cars news 10: 2015 Honda CR-V Touring AWD Long-Term Update 4

The character of our long-term 2015 Honda CR-V changes when you hit the green Econ button or lower the transmission stalk into Sport mode—and thanks to Motor Trend track testing, we now have objective numbers to pair with my subjective feelings about these features. So which mode makes a bigger impact in straight-line acceleration?

Without help from Econ or Sport mode, our 185-hp, all-wheel-drive 2015 CR-V reaches 60 mph in 8.9 seconds on to a 16.9-second quarter mile at 85.3 mph. Passing acceleration from 45 to 65 mph comes in 4.3 seconds, and it’s safe to say none of these performance numbers will make any competitor jump back to the drawing board, but then again, that’s just fine. The CR-V is well-rounded—more along the lines of what buyers in this segment want—but if better acceleration is what you’re after, consider the 250-hp Subaru Forester 2.0XT (0-60 mph in 6.4 seconds) or the Ford Escape with the 2.0-liter EcoBoost I-4 (0-60 in 6.8 seconds).

Some buyers might be best suited to leaving on Econ mode all of the time. As we noted in a previous update, this will adjust the HVAC and cruise control systems and relax throttle response. So the CR-V won’t be quite as responsive, but responsiveness isn’t dulled to the point of making Econ unusable. At the track, the CR-V in Econ mode hit 60 in 9.7 seconds and ran the 45-65-mph passing test in 5.2 seconds, up from 8.9 and 4.3 seconds, respectively. If that sounds too slow for you, consider that we learned through testing that the CR-V is around 7 percent more efficient in Econ mode.

If you’re in a more aggressive mood, say, on your way to the bank before it closes or preparing to pass another vehicle, consider the CR-V’s Sport mode. It changes the CVT’s behavior in a meaningful way, though not surprisingly, it’s not as big of a change as the Sport modes of sportier cars. On the track, 0-60 comes in 8.7 seconds, with 45-65 in 4.3 seconds, an improvement of 0.2 second from 0 to 60 and even from 45-65. I’m glad Honda and other automakers still see helpful Sport modes as worthwhile feature additions … but that set-it-and-forget-it Econ button is likely to prove more useful to most drivers.

Most of the time, I drive in Econ, except when I’m using the active cruise control, which I occasionally activate in the morning for the drive to work. I already find the useful system slow to respond to changing conditions, so I remove Econ to quicken response times, even if just by a little bit.

Clearly, the Econ mode has a greater effect on acceleration than the Sport mode, and that strikes me as about right for a CR-V. A 9.7-second 0-60 time sounds like an eternity for those who follow Motor Trend test numbers, but it’s not as much of a factor when half of your driving is stop-and-go on the highway.

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