia, the CR-V is so refreshing! It may not have the grunt or road presence of a Land Cruiser, but it’s a great drive, highly capable and easy on the eye too…

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Wednesday – Living On An Island

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John McTear is the fittest sixtysomething I know. Apart from running a remote beef farm on Flinders Island, he works as a tour and walking guide .

Flinders Island is in the Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Tasmania. It’s a wild, rugged place with an eastern wind that blows corrosive salt right through cars. It’s nothing to see a field of grass burn by the effects of salt in the air.

His set of wheel is, yes, another Toyota Land Cruiser, although he does operate a Subaru around Durris Farm. This one’s a more modern model compared to the average Australian runabout.

Flinders Island is mostly dirt tracks and Toyota rules. McTear wouldn’t drive anything else.

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Tuesday – The Holden Land Rover

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Rob Holloway wouldn’t sell his house overlooking Franklin Sound for any money. He built it with his own hands and then surrounded it with all creatures great and small in the paddocks. He wouldn’t give up the keys to his prized Land Rover Series III either.

Holloway is a fourth generation settler on Flinders Island – a tiny lump of land in the Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Tasmania. While he has every type of ‘man tool’ going – three chainsaws, a homemade 30ft metal rib and assorted shotguns among them – the Land Rover is his pride and joy.

Born in 1973, the short wheelbase has been crashing around the island for years, currently with a Holden six-cylinder engine. The extra power means he often shears a drive shaft or two in the process.

Key features include a bench vice bolted to the front bumper, and every telephone number on the island scribbled on the inside of the roof. What else is a roof there for anyway?

The Holden engine is a beast. It’s not pretty but it’s the only one you need for chasing wild pig across the beach…