Featured New '26 Rav4 vs CRV Motor Trend article/test

never been a honda fan. seems they are always on about performance instead of reliability and mpg's.
i do thing it is much better looking than the rav4 though.
interestingly, the crv is 4" longer than the rav, but looks smaller to me

 

I was a Honda fanboy back in the day; until I bought the gen2 CIVIC hybrid. I did more highway than city driving back then and the specs. was slightly better for a Honda vs Toyota. After several years and recalls, I would've been better off with a CIVIC HX, cheaper, closer to the actual miles I was getting on that civic hybrid, and more power with the 5-speed.

 

Did the hybrid battery go off on yours? Ours certainly did, and didn't waste any time about it. Recalibration became a dirty word...

 

Yep; I believe it died around 60K miles. I knew it was dying when it began to rapidly charge and discharge - so I took it in for warranty repair. Dealership just cleared the codes and tried to send me on my way. They called it a recalibration. I said, 'hell no'; I'll kill every sale your currently working on, on your sales floor - Everyone seen the press releases on this car ! The dealership owner came out to talk to me and said Honda American will only replace the pack if it throws the same pack codes twice. I told him fine, you got all my details - order the new pack, I'll be back in a day or two with those same error codes. If you refuse again; I'll make good on my promise on a weekend at the end of the month. Drove the car like I stole it and popped those codes the next day - up till then I've been driving pretty conservatively.
They replaced the traction pack and I sold the car the next month - with the documented new OEM pack.

 

Ours was replaced by a Canadian Honda dealership, with one code display. The replacement was up to the same shenanigans in less than a year.

The CRV hybrid is interesting, but no spare, no sale.

 

Yep; probably a rebuilt pack; I wasn't going to get fooled twice and the resale value couldn't get any higher with the documented new pack installed. It helped that I had all documented repairs except oil changes the I did myself. I use the notebook in the glove box trick - makes it easy to sell a car to a serious buyer.

 

I am glad TSS 4.0 is much better than TSS 3.0, coming closer to full self-driving. Also keep in mind that TSS 4.0 will receive OTA updates to its features.

Even though they rated the CRV slightly better than the RAV4 due to slightly better handling of the former, the crappy ADAS and crappy multimedia on the CRV, as noted by the authors, are absolute deal breakers for me, as those are the things I first consider when I buy a new car, along with reliability, the latter of which Toyota has little competition against if at all as well.