A page and a half down someone asked the same question. Might want to read those responses.

 

Thanks for the direction, went there and followed some leads and got a pretty good dose of info. What I came away with is that maybe the CRV is not the vehicle for my wife due to her driving habits and the oil dilution issues. We live in a fairly cold climate and she only drives 5 miles to work so the engine would not get very hot during her commute and this is the main use of the car. Will probably stay with the Subaru Outback.

 

The turbo comes on everything but LX I believe. I wouldn't consider LX due to the severe compromises in features and interior

Some owners are having oil dilution issues on turbo in cold climates

 

My step-daughter and her husband just bought a new LX. Of course the exact color they want is not available in CA so they need to wait 2 wks for delivery. Next time I see them I'll drive the LX and provide a comparison to my 2017 AWD Touring. I've had my CRV for a year next month and to be honest I'm like it more over time which is rather significant.

 

This would be a great reason to only consider the LX.
Honda seems to be hoping the oil-dilution issue simply disappears and is pretending it doesn't exist.

 

We own a LX. And it is a pretty good car. We get 30 plus mpg most of the time. My wife does not have a lead foot as I do. lol

 

I am by no means a mechanic or have a great understanding of internal combustion engines but if I read it correctly they changed the injection method on the 2.4 also making it susceptible to the oil dilution problem when the engine is not run up to temp. I may be wrong but that was my take away reading about the current CRV engines.

 

There have been a few reports of the 2.4L engine with direct injection having oil dilution problems, but not nearly as many as the 1.5L turbo engine.

The 2014 CR-V has a 2.4L multipoint injection engine, which does not have the dilution problem.

 

In our family (siblings, kids, grand kids, etc) we have six DI Honda's. That included my 2017 1.5Turbo CR-V (bought in Jan 2017 ), 2016 2.4 DI CR-V, a couple of 2015 and one 2016 1.5 DI normally aspirated Fit's . These cars live in the Mid-West, some in Ohio a few in Kentucky. Most of them do short trips, like my brother who lives only 3 miles from a little college town in Ohio and for whom a 5 mile drive is longer than he usually does. I do mostly longer drives with my '17 Touring and we use our Fit for the short runs around town.

None of these cars has ever had a fuel dilution problem. Some would have you believe it is "common" and have people scared to buy one of these vehicles. I am so glad I didn't get scared away from my '17 Touring. I have owned it almost two years now and it has been one fine vehicle which is trouble free and which delivers great fuel economy. My son is about to buy a new car and after years of Toyota's he has now come to love Honda's. He is looking hard at a new CR-V as he has seen how great ours has been and he likes seeing that great fuel mileage we get.

I have never had a moment of worry about our two year old '17 CR-V.

 

Engine choices



I went with the 2.4L CRV because I liked the way it drove, better than the 1.5. I also opted for the low-tech trim line for simplicity, but added after-market leather interior. Love my new car!

If you really like driving and are buying a car just for a single person, consider the HRV. It's a Fit on steroids! And fun to drive. I owned a Fit for five years while still single and it was such a FUN car to drive! OF course I did live off a mountain road with lots of twists and turns.

I moved to the CRV because we needed a bigger car now that there are more of us.

 

Perhaps the reason to go with the 2.4L engine is simplicity. It lacks the turbo. It is DI and does have the CVT. As others have noted, the 2.4L is only available on the LX, so there's quite a bit of compromise on other features.

 

You can’t go wrong with either engine, both are GDI so there is no getting away from the fuel dilution concern. I live in Minnesota and I have not experienced any dilution issues. We love our CR-V and if I had to buy another on I would buy the same one except in BLACK..

 

I just purchased a new 2017 CR-V AWD 2.4, hold over, got a good $ on it, 28 miles> I was going to buy an Ex with 1.5 T, but read here & online that there are issues with oil contamination, plus I did not want alot of bells & whistles & I had a set $ I wanted to spend> Google about the 1.5T & there are problems with it. You can draw your own conclusion as to what is factual.