# Honda CRV - 150,000 miles and counting!



## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Ok, so proof that family are dangerous and compliments should always be taken with caution, after semi-sorting the paint on my WRX I was asked to take a quick look over my dad's 150,000m Honda CRV. It's a cared for car and despite being 12 years old now he's owned it from new and has never failed to get everything done that has needed doing on it (no terrifyingly terrible Chinese tyres or budget parts here!). However, although it used to get treated quite regularly with SRP and EGP in the earlier years it's now the main tool for running to the tip while he renovates the croft in the north of Scotland, not to mention treks down narrow and overgrown estate tracks for wildlife photography. Great for pictures, not so great for paintwork. The result? A multitude of holograms, swirls and deeper matted scratches from gorse and heather branches. Truth be told I'm always happy to help him out and the constant comments over how he couldn't believe the transformation.

My challenge was to sort the paint while the old man is quite happy to sort the trim/tyres/glass etc given that I was on holiday up there and trying to get as much climbing and running in as possible. I did give the wheels a clean but they'll need to be repainted which I'll hopefully get the chance to do before winter.

*Cleaning:*
AG Shampoo; 
BH Korrosol; 
AG Tar Remover;
Meg's Quick Clay (I got a ton of the bars on ebay for very little money years ago and I'm still working my way through them).

The car was caked in a mixture of heavy tar lumps, sand, sunscreen marks, bugs, brake dust…the works!
Korrosol brought up a marked improvement in the wheels and the tar improver helped the situation elsewhere brilliantly which left me with paint ready to get working on.














































*Stone Chips:*
Humbrol #20 'Crimson'
Tamiya 1500/2000/3000 Wet & Dry

With so many miles spent travelling up and down the A9 in winter the bonnet was plastered in road rash and stone chips, to the point that my dad thought that only a respray would do the job. However, armed with the various threads on here covering road rash techniques and experience gained from my own road rashed Impreza I went out and bought a large tub of Humbrol 'Crimson' paint with which to repeat the process. A little lighter fluid on the cloth and a fair amount of paint resulted in almost the entire bonnet as well as the mirrors being touched in as well as several deeper scratches caused by an errant jetwash hose at the local garage. The colour match in the chips was almost perfect although some of the deeper gouges will need to be touched in properly with a Paints4U stick but time at this point prevented that remedy for now.





































*Compound & Polish:*
Meguiars Ultimate Compound on Hex Orange pad
Meguiars Ultimate Polish on Hex White pad

Having used 3M pads on the Impreza and not found a hugely aggressive cut I decided that a more aggressive set of pads would be needed for the paintwork on the CRV so I ordered up an orange and a white Hex pad while sticking with the same Meguiars Ultimate Compound and Polish combo. In use I thought the pads really nice to use, loaded up with compound well and didn't seem to bog down at all when working the compound in (relative to the yellow 3M pad I used on the Impreza). Cut was impressive and made a serious impact in the marks and scratches, significantly reducing the worst and removing nearly all others. The black plastic trims up the doors also received the treatment to remove a number of scratches and sunscreen finger marks. I just used the UC on Orange towards the end of a set so that the pad wasn't loaded up too heavily and it cleaned them up a treat. For some reason there's no picture of the after here!



























































































*Finishing:* 
As with the Impreza I used FK 1000P on this once the paintwork had been brought to a shine as the finish it gives and the beading it creates is awesome.




























Anyway, the old man is happy, the flake is now popping and you would never guess the mileage of the car, and that counts as a win in my book!














































Apologies for the lack of structured pics, I could have sworn I was more specific with what I took!


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## SteveTDCi (Feb 8, 2006)

That looks tidy


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## ocdetailer (Apr 9, 2014)

That last pic looks amazing, you'd think the car was lovingly looked after on a regular basis


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## James_R (Jun 28, 2007)

Great work and a nice write up!
Nice to see your dads Honda is serving him well

I've got my dads 08 Civic to rejuvenate in the next couple of weeks.

I love Hondas, I'm on my third, my dads on his third.
Brilliant cars at ageing well nowadays.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Cheers guys, he's already decided to order up new number plates and spray the wiper arms to rejuvinate them as he thinks they're currently letting the car down. The detailing bug has already bitten!! I just don't think he can get over the transformation in not only the gloss but the colour too. It had lost all clarity over the past few years. Nothing wrong mechanically either so it'll go for another few years at least and then he'll treat himself to something new.


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## tonyy (Jul 26, 2008)

Great turnaround:thumb:


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Great work there - especially the road rash treatment :thumb:


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## MadOnVaux! (Jun 2, 2008)

Nice job, it looks half the mileage


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

*It still lives!*

So 5 years later and this is now on 185k. It's also mine. When my dad's new Evoque turned up 4 years ago he asked if I wanted it as he was sentimentally attached to it and would rather I have it and use it than sell it for a few hundred quid to someone who would just treat it like a disposable item and treat it like junk. So there it was, mine. Quite handy really to have a car that's a bit bigger than the Impreza (see thread here for details of that car).

In the last few years its had a new set of front calipers, new front discs and pads, new rear discs and handbrake shoes, new handbrake cables and new slider pins every couple of years as Honda brakes are pretty junky. It doesn't help that it only gets used at weekends and even then not every one. It's also had a new alternator and then last year a temperature control switch in the radiator (two days before driving it from Scotland to the Alps). Oh, and the tyres seem to last about 35k miles a set. I don't think I've ever managed that on a car before!

So there we have it. I was looking at replacing it this year with either another Range Rover L322 or a V70 AWD but as this is still going strong and basically free I've decided to hold off. Yes, a newer car would be better on fuel but ultimately that only helps if you're forced to do big miles. But at the same time you're still saddled with tick payments no matter what mileage you do. Uncertainties around the economy etc and a desire to relocate north in the next few years has also led me to put money in the bank rather than spend it. There's also the bigger satisfaction of working on a car and keeping it looking good and working well than buying something new and waxing it occasionally!

This is it at Reims on the way back from two months in Chamonix last year, a trip that saw it return 39mpg at the expense of my soul - average speed of 53mph over 3500 miles!



















Anyway, with the decision to keep it for longer and a clean MOT for another year I've decided to spend some time and effort on the old girl. The wheels will be getting a re-paint as they now look pretty horrific, and the underbody will be coated. I won't be doing that with anything particulary special as realistically it isn't going to be around forever. Probably a bitumen/oil mix unless I have any Dynax left over from doing the Impreza and my dad's Evoque.

First of the work though is the headlamps which definitely didn't appreciate the last few years, done using 800/1200/1500/2000/3000 grit Wet & Dry paper, followed up with a Red Megs pad on Megs UC and then a Megs Yellow pad and Megs UP.


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## djberney (Oct 2, 2016)

Just found this thread and thought it was my car. Same colour and everything except some scrote has keyed the passenger side of mine. I picked up some megs at waxstock so when I get chance I'll be trying to emulate your touch ups. Mine cost a few £100 to put through the mot this year but if I get another year out of it it will be worth it. Is your a diesel, as otherwise I don't know how you got that economy. Mine's petrol and the only way it would get near that is on the back of a towtruck.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

djberney said:


> Just found this thread and thought it was my car. Same colour and everything except some scrote has keyed the passenger side of mine. I picked up some megs at waxstock so when I get chance I'll be trying to emulate your touch ups. Mine cost a few £100 to put through the mot this year but if I get another year out of it it will be worth it. Is your a diesel, as otherwise I don't know how you got that economy. Mine's petrol and the only way it would get near that is on the back of a towtruck.


It is indeed petrol, the diesel wasn't available at the time my dad bought this. To be fair, the day to day economy is about 28 if it includes short journeys or driving it above 3000rpm, which means a lot of places - 5th in this gives the same RPM as the Impreza in 4th! The journey out to the alps was exceptional though, I'd just serviced the brakes and was doing the journey solo as the partner I was climbing with had had to head out ten days early. So I just took it easy and cruised down to Chamonix through Belgium, Lux and Switzerland to avoid the toll roads as I wasn't in a rush, unlike when you only have two weeks holiday and want to get out there as fast as humanly possible.So rather than 20ish hrs as I've done it in before it was 30hrs, not exceeding 60mph. Still, nearly 40mpg is pretty good an average considering the number of high alpine passes I was over while out there.

If your fuel economy's below 25mpg then I'd suggest pulling the brakes apart and cleaning up/regreasing the slider pins on the calipers, it's well worth it. Mine is pretty reliable apart from the brakes. It broke both rear springs which needed doing before the MOT last year and I've got a genuine rear back box on it again after the cheap pattern part my dad put on a while back corroded through and dropped onto the back axle one journey. The MOT this year was fine although it did need a good booting to get the cat hot enough to pass. Easy enough though.

I need to do the touch ups again too, the last few winters of following gritters etc has pebble dashed it pretty badly since it was last done. I'd suggest making good use of IPA or panel wipe to ensure there's no wax or coating left in the chips - it'll help the touch up last longer. If you're careful you may be able to fill the keying enough to blend it in. As it's a dark colour you could even try using a proper touch up pen of matched paint (harder than the humbrol) and then wet and dry it down carefully with 3000 grit.


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## Del-GTi (Mar 31, 2007)

That looks great, came up really well. Know what you mean about the A9, it's a brutal road for travelling regularly. I did the A90 recently and it's not much better.

As you say, why sell it when it's pretty much a free car to run!:thumb:


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Del-GTi said:


> That looks great, came up really well. Know what you mean about the A9, it's a brutal road for travelling regularly. I did the A90 recently and it's not much better.
> 
> As you say, why sell it when it's pretty much a free car to run!:thumb:


Thanks! Once I've given the rest of it a proper clean and repainted the wheels and brakes I'll get some more pictures up of it. I also need to sort the lacquer peel on the rear door plastic. Sadly she's always going to look a little battle scarred with all the car park dents, some of which have been there for quite a while.

The A9's awful although it's better to drive than it used to be even if it does take longer! Less suicidal overtakes for a start. I noticed recently though that they've started to put scamera vans on the dualled sections too, as if the average speed cameras weren't enough... The Transit I hired recently was tedious at 50mph the whole way but the cruise control did make me wish at least one of my cars had it fitted.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

*Paint job*

A slight niggle that's been annoying me recently is the lacquer peel on the rear door. I suspect it's down to a dent years ago in a carpark which just helped break the bond between the paint layers. Finally I got around to ordering the paint to sort it (and had a warm enough day to get it done).

Before:









During (including a quick skim of Dolphin glaze):

























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After:


















I also gave the spare wheel a grind back and then a coat of Upol wheel silver. The other wheels will get done one at a time in due course, they're scabby as anything. I've used this as a generic silver paint before for engine parts etc but as a wheel silver it does leave a bit to be desired as it really isn't particularly 'bright'. If you want something bright you're much better off with Wurth Wheel Silver, but as this is a car that's worth about 50p, a couple of lego bricks and a furry sweet without the wrapper, four tins of upol for £15 was not to be sniffed at!:



















Ultimately the paint match ain't perfect, but it's good enough considering it's a 17 year old, 185k miles car that's not a pride and joy. Given the quality of the average insurance repair on newish cars the average punter is probably unlikely to notice the mismatch, but I do. It'll be less noticeable if I paint the inset panel so I may do that. I'll see.

In positive notes she's got another year's ticket with no advisories, other than a suggestion of undersealing her. I'll probably do that as I've got some bitumen sealer and a load of old engine oil to dilute it with. It's not the nicest of coatings but it'll do considering that there are any number of potential bills that could send her to the great scrapyard in the sky, the clutch being the main one (still original)!

Also, a photo in her perfect habitat; -10c, North Face access road to Ben Nevis...home for four nights (the front seats fold flat into the back seats to make a pretty comfortable double bed). This was taken February 2018. Hopefully we'll get another beast from the east like that year this winter. I'm sure some would cry at the state the car was in after this; porridge oats on the floor (who wants to cook outside at 5am when it's dark and blowing a hoolie), condensation soaking everything (ditto, two people sleeping in it for four nights will do that), feathers everywhere (hey, down sleeping bags are just so much warmer than synthetic), and gouges in the plastic from climbing axes and skis (the car has a purpose!). Not to mention the 5km drive up a rocky dirt road to save an hour's walk in each direction every morning. It's why I'm struggling to replace it. I'd feel guilty treating a newer car like that, but for this it just takes it in its stride. And yes, that's dinner on the stove and water from the river in the bottle:


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## Overdoser (Oct 25, 2010)

Glad it's still going.


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## ibiza55 (Feb 22, 2008)

Lovely Jubbly, don't see many on the road now, its a keeper matey.


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## James_R (Jun 28, 2007)

Hehe great to see the old girl is still alive and well Ennoch !!! :thumb:

Mine on a lower mileage of 172k but racking up at a rate of 12k per year.

https://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=410455

I really do love this car.
My lad is 17 and is desperate for me to let him have this as his first car lol :lol:


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## jk1714 (Jun 26, 2014)

Great work


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## Denzle (May 4, 2011)

Top job. Well done Sir.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Thanks all!



James_R said:


> Hehe great to see the old girl is still alive and well Ennoch !!! :thumb:
> 
> Mine on a lower mileage of 172k but racking up at a rate of 12k per year.
> 
> ...


Yours is looking well. I can't imagine insurance on an SUV would be particularly cheap for a 17 year old lad! What's the underneath like? This definitely needs some TLC to make it last for a few more years as it's getting pretty soft. Good enough and all that but far from new! I'm only doing about 8k a year in it at the moment as the scoob takes 3-4k and then any day trips tend to be in my girlfriend's 1.2 Fabia that manages about 45mpg even with a lead foot. It ain't exciting but if we don't need to carry lots of stuff it's much better on the environment (and pockets).

I'm still not sure what to do with it long term. I'd really like a Discovery 4 but they have some major problems. An XC70 is looking most likely, maybe in the 3.2 petrol flavour.

As to what the practical side of this car allows (and why having one nice car is good enough for me, here are some shameless photos:

Point Five Gully, Ben Nevis (first date with now girlfriend):


















Un Poco Loco, Glen Coe









Crowberry Gully, Glen Coe (the cloud behind hides about 300m to the floor of the glen below!):









One day traverse of the Black Cuillin Ridge on Skye:









Royal Traverse of Aguille du Bionnasay, Domes de Miage, Mont Blanc & Mont Blanc du Tacul (the left hand skyline of this pic):









That is why I am not financing myself to the balls for a new car, I have much, much more fun priorities!


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## James_R (Jun 28, 2007)

Awesome pics. 

Just had ARB links ARB bushes replaced on mine it’s like night and day now.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

James_R said:


> Awesome pics.
> 
> Just had ARB links ARB bushes replaced on mine it's like night and day now.


Cheers! Winter's arrived up here so it's time to get excited. Winters are already being swapped onto the spare wheels for the Impreza. I had intended to get some winters for this one but the Bridgestone Dueler's are all pretty new and while not amazing in the snow and ice, they're good enough. If it gets really bad I'll just take the Impreza.

I had to replace a front droplink on mine for the MOT this year actually - I'd been driving around for the previous ten months without one on the front after it had snapped. I found it handled better without them as it had more front end grip in the corners! I'm not looking forward to any bushes which actually need replacing under there as it's so crusty it looks like it's been pulled out the posiedon adventure and one bush will probably lead to half the underside being replaced! Sure, they're all pretty soft but they don't actually _need _replaced...yet.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

So a bit of an update on this. It ticked over 187k and in the last few months I've:
- replaced the centre section as the original had finally given up the ghost.
- resealed the manifold to cat joint as the engine mounts are a bit soft and the movement had finally broken apart the donut gasket which was slowly asphyxiating me on longer drives!
- unseized the rear brake sliders yet again.
- Got a new MOT for another year (after fitting a new NSF bulb)!! Only advisories were slight play in the rear drop links and corrosion on the rear sills. Can't complain at that given she's coming up for nineteen years old! There was a rear number plate light out too until a swift hit with a fist by the tester got it working again :lol:

Resealing the donut:



















State of the centre section joint prior to replacement:



















You can see the joint into the silencer had come apart too:








=

Somehow I don't seem to have taken any shots of the new one installed...

Finally, I gave her a couple of coats of FK1000p:























































And finally, beading:










The plastics in the boot are a bit battered from several house renovations, bikes and climbing gear being thrown in the back but it's held up pretty well all told!










I discovered a slot for putting the load cover in, after having this car in the family since 2002 :wall: :










A bit of fabric fade! You'd never tell this car's been slept in somewhere over 30 nights...:



















The BMW might be practical for a performance car but it certainly isn;'t this practical!:










I also discovered this rust when cleaning all the gravel out of the boot:


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## Andyblue (Jun 20, 2017)

Good news about the MOT, it certainly doesn’t look it’s age and has come up very well :thumb:


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## Rakti (Nov 11, 2019)

That rust in the wheel well looks pretty bad. Also, in the pic where the centre exhaust is off, looks like a hole rusted through in whatever sits behind the exhaust.


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Rakti said:


> That rust in the wheel well looks pretty bad. Also, in the pic where the centre exhaust is off, looks like a hole rusted through in whatever sits behind the exhaust.


The rust in the wheel well is just cosmetic. If I thought the car had a good number of years left in it then I'd probably grind it back to fresh metal, treat and coat in epoxy but as it is it's probably got 1-2 years on it and the rust there certainly isn't going to cause a problem in that time it's not worth it, she ain't a restoration project. The rust behind the exhaust is simply a multi layered heat shield so again, really not a problem. If there was dangerous rust on it there wouldn't be an MOT ticket on it and I would have scrapped it before now.


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## Rakti (Nov 11, 2019)

Ennoch said:


> The rust in the wheel well is just cosmetic. If I thought the car had a good number of years left in it then I'd probably grind it back to fresh metal, treat and coat in epoxy but as it is it's probably got 1-2 years on it and the rust there certainly isn't going to cause a problem in that time it's not worth it, she ain't a restoration project. The rust behind the exhaust is simply a multi layered heat shield so again, really not a problem. If there was dangerous rust on it there wouldn't be an MOT ticket on it and I would have scrapped it before now.


Fair enough, but as the rest of the car looks in such good condition, why do you say it's only got 1-2 years left in it? Or do you mean just for yourself, and then you'll be selling it on?


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## Ennoch (Jan 31, 2006)

Rakti said:


> Fair enough, but as the rest of the car looks in such good condition, why do you say it's only got 1-2 years left in it? Or do you mean just for yourself, and then you'll be selling it on?


I've already bought its replacement so it's going to be up for sale soon-ish anyway but ultimately there are lots of things that probably don't have too much life in them and you have to make a decision on when to stop or keep going. None of the things are catastrophic but it's done 187k, is nineteen years old and lived a good few years in the north west right on the sea so there is definitely rust. None of it is present as holes, and none of it is so bad that it's an MOT fail but equally you're not really in a position to replace the soft metal with good because you'd be chasing it all the way round the car. It's a shame because as you say the upper half looks perfect! When I come to sell it I'll not be pulling a fast one, I'll be honest. And that's what it is, an honest car that's been looked after well all its life. It would have been nice to get it to 20 years and 200k in the same family but with trying to keep the miles off the Impreza there was part of me looking for something a bit quicker and newer as my main car. I'll genuinely be sad to see it go, I remember going to pick it up with my dad when I was 17, and taking it for a run down the Campbelltown peninsula to bed the engine in gently on the first weekend.

The underbody rust is one of the reasons I undersealed my dads new Evoque when he got it (and continue to do it every couple of years) and why I'm about to do my new (five year old) car too. Unfortunately the life of a car in Scotland, particularly on the roads I drive and when I do a lot of my driving, isn't kind to the underside.


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## James_R (Jun 28, 2007)

The old girl is STILL looking good Ennoch

My MKII went in Jan 2020 and I bought a MK3

Just ticked over to 140k this week and she's running good. A few more luxuries in the MK3 EX, but my old MKII was bought by a friend at work.

Despite having to replace the rear calipers on it (surprise) she says its running like a dream. Also on 180k plus miles


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## CGD (Nov 14, 2018)

the bodywork is fantastic for the age and mileage, a real testament to the owner(s)!!


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