If a car is bad in some way, it is not only possible, it must be scolded. Several years of criticism of the Honda Crosstour have done their job: the crossover has finally been updated. It cannot be said that all the comments were taken into account, but at least something was corrected.

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Honda Crosstour is not afraid of dirt, but it is better to take on serious obstacles right away

Photo: Honda Motor Co.

The Crosstour is assembled very well, the interior does not rattle, and for rear passengers there are heated seats and even ashtrays

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Lebedev / buy photo

ILYA ZINOVIEV

Complaint with benefit

You can think what you want about me, but I love to complain. I'm a scoundrel. If I don’t like something, I don’t hesitate to speak, write, or call hotlines. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t, but I don’t give up, I continue to talk, write and call.

There has been some progress: the gas station I use every other day has finally established a connection and now accepts bank cards without any problems. City services rid the apartment of mice (yes, don’t be surprised - mice) that were eating up. The car dealer, at his own expense, bought a wind deflector for my beloved roadster to replace the lost one, and the bank eventually stopped sending reissued cards to my grandfather’s village. The rural supermarket near the dacha has finally installed a sufficient number of serviceable grocery carts. Yes, I almost forgot: Honda also took my comments into account and redesigned the Crosstour crossover.

Imagine, they said: “Taking into account your comments, they made a serious update and even adjusted the pricing policy.” They modestly kept silent about the fact that it was my comments that were taken into account, but I remember what I complained about, and I see that they have changed. And I think that I can celebrate another small victory.

This story began more than two years ago, when I went to the city of Vyborg and back on the old Crosstour. Oh, and I spat, I remember, then.

The engine seemed downright weak to me. I called the “horses” that inhabited the engine compartment of the old car sick and even dead. I complained that I had been deceived with the engine, and suspected that a car with some other, weaker engine had been given out for testing by mistake. I even looked at the registration certificate and checked the indicated power. And then, pressing on the gas, he cursed dirtyly, because the figure indicated in the document did not at all correspond to the sensations.

The original rear greatly interferes with rear visibility, but makes the crossover recognizable on the road
Photo: Honda Motor Co.

And here I am sitting at the presentation of the updated Honda Crosstour and triumphing: the Japanese, to please me, have slightly increased the engine power. The 3.5 liter engine had 275 hp. s., and became 281.

Or take, for example, visibility. Especially back. After all, the Honda Crosstour, due to some design features and design quirks, did not provide proper visibility when parking, to put it mildly. There were no parking sensors either in front or behind, and every time I parked, I remembered the Japanese god and mother Japan, peering into the image of the rear view camera, cloudy as a hangover morning.

And now they tell me that the review has been significantly improved and it’s not just the new camera. The updated Honda Crosstour also acquired a side camera, and now, like in the new Honda Accord, by pressing a button, you can see on the monitor everything that is happening on the starboard side in high resolution and without any dead spots.

With bated breath I listen further: will they really say about navigation? Or maybe even about an audio system with Bluetooth support, which the Crosstour never had? I remember that in order to chat on the phone on the road, I had to take with me a funny wireless headset (there was no other), a gift from American friends, made in the form of a large black ebonite handset, like an old payphone, only without wires. The traffic cops and neighbors along the stream had a lot of fun watching me press this fossil contraption with my shoulder to my ear.

But, apparently, it’s not my destiny to fool around anymore: they finally made hands-free communication via Bluetooth in Crosstour, not even two years have passed. And the navigation system has been updated, it can now even display traffic information on the screen, which it receives via RDS channels. Which radio stations and where warn via RDS about traffic jams is a separate question. There were still no traffic jams at pontoon crossings, in gypsy villages, on dirt roads among the huge, human-sized burdocks of the Tula and Kaluga regions, where the presentation test drive of the updated Honda Crosstour took place.

The manufacturer calls the Crosstour a GT crossover, that is, a car for long-distance travel.
Photo: Honda Motor Co.

Updates under pressure

Let me make a reservation right away: what I write about the Honda Crosstour refers to the 3.5-liter all-wheel drive version. This is exactly the car I drove two years ago; I took the same car for a week-long test drive after the presentation.

At the run that Honda arranged for journalists, there were cheaper versions with a 2.4 liter engine and front-wheel drive, but I didn’t want to write about them at all. Firstly, I don’t understand why you need a car with a weak engine that drives frankly poorly, when there is exactly the same one with a powerful one that drives well. And secondly, no matter what cunning marketers sell us, a single-wheel drive crossover is still an oxymoron, in my opinion.

Externally, the updated car is almost no different from the old one, but that’s if you don’t look closely. In fact, the Crosstour’s face has been seriously redesigned: a new radiator grille has appeared, foglights have changed, and the bumper has changed. The unnecessary protruding “lip” of the lower spoiler was removed, and now in its place is a protective panel painted to look like stainless steel, more consistent with the crossover. The headlights are very similar to the previous bi-xenon ones, which is a pity, because Honda has more modern headlights, LED ones - like on the Accord.

I look at the back of the car and don’t find anything new, except for the same bottom protection as the front. However, there is one more innovation - a keyless trunk locking button. It looks just like the doorbell from my childhood - a small button painted in the color of the wall (sorry, the color of the body): one call is to Mironovna, two - to Baba Manya, three - to us. This rarity is installed to the right of the license plate frame.

The more closely I looked at the updated Crosstour outside and inside, the more doubt grew that Honda paid full attention to my complaints. Where is the parking sensor? At least from behind, eh? I wrote and complained that without it it would be bad on such a large and opaque machine...

Wheel arches noticeably narrow the 475-liter trunk
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant

Or take, for example, the disgusting type of polished wood inserts that infuriated the old Crosstour. At the press conference, I remember, a lot of words were said about the quality of materials and “increasing premium quality” - and indeed, the polished dirty trick was removed, and in its place was something more pleasant and matte. But what kind of lurex is added to the plastic framing the lower small screen of the on-board system? Why the hell does this treasure shimmer in the sun with sparkles of all the colors of the rainbow? Apparently, for added premium.

By and large, all the changes in the cabin are minor and unprincipled. There were rectangular buttons on the steering wheel - now they are round. There was a slot for a CD at the bottom - I moved it a little higher. There was one screen - now there are two. Everything else, this feeling, remained the same. Not a lot, in short, with changes.

And on the go the feeling is almost the same as two years ago. The suspension is far from the stiffest, but on large bumps it feels noticeably hammery - it’s good that there are no breakdowns. The brakes are effective, and the electric power steering seems to be sharper. Or maybe it seems? There was no feedback or, as they also say, information content. The roll is there, although the car stands up fine in corners, and the directional stability is decent.

But the engine became more cheerful. It would seem that only a few “horses” have been added, but there is an effect. The new engine with a six-speed automatic transmission works much better than the previous combination with a five-speed automatic transmission. During intense acceleration, you can feel the all-wheel drive transmission shifting some of the torque back. No slipping, no stalling when cornering under gas - beauty.

Plastic framing the bottom screen “with a spark”, like a Chinese children's player
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant

And it’s good on country roads with all-wheel drive. The car handles mud responsibly, is not afraid of ruts, and does not get stuck on inclines. Not an SUV, of course, it is a bit long with its five meters, and the overhangs are too big, but the ground clearance of 205 mm is very decent. But again, there was no feeling that you were driving an updated car. On the previous Crosstour, we also drove off the asphalt, and it coped just as well with light off-road conditions.

It seems to me that Honda, when updating the Crosstour, did not try to its full potential. Experienced bureaucrats dismiss the complaint in a similar manner: Have the comments been taken into account? Accounted for. Has the work been completed? Conducted. So what else do you want?

But I want to get the new Honda Crosstour in the form of a truly modern car, well equipped and fun to drive. And not a forced updated model, because the old one is already so outdated that almost no one buys it. I want there to be modern engines and transmissions to choose from. And not so that I was offered as the only alternative to a car for two million a car for one million six hundred, but without a motor and without all-wheel drive.

I generally like the Honda Crosstour and I think many people will like it. It stands out, it is unusual against the backdrop of endlessly identical crossovers, which the entire auto industry is now baking like pancakes. You just need to push it a little, well, really, is parking sensors really that difficult?

For my part, I can promise to continue to highlight the shortcomings. As an experienced complainer, I will continue to complain. And I will wait for the new Crosstour.

After updating the interior, the Crosstour looks like the new Honda Accord
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant

Honda Crosstour 3.5 AT AWD Premium+Navi

Dimensions, length / width / height (mm) 4999 / 1900 / 1560

Drive All-wheel drive

Engine, type Gasoline

Volume, l 3.5

Power, l. With. 281

Transmission 6-speed Automatic transmission

Price (thousand rubles) from 1999

Possible competitors of Honda Crosstour 3.5 AT AWD Premium+Navi

Model
Engine/transmissionPrice in
Moscow
(thousand roubles.)

Volvo XC70 T6 AWD Summum	gasoline 3.0 l (304 hp) / automatic transmission	from 2032
Subaru Outback 3.6 YE	gasoline 3.6 l (249 hp) / automatic transmission	from 2033

How much does a Honda Crosstour cost?

PAYMENT FOR TRAVEL

According to the Autoi.ru portal, Moscow official dealers now have only about 15 Honda Crosstour cars with a 3.5 liter V6 engine, all-wheel drive and automatic transmission. In total, about 20-25 such cars are sold in Russia per month. The delivery time for a car made to order is about a month.

There are not many Honda Crosstour 3.5 AT AWD cars on the secondary market - only about three dozen offers. The average price for cars produced in 2011 is about 1.3 million rubles, for cars produced in 2012 – about 1.5 million rubles. At the same time, you can purchase a completely new, but pre-restyling car from 2012 from official dealers at a special price - from 1,629 thousand rubles.

The cost of a 2013 Honda Crosstour 3.5 AT AWD in the richest Premium+Navi configuration, which was tested, is 1999 thousand rubles. Premium version, but without navigation - 1930 thousand rubles, no other configurations are offered for the all-wheel drive model with this engine. The warranty period and mileage limitation are three years and 100 thousand km. Service interval - 15 thousand km.

The minimum consumption on a suburban highway is 9.5 liters of AI-92 gasoline per 100 km, the average consumption in Moscow is 16-17 liters.

The cost of the first year of comprehensive insurance is 100-150 thousand rubles. depending on the insurance company and additional conditions, compulsory motor liability insurance for the year - 6,336 rubles, transport tax - 42,150 rubles.

Crossover on the way to fixing