Honda CR-Z EX in Toronto, Canada, eh!

[SunnyRayToronto]

Honda CR-Z EX in Toronto, Canada, eh!

Having a 1988 Red Honda Civic hatchback and always envying the CRX, for years I've been waiting for the CRZ to finally arrive in Canada. On Saturday July 10th, at a Mercedes meet at Sunnybrook park, a Honda Canada employee who just got an automatic CRZ EX the day before was passing by and checked out our Mercedes meet and offered me a test drive. This CRZ from Honda Canada is probably the demonstrator for the Canadian media car reviewers. Knowing that the Honda dealer won't even get the CRZ until late August or early September,.... Where would I drive this CRZ to? A Honda Dealership! And of course, some of the staff came out in awe.

Keep in mind, I'm not a professional car reviewer.

Under the hood, I'm amazed so much technology fits in such a small engine! The Honda Dealership staff were amazed the battery was so small.

In the CRZ,... you don't sit as low as that old generation of 1988-91 Civic/CRX. Seats are comfortable with good support. Here in North America, the back seat area is for storage only whereas in Asia there are real back seats there,... same scenario as the 1988-91 CRX. The back seat area of the CRX & CRZ isn't big enough to fit the average North American butt! Like the CRX, the CRZ has a nice large back glass area on the hatch for visibility when reversing. But now we have two decades of technology available,... parktronic sensors and reverse camera,... sadly neither of these are available on CRZ.

Blind spot visibility is many times worst than on the CRX. CRZ blind spot visibility is scary. You'll need to pray every time you change lane.

Handling is signature Honda,... it feels like a Honda. Quite smooth and corners well. Decent braking.

Acceleration is preppy. I didn't feel much of a difference in driving between Econ and Normal mode. When driving in Sport mode, there's definitely an added punch and you feel and hear the engine revving more. While a common comment (usually from those who never drove a CRZ) is that it's underpowered. The CRZ is definitely more responsive and ready for action in Sport mode and feels a bit more powerful than it really is,... and I don't see why anyone would take it off Sport mode.

Relatively small leather covered steering wheel that give a nice racy feel. Finger tip steering wheel mounted shifters. Nice assortment of steering wheel mounted buttons that'll take some getting used to. Lots of plastic.

Dash is sporty with well placed buttons and controls but lighted instrument clusters are a bit too flashy. Oh, and I really love the mile/hr & km/hr conversion buttom,... make cross border trips much easier. Seems to target youth drivers. I'm early 40's and having a Mercedes C-class, I'm used to certain luxuries like leather seats and panorama glass sunroof.

The original CRX came with a glass roof in Japan but not in North America. North American CRX Si got basic non-glass sunroof. North American CRZ doesn't even come sunroof,... and definitely no glass roof.

Way back in the late 80's and early 90's when the CRX was so popular,... the CRX drivers were in their 20's. Well, we've been waiting almost 20 year for the CRX to return and now we're in our 40's,... and we don't want a low trim car for 20 year olds. We've driven and owned many cars since our 20's and we're now accustom to finer trim levels and features. Add heated leather seats and all glass roof and the CRZ will appeal to that large crowd of CRX lovers who have grown up and acquired more finer automotive taste but long to cruise down Main Street on a Saturday night cranking up Depeche Mode. Ahhh,... glory days.

Overall, the CRZ feels a bit like the old CRX,... but rather feels more like the CRX successor, the Del Sol. If you ever driven a Del Sol with Vtec and feel that extra spunk when the Vtec kicked in,... turn it down a notch or two and you have what it feels like to drive the CRZ.

As is Honda Canada's habit of adding features once sales are less than expected,... any serious CRZ buyer should wait it out. Wait until after the initial first year sales. See if Honda Canada starts importing a more feature rich CRZ,... with heated leather seats, all glass roof, LED headlights trims and back seats.


regards,
Raymond Jean

[SunnyRayToronto]

Honda CRZ EX in Toronto, Canada, eh! - more pics

Notice: the really small battery under the hood
Also notice the odometer only had 99 km on it,... and I didn't want to give it back!

[MikeCR-Z]

Very cool to see the CR-Z in Canada already! Thanks for the info and pictures Raymond!!

[bizzybear]

Thanks for sharing!!! glad to hear some real-world comparisons with the older CRX/Del Sol... and it's even better when you consider this review was about a CVT non-navi model...

Originally Posted by SunnyRayToronto

Notice: the really small battery under the hood

the battery you see under the hood isn't the battery for the IMA system... i hope you realize this... the batter pack for the IMA system is under the rear storage area...

[SunnyRayToronto]

With the old 88-91 Honda Civic & CRX, you'll feel the road more,... especially since you're sitting lower with your legs extended out practically like you're sitting on the floor! A very sports car like driving position. With the new CRZ, you sit a bit higher up like on the Del Sol,... and the ride is much smoother.

Seat-wise, I like the 88-91 Honda Civic Si & CRX Si Recaro style seats much better. They hug the driver with much better lumbar support.

It might have been better to compare the CRZ with the Insight, both original and present,... but unfortunately I've never driven any Insight.

I noticed the gas & brake pedal were very Mercedes-Benz Brabus like,.... looks like stainless steel aluminum with black rubber nubs.

Yeah, I know IMA system batteries are in the rear. When I dropped by the Honda dealership, one of the sales guys that saw the car was admiring the small battery under the hood.

That battery even looked smaller than one in my 88 Honda Civic hatchback. I had that car for so long and changed the battery so many times, many different brands,... the Honda OEM battery are great! To better survive the Canadian winter, I would put in the largest battery with highest cold cranking amp that would fit,... I think it was battery for Accord or Prelude.

Bizzybear, nice avatar! I don't think the CRZ will be comming to Canada with those LED headlight trims. I didn't notice them on the CRZ EX that I drove.

MikeCR-Z, it looks like white will be the CRZ signature colour. Assumption made because the CRZ that I test drove was white and it seems to be the one Honda Canada will be using for the Canadian media car reviewer.

Certain auto maker like Mercedes have signature colours for certain models (maybe different for different generation and pre/post facelift). For example, my Mercedes C-class coupe has the signature colour of Adventurine Orange (called Paprika Metallic Red in North America because North American would shy away from Orange car),.... it's a burn copper red colour. With Mercedes, all advertisement of that model (TV, newspaper, car review) must feature a picture of that model in the signature colour. Models of the signature colour are never sent to the dealership unsold to be sitting in the dealer lot. Mercedes will only produce it once an order has been placed. And Mercedes dealers charge extra for signature colour models, as well as premium colours.

I'm not sure if Honda will go as far as Mercedes, to only ship the signature colour model to dealer only after an order is placed,... so that a signature colour car would never be sitting in a dealer's lot unsold. But I think we'll be seeing a lot of the white CRZ in advertisements. That is assuming I'm correct that white is the signature colour for CRZ and that Honda has a signature colour policy.

[MikeCR-Z]

It needs a car wash!

[SunnyRayToronto]

Originally Posted by MikeCR-Z

It needs a car wash!

Yeah,... I noticed that too. There were streaks of dirt going down the side and back.

The Honda Canada rep got this CRZ EX on Friday,.... and it was raining that day. I test drove it on Saturday.

[bizzybear]

thx... unfortunately i'm in Florida so i won't be able to get the LED's either

the battery under the hood on Hybrids are always smaller for some reason

[GoHuskies]

Any more pics of the side dash?

Few pictures seem to be available with non-navi trim.

[SunnyRayToronto]

Ask and you shall receive,.....

BTW,...... somebody wanna ask me for some "RICE",.... PLEASE!

These interior photos are NOT from the automatic (CVT) CRZ EX I test drove on Saturday,... These interior photos are from the CRZ EX I saw Tuesday which was Standard 6 speed maual transmission CRZ EX. Again,.. without NAVI

Interestingly,... the 6 speed manual transmission CRZ EX does NOT have paddle shifter. Whereas the automatic-CVT CRZ EX had the paddle shifter. Right is +,... Left is -

My Mercedes C-class coupe does not have paddle shifter but has adaptive touch triptronic shifter (adapts to your driving style) with + and - touch shift knob. And I find that much smoother.

On automatic-CVT CRZ EX,.... coming to a stop I was down shifting on paddle and felt each gear going down. If you don't paddle shift down, its very smooth. On acceleration, up shifting on paddle,... you don't really feel it,... same like not using paddle shift. Even if you shift too fast,... nada. There is a cool display on the instrument control to tell you what gear you're in.

Anyways,... stick to sport mode. Preppy with nice little exhaust note.

Anyways,... in the photos,... one was taken from against the rear bottom glass window. Yes, that bottom split window is made of glass! Which is better than the bottom split window on my Mercedes C-class coupe,... which is made of plastic and the curvature causes the image from the other side to look odd sometimes.

Oh,... BTW,... I found some weird sensor on the top of the dash near the window (check photo),... it's on non-driver side dash just inside window,.... square-ish with small dash coloured dome and little light colour rectangle. I asked the Honda rep there,... he didn't seem sure but guess it's a rain sensor. But it's like 2 inches from windshield. On my Mercedes, the rain sensor are near rear view mirror and right up against windshield.