Honda HR-V VTi 2018 off-road review

This is where the HR-V really lifts its game. It's a cliché to suggest that the interior is TARDIS-like … but in the small Honda's case, it is absolutely the truth.

Our teenager and tweenie are tall for their respective ages, (particularly our 185cm-plus lad), and I am astonished to see that both kids fit in the back with an absolute minimum of fuss, and, in fact, with room to spare.

There’s a pair of ISOFIX baby seat mounts for the lugging of little ones, too.

Headroom in the back is ample. (image credit: Tim Robson)

Headroom in the back is ample, and there are bottle holders to both kids in the rear door cards. There are no ventilation controls or charging points, though, which doesn't really help in the adventure stakes if your device runs out of charge halfway through the weekend, and dad is hogging the front charger for his Neil Diamond bootleg-streaming requirements.

Front occupants are similarly gifted with plenty of room head-wise and knee-wise and, while cup holders are contained within an interestingly designed centre bin with flip-out dividers.

Front occupants are similarly gifted with plenty of room head-wise and knee-wise. (image credit: Tim Robson)

It isn’t necessarily the best solution for holding all sizes of cups, but it certainly looks a little bit different and works quite well once you figure it out.

A sculpted centre bin with a curved lid also helps here, while storage beneath the centre console consists of a sizeable pocket that's almost sitting directly on the floor. It does make it hard to reach if you're looking to pop a wallet or phone in there, but at least there is actually somewhere to place – and hide – these items.

There's a USB and a 12-volt socket, USB port and a 12-volt socket for recharging items, while the simple dash with its central digital readout is easy to use.

Not so the Honda's much-maligned multimedia system, though. While this particular unit was better than in the Honda City we originally tested, it's still really behind the times in the competitive space. The graphics are old, the interfaces are clumsy, and it's just not on par with items that are found in other cars.

There is a price to pay for all of that interior passenger room, and that is in the boot. With a high floor that hides a space-saver spare wheel and an unnecessarily thick foam-insulation piece that also hides the jack and tools, the aperture is quite narrow and the capacity shrinks to 437 litres VDA (to the window line) and 1462 litres when the seats are lowered.

It's easy to tumble the seats forward to get a bit more room, and there's certainly plenty of height to be had; it's just the length that's the issue.

A 1.8-litre four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine offers a modest yet workable 105kW and 172Nm, and it’s backed by a single transmission option; a CVT driving the front wheels through an open diff.

The 1.8-litre four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine offers a modest yet workable 105kW/172Nm. (image credit: Tim Robson)

Its CVT seems to be better matched to the one we recently tried in the Honda City, with a lot less slurring and more precision through the rev range as the engine was worked harder. The HR-V certainly didn't drone up the hills as badly as the City did.

The HR-V is strictly a front-wheel drive proposition, and there's no such niceties as limited-slip diffs or any additional features to give it more of an adventure edge.

Against Honda’s claimed combined fuel economy figure of 6.6L/100km, we recorded a dash-indicated figure of 8.2 and a real-world number of 8.4L/100km over our 320km of testing and a 27-litre top-up of the 50-litre tank.

The HR-V works reasonably well as an intra-city tourer, with the CVT just managing to fade sufficiently into the background on the highway. It also gives the car a chance to stretch its legs, and fuel consumption tumbles as a result.

Should you take the HR-V into gravel, sand and other off-road situations? Only if you knew you had sufficient traction to get back out. The tyre set is completely oriented toward road use, and there is no all-wheel-drive system to give you extra traction should you get in a little bit of trouble.

There's also no underbody protection to prevent stones and sticks from damaging vital items like radiators and sumps. It offers 170mm of ground clearance, or 40mm more than a Honda Civic, while its short overhangs are spoiled somewhat by a low-mounted front splitter.

It’s not much good for towing, either, with an 800kg brake trailer maximum and a miniscule 70kg downball weight limit.

As an easy-to-use device that is incredibly comfortable to drive as a daily, though, the HR-V scores well.

Honda offers a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty with its cars, and also provides what it calls premium roadside assistance for the life of the warranty ... with the caveat that you must service your car at a Honda dealer.

It’s also transferable to the next owner, should you sell your car before the warranty expires.

A fixed-price servicing regime is in place for the HR-V, as well, starting at $259 and peaking at $297.

Honda does ask for servicing every six months or 10,000km, which does add to the cost of running the car.