The ten inch extra is cargo length increase with second row folded down.

 

They needed 10" extra inches of legroom?

 

At first,nobody could understand how Honda created this extra ten inches. The answer is that Honda adopted a different way of folding the second row. Pre 17, the seat of the second row folded forwards. With the 17, it stays in place. Bingo more cargo length.

 

I still don't totally understand this. There's 10" more from the back of the front seats to the tailgate?

 

2nd row has 10 extra inches.

 

This is aggravating. I thought the CRV was for me. Yet there's no added length to the cargo area-- unless you put the back seat down--despite the reviews saying there's an extra 10 inches of rear space. There's no added width of the cargo area despite the car's width growing over an inch. Ugh.

 

Have you looked at the Subaru Outback?

 

Yes. The Outback has a trunk space of 39 deep by 41 wide. The Forrester is 33 deep by 41 wide. The VW Sportwagon is 40x40. Besides the RAV4, with its 44" width, you have to move up to the Pilot or MDX or Sorrento to get that width. That adds a substantial cost to the vehicle.

I'd like confirmation of my original measurements, as i only had a few moments in the vehicle.

 

Here is a good site for Outback measurements.

http://www.cars101.com/subaru/outback/outback2017.html#dimensions

 

Nice, Tic. I had the wheel well width at 41, so I'm almost 2" off. Your height is more, too--I had 29". The pics with the bike and golf clubs gives me confidence that the Outback would work almost as well as the RAV4.

 

We have 2 OBs. They have a large cargo area, not as much height as the CRV I don't believe.

 

Yes - the Outback has a deeper cargo area and the CRV has a taller cargo area.

 

I test drove a CRV, RAV4, and Outback today and brought my tape measure. I was off a bit. The CRV's trunk width between the wheels is almost 42" and the RAV4's is 43.5." The CRV's trunk length is 38, an inch more that I thought. The RAV4 Hybrid is out as it's battery takes up too much space. I didn't try the base 2.4L engine.

The Outback has a nice trunk area--it would do better than the both the other vehicles. However, I'm not a fan of the dashboard and wasn't that impressed with my drive in it.

IMO, the CRV was much nicer to drive and park. Much better steering--almost as good at my VW Passat. Also, the CRV has better features. I would have to buy the RAV4 Limited to get what the CRV EX offers, yet I don't care for the leather or power trunk and other features. The CRV was very impressive.

 

After reading this discussion, I was curious as to how our 2004 CR-V measures up.

Width between rear wheel wells = 41.5"
Length from rear seats to rear door = 35.5"

Surprisingly not that much different than the 2017. I would have expected more, when I get a chance I will measure from the front seats to the rear hatch and see if I can find more of a difference from the old to the new.

 

Dude--thanks for the perspective. It is curious that the trunk area hasn't increased significantly in size over 12 years as it seems to me that every car out there is getting bigger with every new generation, which seemed to be the reason why they now offer the HRV (and the Fit, to cover the small car market that Civic abandoned).

I feel trunk space is very important. When I look at the Chevy Equinox or the VW Tiguan, I don't see the utility, a key part of SUV.

 

BTW, if I use a tape measure and check the distance from the front seats to the rear cargo door, my 2004 measures 68 inches. This is with the front seats in the rear most position (assuming a tall driver like myself), seat back at the default angle. I would like to know what that measurement is in the 5th gen.

Honda could cheat and move the front seat all the way forward, however, the seat get so close to the steering wheel and dash, nobody would be able to drive the vehicle. So, they can cheat and move the front seats forward somewhat, however, I would hope they at least standardize on the measurements of the cargo area with the rear seats folded down.

 

FYI, I went back to the dealer today and brought golf clubs with me. They don't fit between the wheel well, but, there's room for 2 sets flat on the floor near the trunk door, with one angled. If two can fit, two more can be placed on top of them. It's not real spacious but it's better than I first thought.

 

At least you can move the cargo shelf up on the 5th Gen and have a relatively flat load floor. Our 2004 has about a 4 inch step up. When loading something long and flat, it's a bit of a hassle to get the item slid into the cargo area.

 

I wonder what the weight capacity of the load floor is when propped up to the "lay flat" height? The floor panel is incredibly light, and doesn't have any support in the center when sitting in the lay-flat notch.

 

I worry about this too. A few years ago, using my Toyota Sienna, I moved a pallet of bricks from my front yard to the rear. It took about 3 trips to keep the weight down. But the floor could handle it no problem. I'll definitely want to buy bags of mulch and top soil, so I'll be loading many 40 pound bags.

Is this floor plastic?

I would hate to have to remove the floor to load heavy items into my new vehicle.

 

Well, the removal process merely involves there not being anything on it at the time. No latches, screws, straps, etc. It simply rests on one of two ledges against the back seat, and you shift it from one to the other.

 

Removal isn't what I want to do. I want a solid floor to load heavy objects.

 

Honda is saying the new CR-V has an additional 9 inches of length in the cargo area, I assume compared to the 2016 model, with the rear seats folded down. Can anyone confirm this "extra cargo length" that I'm seeing/reading about?

 

I did not confirm the added 9 inches but determined that the trunk area length increased by one inch from the 2016 model.

 

Correct. As I understand it they did this by having the rear seats fold in one piece versus having the seat bottoms fold up and then the seat backs folding down into two separate pieces in previous models.

 

According to Edmunds the 2016/2017 has 2.0 cubic feet more cargo space with the back seats up and 4.9 cubic feet more with the back seats folded and overall 3.4 cubic feet more interior volume.

Bowling and tennis take far less space for their implements.

 

Custom cut plywood 3/4" thick, place on top of existing floor. May have to cut into two pieces for easy install and removal. It can be done!

 

Cars.com 's review says 220 lb. Definitely sounds like a candidate for a home-made load floor to me! That said, I'm willing to wager that if you spread the load evenly, it's a lot more. Bags of mulch are a lot easier on a floor than say, some hulking and weighty piece of furniture.

 

This likely won't affect me, but the thought of using a plywood floor for my brand new 30k vehicle makes me cringe a little.

 

Well, you can stop by an automotive upholstery shop and see if they can sell you a couple yards of carpeting that's in a color you like. Or, you can just buy one of the offical Honda cargo trays and glue it to the plywood for an OEM look. (Or bolt it to the plywood for that truck bed-liner look.)