Car Advice Honda CRV

[fuzz092888]

So, I posted a couple weeks ago that my Accord crapped out and I ended up with a Honda CRV. Knowing that I can't leave well enough alone, I was wondering if any of your car guys out there had any advice on a few things.

1. I'd like to replace the headlights and fog lights with LED's. Are OPT7 any good? Anything better for around the same price?

2. I wanted to install the trailer hitch. It involves removing the rear plastic shield. Is there any harm to just leaving the shield off? Reinstalling the shield after the hitch is on involves basically cutting the shield in half, which is an extra step I'd like to avoid if I can help it.

3. Any thoughts on seat covers over cloth seats? I've only had leather in the past and never bothered to cover those seats, but I was wondering if it would be beneficial to cover the cloth seats to help keep them in good shape.

Cheers,
Alex

 

[Adam]

Just one piece of experience - I had a Honda Prelude with cloth seats for over 12 years. I don't recall any issues at all with them wearing badly. I'm pretty sure that they still looked great when I sold it.

 

[TheWarrior]

Agreed with Adam, and I have a friend with a 10+ year old CRV and the seats are just fine!

I'm very hesitant about the head lights. I have no experience with LED conversion, but at least from a crappy youtube video I saw they didn't seem to offer the best coverage. Considering the importance of lighting for safety, not sure I can recommend that!

By rear plastic shield, do you mean bumper? Does this hitch actually bolt to the frame, as it should?

 

[fuzz092888]

By rear plastic shield, do you mean bumper? Does this hitch actually bolt to the frame, as it should?

Nope. On the CRV there's an extra plastic piece on the undercarriage. It's held on with a couple bolts and plastic toggles. The places where it is bolted on are the same bolt holes used for mounting the hitch and yes to the frame. I'm only going to be using it for a bike mount, no trailering.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Alex2507]

Just buy a mini van.

 

[TheWarrior]

Nope. On the CRV there's an extra plastic piece on the undercarriage. It's held on with a couple bolts and plastic toggles. The places where it is bolted on are the same bolt holes used for mounting the hitch and yes to the frame. I'm only going to be using it for a bike mount, no trailering.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol, that BMW in my pic has carried 10' - 2x4's, my acoustic guitar, and a bicycle. Not all at the same time of course, but point is, why not just throw the bikes inside? Or, with a basic understanding of aerodynamics, you can tie ANYHING down!

 

[GO-NAD!]

I've been wondering about LED headlights and how well they work in snow or freezing rain. With halogens, there is enough heat generated to keep snow or ice from building up on them. What about LEDs?

 

[Alex2507]

The plastic thingy might be a shroud of sorts. It may be to keep snow and salt off parts of the car prone to rust or it might have to do with keeping road noise down. I would trust Honda's decision to keep it in place.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

 

[TheWarrior]

I've been wondering about LED headlights and how well they work in snow or freezing rain. With halogens, there is enough heat generated to keep snow or ice from building up on them. What about LEDs?

Yeah I doubt LED's will be as fun as when your fingers touch halogens and burst from the heated oils!

But seriously, I think you are right to be concerned about that. Pretty sure I had read that somewhere. Just like hydrogen fuel cells, we haven't quite figured out how to make them work in cold conditions...

 

[Rickster71]

The Car Guy and the Electrician are going to offer their $0.02

Led's are nice, but too high priced to be worth it. Or at least wait until a bulb burns out. (I'd wait years for prices to come down) Resist the compulsion for LED's and a Nest thermostat... and skinny jeans.

Oh, the problem with buying first and asking questions later...
Always get the Towing Package.... Especially if you don't tow. Because:
That usually includes a trans cooler, bigger battery and alternator and hitch with fascia cut out; all good stuff.

I was always going to recommend a Honda Ridgeline for you. Very nice for the person needing an occasional truck. The peddles are big to facilitate driving with Crocs.

I always get seat covers. Front seats won't get sun faded. Looks better for resale.
Costco has some nice ones.

 

[fuzz092888]

Lol, that BMW in my pic has carried 10' - 2x4's, my acoustic guitar, and a bicycle. Not all at the same time of course, but point is, why not just throw the bikes inside? Or, with a basic understanding of aerodynamics, you can tie ANYHING down!

There ain't no way in helll I'm throwing dirty bikes in the back of my nice new-to-me vehicle Nor am I tying to the roof.

I've been wondering about LED headlights and how well they work in snow or freezing rain. With halogens, there is enough heat generated to keep snow or ice from building up on them. What about LEDs?

Good point.

The plastic thingy might be a shroud of sorts. It may be to keep snow and salt off parts of the car prone to rust or it might have to do with keeping road noise down. I would trust Honda's decision to keep it in place.

Dang. Looks like I'm going to have to break out the saw when the time comes.

The Car Guy and the Electrician are going to offer their $0.02

Led's are nice, but too high priced to be worth it. Or at least wait until a bulb burns out. (I'd wait years for prices to come down) Resist the compulsion for LED's and a Nest thermostat... and skinny jeans.

Well, I can hold off on two out of three which ain't bad

Oh, the problem with buying first and asking questions later...
Always get the Towing Package.... Especially if you don't tow. Because:
That usually includes a trans cooler, bigger battery and alternator and hitch with fascia cut out; all good stuff.

Well the problem was, the two package on the CRV, at least as explained by the sales guy, included the hitch and the wire harness and they wanted about $1500 to install it all. No bigger battery or trans cooler, just the harness and the hitch. Compared to buying a hitch aftermarket and installing myself for about $110. I'll figure that sh!t out on my own if it'll save me $1400.

I was always going to recommend a Honda Ridgeline for you. Very nice for the person needing an occasional truck. The peddles are big to facilitate driving with Crocs.

Ridgeline's that I looked at were out of my price range, at least in the mileage that I was shooting for. the CRV ended up being a bit higher than I wanted as well, but I definitely didn't want to go sedan and Toyota wasn't giving me half as much on the trade in (Rav4).

I always get seat covers. Front seats won't get sun faded. Looks better for resale.
Costco has some nice ones.

I'll have to check that out.

 

[fuzz092888]

Hey, how did you get a picture of my car? Did Adam share his cam url with you?

 

[Alex2507]

The history on Doug's search engine, picture that.

 

[Rickster71]

The history on Doug's search engine, picture that.

More pink stuff than we could imagine....

 

[Adam]

Hey, how did you get a picture of my car? Did Adam share his cam url with you?

Sorry, my bad. I was monitoring my cameras as I took the mask off when I thought he said the safe word. Turns out, "door" isn't the smartest safe word if someone is mumbling through leather.

 

[Adam]

More pink stuff than we could imagine....

Read that a certain way, and Doug comes across as the only straight dude here.

NTTAWWT.

 

[Hi Ho]

Regarding LED headlight conversion, I would not recommend it. Just as putting HID bulbs in enclosures designed for halogen, sticking LED bulbs in the same enclosures will likely yield poor results that are probably illegal because they now create glare issues for oncoming drivers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/2fynd2/for_anyone_thinking_about_putting_any_led/

Factory LED lights are starting to become more common. My Mazda 6 has factory LED lights. The units are designed from the ground up to be LED. They have motors and shutters and all sorts of stuff. They did not stick some LEDs in a standard housing and call it good. The lights on my car perform excellently and show that LED headlights are certainly viable but unless you're replacing the entire light housing with one designed for LED I would not install aftermarket LED bulbs.

Now I wish we could get some of the awesome new headlight tech that the rest of the world is getting but we can't have due to some archaic U.S. Laws.

U.S. Spec models like mine aren't allowed to have the cool feature that carves out areas of light to prevent blinding other drivers. Instead, we are only allowed to have high and low beam.

 

[Sheep]

Hey!

I work for Honda/Acura so let me chime in here...

If you want to upgrade your headlights GE Nighthawk Platinum's are really the only thing you should do. LED And HID Conversion kits use bulbs that disperse light differently then a halogen bulb (LED bulbs are not omnipolar, and HID bulbs are longer). The Housing isn't setup to use these dispersion patterns and will result in frayed light shining above the cutoff line and into on coming traffics eye line. Also, the LED bulbs i've seen installed in write ups seemed to shoot the light either far down, or up close only, not both.

Honda Cloth seats take a LONG time to break down, and more modern seats are more durable then the ones i've had in the past (1991 Civic). I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you are regularly dirty though a seat cover will protect your investment (your friends might make Italian jokes).

Usually the factory trailer hitch has a plastic piece or some sort of adapter that doesn't require you to cut the bumper in half. You might be able to buy the plastic trim/garnish separately if you're looking for a different hitch (class 3 as the Honda one will only be Class 1).

Hope this helps!

SheepStar

 

[Sheep]

The Car Guy and the Electrician are going to offer their $0.02

Led's are nice, but too high priced to be worth it. Or at least wait until a bulb burns out. (I'd wait years for prices to come down) Resist the compulsion for LED's and a Nest thermostat... and skinny jeans.

Oh, the problem with buying first and asking questions later...
Always get the Towing Package.... Especially if you don't tow. Because:
That usually includes a trans cooler, bigger battery and alternator and hitch with fascia cut out; all good stuff.

I was always going to recommend a Honda Ridgeline for you. Very nice for the person needing an occasional truck. The peddles are big to facilitate driving with Crocs.

I always get seat covers. Front seats won't get sun faded. Looks better for resale.
Costco has some nice ones.

On a honda, the tow package is the hitch, the harness for lights, and any trim peices needed to make the hitch look like a clean install if required. This isn't a class 10 hitch upgrade, it's a 1500lbs max towing class 1.

SheepStar