Honda CR-V Mountain Driving
I live in the foothills west of Denver and wonder if the CRV will be able to get up the mountain roads quickly? Anyone have mountain driving experience with this car? I don't need to sail up the hill, I just dont want to get run over by a semi.
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I don't know about CO, but here in the "hills" of upstate NY, semi's usually stay in the right lane puffing along at 40 mph climbing up, especially if they are loaded. Most highways here have "slow lanes" on the uphills for the trucks to climb without slowing down the traffic.
I have an older, 2005 CR-V with a manual transmission, but the same K24A1 engine. It has no problem keeping 80 mph on the uphills without having to downshift. In fact, I usually pass "big" V6 and V8 powered SUV's making their slow climb.
I was onl able to manage 45mpg going up Loveleand pass, and 35mph on the steepest parts of Independence pass, but the others, I carried the posted speed limit.
The CR-V will rev a litlte high, but should manage just fine.
Look at it this way. If you have a 240HP V6 or a 166HP I-4, and they both need slets say 80HP to climb a moderate grade at 65mph, the V6 might make 80HP @ 2000RPM, while the CR-V's I-4 may need 2700RPM to manage the same power output. So there's the difference. So the V6 might have downshifted to 4th gear , to get ot 2000RPM, the CR-V mwill liekly need to drop to 3rd gear to get to 2700RPM for the power it needs.
Most poeple unfortunaltey feel that a car is underpowered if it needs to downshift frequently. It's only underpowered if it's in the upper 20% of the RPM range to hold a cruising speed with a normal load on a moderate grade.
Most people never use the full pwoer of a larger engne. So the only difference, is tha tthe larger engine makes the same power at a lower and more comfortable RPM. So it's accelration is more effortless.
You need to give the CR-V some deliberate throttle input to force a downshift and maintain speed up a grade, but that doesn't make it underpwoered.
If you want underpwoered... I had a '91 Toyota Tercel that could open your eyes. Merging on the freeway required lots of momentum comming off the on-ramp... and lot of RPM's. The little hamsters under the hood were really screaming.
I see this every day. Millions of people tend to forget that the on-ramp's main purpose is to match the speed of the right lane and then merge, without making the guy behind you slam on the brakes when the vehicle enters the highway at slow speed and THEN decides to speed up.
In reality, even short on-ramps are pretty long, and it's simply a matter of speeding up or slowing down 5mph to merge smoothly even if a long tractor trailers is approaching.
When I've merged solo, I onlt end up tapping my brakes because I'm actually overtaking a car in the right lane, but don't have enough room to complete the pass, os I lift, or brake lightly and slot in behind them... and start looking for a gap in the next lane to go around.
Driver's education, or education in general leaves a lot desired. Lack of simple arithmetic understanding is what got us into this mortgage crisis, where people making $1000/month bought houses that had $3000/month payments.
If I'm going 70mph on the freeway passing a slower car, and a car approaches from behind (I actually use my mirrors) doing 80mph, I'll speed up and pass a little more quickly to get out of their way. Why... perhaps just the golden rule, I hate it when cars block the left lane when I approach, so I won't be a hypocrite and do the same.