General Comments:

Although I decided against purchasing the vehicle, I thought I would give my two cents about my test drive.

The Good: The leather seats were extremely comfortable. In fact, they were more comfortable than the seats in some luxury vehicles that I have driven. I also liked that the front seats had armrest. I loved the dashboard setup (minus the cheap shifter and placement of it). It kind of made it feel like a minivan. Other than that, the interior materials were very nice and high end. The gauge cluster showed a lot of information and was pretty when lit up.

The bad: the CR-V was slooowwwww. It was LOUD and had LOTS of body roll. It had OK power around town, but once on the highway, it felt like it was straining to keep speed. It even had to downshift. The engine drone on the highway made it seem even more underpowered than it really was. The backseats didn't fold completely flat into the floor, and didn't offer as much room as the Rav4. It didn't offer a rear DVD player.

In the end, the bad outweighed the good, and I just couldn't see paying over $30,000 for an underpowered 4 cylinder vehicle. The handling was kind of scary because of the body roll and the CR-V lacked refinement, in my opinion. If this is supposed to be top in its class, the small SUV market is in serious trouble.