Replacing the Civic

[blee]

My wife has the car replacement itch. She's driven her Civic for 12 years now, but it just cracked 100,000 miles last month. I'd like to say that it was flawless but it cost me more money in repairs than any of my other vehicles. Okay, except for that complete S14 teardown/rebuild, but that doesn't count.

Anyway, now she wants something in the crossover/compact SUV category. The punchline is that she hates car shopping, and despite wanting a new car, she really can't stand looking at and driving them. Really, I think she would've been perfectly happy if we'd just driven to the Honda dealer and picked up a CR-V. But I don't do that.

We managed to go to three dealers and drive four cars. All of them were mid-trim level vehicles with FWD. (I mean, come on now, these aren't actual rugged utility vehicles...they're 21st century station wagons.) By "drive," she took them around a few parking lots to see how they parked and felt, and I actually took them on the road. Impressions:

Honda CR-V: Big, big disappointment to me. Best price, airiest interior. Chintzy materials, even considering the segment in which it's competing. Most road noise, in a bad way. Suspension that was neither smooth nor sporty, but some confusing place in between. Slow torqueless engine and tranny. Worst of all, the steering reminded me of playing Out Run on a machine that had been abused one too many times. It was so overboosted and disconnected that it scared me. Oddly enough, my wife thought that it was the "easiest" car to drive precisely because of the steering. It is so totally not as decent of a car as the 12-year-old Civic. Why it's a best seller in this segment, I'll never know; maybe if I were 65 years old and/or only ever bought Hondas.

Ford Escape: Very impressive. Priced pretty high, but well appointed with very nice materials and fit/finish. Construction felt more solid, less beer can-like. Nice firm suspension with good handling for a vehicle of this type. I picked the 2.0 L EcoBoost, which has 240 hp, so it's almost unfair comparing performance to the 185ish hp in the CR-V, but I will anyway...it was so much faster I almost laughed. Good steering feel and appropriate steering effort. All vehicles in this class seem to have those silly backup cameras as standard equipment, and the Ford's was the best of the bunch. Surprisingly, the Escape also felt the smallest inside, and the booster seats we brought with us had to be wiggled around a bit to get the seat belt latches exposed enough for the kids to get to them.

Mazda CX-5: Also a sleeper hit. Priced a bit lower than the Ford, although with the Ford's bigger incentives and the Mazda's comparative lack of incentives, they price out very closely. Engine doesn't have as much horsepower as the Ford but there's plenty of low-end torque. Handling and steering is in the same league as the Escape; we didn't exactly go autocrossing, so for all normal street/highway maneuvers, they were basically equivalent. Roomy inside on par with the Honda, no trouble with the booster seats. Interior was not as nice as the Escape's IMO but it was still leagues better than the CR-V's.

We also drove a Focus hatchback in order to have a small sedan-based wagon to compare against the SUVs. Nice car, but she felt cramped inside and the booster seats definitely didn't play well with the rear belts.

Final verdict: Dunno. We'll give it a few days to stew and probably walk into a dealership to make a deal by next Sunday. I'm pushing for the Ford, but Kim is undecided. I think she really wanted the Honda to win, but she was as disappointed as I was in the materials and overall quality. I'm totally willing to check out any other cars she wants. Also brought up some small wagons and hatchbacks, but she didn't particularly like the way they looked. Same with the GM compact SUVs; they were either too ugly or too boxy (and therefore ugly) for her.