Honda HR-V 1.5 i-VTEC CVT EX, motoring review: Is the CVT automatic gearbox worth it in the new HR-V?

It’s a bit hard to justify an £1100 bill for the automatic, even if consumption and hence tax figures do favour it slightly

Whatcar,Graham Scott

Thursday 08 October 2015 12:46 BST

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There are several aspects to an HR-V fitted with an automatic gearbox that come as no surprise. And a couple that are a surprise. In the no surprise category is the fact that it costs more to have the CVT transmission, £1100 more in fact. It’s a bit slower too in both acceleration and top end. But the nice surprise is that, unusually, the auto box actually improves fuel consumption as well as CO2 emissions, so perhaps things aren’t as clear cut as they often are.

To get the auto transmission you have to buy the model with the 1.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine. There is no diesel option. When you’re driving it in those normal situations, like trying to scurry past a slower car on B-roads or when you’re trying to change lanes on the motorway and adjust speed quickly, the combination of 128bhp petrol engine and automatic gearbox does hamper your progress.

That’s probably not much of a surprise, but it does mean that you end up trying to keep the revs spinning up to where the horsepower is. Torque is only adequate. According to Honda, you’ll get the best response and the best consumption figures if you leave wheel-mounted paddles alone and just let the transmission sort itself out. Certainly, it tends to hold the engine around 3000rpm when it needs to get going, so it does mate well with the power characteristics.

The downside is that that lets in a fair bit of vibe and racket into the cabin. Naturally this isn’t a problem at all if you’re just tootling around, and there’s little wind noise, but it is an aspect when speeds build. Otherwise the cabin is a good place to be with comfortable seats, including the still-clever ‘magic’ rear seats that mean you can get a bicycle in the rear and still have the boot clear. And that boot is big, bigger than that in the Nissan Qashqai, at 470 litres.

In this full EX trim you get leather seats and big panoramic sunroof, but to be honest the SE Navi is probably a better value trim, since you get a whole raft of kit except for the two mentioned above.

It’s still a very competent, well built and practical vehicle, no question.

Handling is pretty good and the steering is perfectly okay. There’s little body roll while you’re negotiating country bends but the trade-off is the ride is rather firm, with some of those broken road surfaces with which we’re so afflicted making their presence noisily felt in the cabin. The big wheels on the EX, 17in alloys, don’t help that effect at all.

Overall, it’s a bit hard to justify an £1100 bill for the automatic, even if consumption and hence tax figures do favour it slightly. It’s still a very competent, well built and practical vehicle, no question, but perhaps the combination of CVT and mid-size petrol engine is not the best, and if you add in the expensive EX trim the sums don’t really add up.