After seven years and 92,000 miles we traded in the 2006 Honda CR-V for a 2014 model. What has seven years of design revisions given us? The most notable changes include a rear-view camera and corresponding display in the dashboard, which is automatically activated when you shift the car into reverse; a switch for turning on and off a mode for better fuel economy (which sucks resources from other areas of the car and makes acceleration take longer, so it actually does make sense to turn off the better fuel economy at times); and Bluetooth connectivity to your mobile phones / tablets / whatever, offering the ability to place phone calls through the car interface and play music from your portable device.

Since you can so easily play your portable MP3s through the car sound system, the 2006 six-disc compact disc player has been scaled back to a single-disc player. Unsurprisingly, the cassette player has disappeared entirely. I first bought an Apple iPod about ten years ago, and started using an iPhone six years ago, but have still listened mostly to CDs. After two days driving around with the iPhone-to-car-stereo interface, I can readily imagine that Honda will ditch the CD player altogether in a couple of years, and I for one won’t object.

A myriad of other smaller updates also make the car generally nicer: passenger doors that open wider; back seats that fold down automatically at the pulling of a lever; extended field of view on the driver-side mirror; a little bit more interior space, both for passengers and cargo.

The owner’s manual (p238) offers some good advice:

If you get stuck, carefully go in the direction that you think will get you unstuck.

Sound words for driving, and perhaps for life in general. And in case the temperature warnings on cups of McDonald’s coffee aren’t enough, the manual (p134) also advises us:

Be careful when you are using the beverage holders. Hot liquid can scald you.

But most importantly, how does Samantha the border collie enjoy the 2014 CR-V? Seemingly just about as much as she enjoys every other vehicle she has been in, which is to say, not at all. After sitting in the passenger seat for a few minutes, she much preferred going for a walk over going for a drive!

More: pictures on Flickr