[serialk11r]

I picked up the car today! Didn't take any pictures because...it's just yet another silver CR-V that you'll see 100 of every time you go on the road.

Despite some people online complaining about the automatic braking and whatever, I found the safety features unintrusive and I found the lane keep to work more than well enough. It has a start-stop system which seems to work really well, as the engine will stay stopped for a very long time as long as the air conditioning isn't set on LO.

Speaking of A/C, the front window is raked pretty steep (aero?) and lets in a lot of sunlight, while the A/C could be a little colder...I think I'm going to get some light window film for the windshield.

The CVT takes a bit of time to rev the engine up and get the boost going, so it's actually extremely easy to keep it operating efficiently, and you have to be trying pretty hard to rev the engine out and get maximum power and boost. No wonder the car magazines got such high mpg testing it. I don't have my OBD scanner on me so I can't verify the AFRs but seat of the pants feeling is the CVT is keeping the engine out of enrichment as the car feels really slow. Alas, it is the slowest car I've ever owned so...

I haven't driven it very far but the mpg seems pretty good. Seems like it'll easily do over 30mpg without trying which is pretty good for a car this size. The gearing is basically as tall as it can possibly be, as a slight incline will have it running at very high load and over 2500rpm, while it typically sits at around 2000rpm which is ridiculously low for a 1.5L engine. I noticed the CVT doesn't drop the revs much below 1200rpm so sometimes coasting in neutral may help a little bit.

I'll probably drive it to California and back to Nevada in 3 weeks ish. I'm hoping for 40mpg just going the speed limit and mostly letting cruise control and lane keep do its thing. Then I'll try the cardboard box tail.