Honda ZR-V
GOODBYE
£42,895 OTR/£43,545 as tested/£439 pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Three months with a ZR-V: can we figure out what it’s actually for?
DRIVER
Greg Potts
OUR BRIEF STINT LIVING WITH A HONDA ZR-V HAS COME TO AN END, and if we’re honest the three months have passed without much fuss at all
And yet after covering a hefty number of miles in the past month I do have a couple of things to get off my chest Let’s start with something simple Perhaps you can change the speed limit warning settings but I’ll be damned if I could find out how to do it The little bongs chimed every time I dared to stray a single mile per hour over what the ZRV thought was the speed limit And as we know with these things it’s often reading mph signs from adjoining roads when barrelling down a motorway
Bear with me there’s more Initially I wasn’t using the wheelmounted paddles to change the level of regenerative braking but after consistently getting just over mpg I wondered if adapting the way that energy flows back into the battery would make a difference That led me to discover in most drive modes the level of regen resets to nil every time you press the accelerator That means either you never touch the paddles or you’re pulling at the left one constantly to up the force every time you need to slow down
There were a few wins for the ZRV Its powertrain is impressively refined and the fake gearchanges of the Linear Shift Control system work well It’s comfortable too and from the driver’s seat everything is very easy to use with proper physical buttons and even a separate climate control panel
And yet nothing is jumping out that would convince me to buy a ZRV over its many rivals With a litre boot it’s nowhere near as practical as things like the Qashqai litres or Karoq litres and nowhere near as stylish as the Korean alternatives the Sportage or Tucson
The ZRV is also a fair chunk more expensive than all of those rivals so if you’re wedded to Honda but still looking for value for money then it’s the Civic hatch that you really want It even costs less specforspec