HONDA CR-V 2.0i ES Executive 5dr (1999)

Good for the power and space, handy for family, not really an off-roader though

Despite being over ten years our Honda CR-V doesn't feel like it's ageing much. I've been advised that the gearbox might need doing in a few years time, but I think that's just routine since we've done almost 100,000 miles in it.

From the get go we found it superbly easy to drive. There's no other way to describe that really. You get in, start it up, and everything just works so easily. I mean, if you didn't know another car you'd wouldn't notice the difference, but the Honda CR-V is just dead simple. The steering is light but responsive, the visibility is fantastic, the 4x4 kicks in automatically if the conditions get dodgy, and it's a cinch to park. Simples!

Thing is about the 4x4 though... it's a bit cheeky to market it as an off-roader of sorts, cos it really doesn't handle particularly challenging conditions. I mean it'll get you round a sports ground just fine, and it'll hop over kerbs and divots happily enough, but give it a real incline or any thick mud and it soon wimps out! For a 2 litre car it certainly has plenty of power, but just don't think you're buying a cheap alternative to a Land Rover, you're not.

These days what's becoming increasingly problematic is the petrol costs. It doesn't really rival our other car, which is a Skoda Octavia, and they're both the same engine size. It probably gets about half the mileage truth be told, which is a bit rubbish. It's not awful, just not great.

Anyway, practicality-wise it's very good indeed. Decent size seats for five adults, lots of handy little spaces to keep things. There's a really good storage space thing between the two front seats, and the dash is fairly flat for keeping things on. One very silly thing though is that there are two air vents about four inches into the top surface of the dash, so if you put any paper on there or anything like that and turn the fans on, whooosh! It's all gone. Very silly indeed, back to the drawing board Honda. But that's a minor detail.

I can't really remember what the standard sound system was like originally as we replaced it more or less straight away, not because it was awful, we just wanted one with a multi changer and MP3 capability.

Towards the back of the car... the boot is an ok size, very nice that it's high up too, no bending right down to fetch things out. Another really handy feature is the it doesn't just have one boot door. The top half flips up while the bottom half opens out sideways like the doors on the side of the car. That's great because you can usually get what you need just by opening the top half, which opens fully even when it's totally jammed into a parking space. Clever!