BEST FAMILY CUV! -- 2020 Honda CR-V vs. 2020 Toyota RAV4: Comparison

What's going on YouTube? Honda and Toyota have been battling for the hearts of American families for decades now. At first with Camry versus Accord, but now with RAV4 versus CR-V, the two best-selling vehicles outside of the big three pickups. RAV4 was just fully redesigned last year, but now for 2020 things are heating up with the CR-V getting an extensive refresh to fight even harder against Toyota. So which of these crossovers is the best bet for you and your family? Let's go ahead and find out. So to get things established here let's quickly talk about the pricing and option levels of these two. As close competitors, the pricing structures are closely aligned. So starting out with the CR-V, we have selected probably the most popular trim, the EXL all-wheel drive. As many of you know, Honda doesn't really do options, so adding just the destination charge will bring us to a total of $32,645. Keeping things equivalent, we have the RAV4 XLE premium all-wheel drive, which itself starts at $31,250. Toyota offers a ton of options for this trim, but in order to keep things even, we have only the $425 paint and the destination charge, bringing its total price to $32,795. That makes the two prices basically identical. So with that in mind, let's see how they stack up. So starting off here with the exteriors, we have two designs that honestly couldn't get any more different. The RAV4 has gone for a more rugged and sculpted front look. And while the CR-V's new fascia for 2020 does look a lot more aggressive, it still has the more conservative design. As far as lighting is concerned, the CR-V has halogen headlights for the low and high beams, compared to fully LED lights on the Toyota. However, this year Honda has changed the fog lights to LED, while it's Toyota that has the halogens here. Around back, both have premium looking designs, with partially LED taillights and up to 1,500 pounds of towing capacity. The only real difference here is the RAV4 having dual chrome exhaust outlets. Moving to some of the other features, like the wheels, you'll find 18-inch contrast alloys on the Honda, but 19-inch chrome finished alloys on the Toyota. And as far as the mirrors, they both have heating and power adjustment, as well as blind spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. Now of course, for family vehicles, you'll want to have more than just BSM. So you'll be happy to know that both crossovers have very comprehensive safety suites. Both suites include full adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, forward emergency braking with pedestrian detection, and auto high-beam headlights. However, the RAV4 even throws in a few additional ones, bicyclist detection, and lane tracing assist. And then the last thing on the outside, is that they share three-year 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranties, and five-year 60,000 mile powertrain warranties. But Toyota does give you two years of complimentary maintenance, which Honda does not. But anyways, that's it for the outside. So now let's get to the much more important cabins, before we take them out on the road. So heading up to these two, both crossovers have smart entry with nice key fobs. However, only the CR-V includes remote start on the key fob without a subscription. Once we open up the doors, you'll see interiors that are both practical and surprisingly upscale. Our Honda has the gray and black color scheme, and our Toyota is just straight black. Checking out the seats themselves, the RAV4 gives you eight ways of power adjustment, while the Honda goes for an impressive 12 ways with four-way lumbar. Additionally, you'll find real leather seats on the Honda, compared to the Toyota Softex faux leather. And furthermore, the seats are heated on the CR-V and not on the RAV4, unless you get the weather package. Now once inside the cabins, we can check out the material quality. Starting with the CR-V, it gives you all soft touch materials, even on the upper portions. There is also some stitching, as well as some faux wood accents. Switching to the Toyota, it also has soft touch materials across the entire dashboard with stitching. But where it falls behind the CR-V is at the door trims. Its door trim is mostly hard touch plastic, while Honda has extensive use of stitched leather, soft touch plastic, and the faux wood accents. Both crossovers have push-button start. And then looking at the gauges, Honda gives customers the premium 7-inch digital setup on all trims, whereas Toyota uses the smaller 4.2-inch screen until you get to the limited trim. Coming back to the steering wheels, both are leather wrapped, manual tilt and telescoping, and neither have heating at this price point. Now moving on to one of the most important interior aspects, let's talk storage. Honda always does something cool with the center consoles, and this is no exception. With a new sliding and folding tray, that allows for the center console storage to be at least twice as big as in the RAV4. Up in the front, both of them have another generously sized bin. But the Toyota fights back by giving you a large storage shelf, which the Honda doesn't have. So with all that stuff considered, I'd say they're roughly equivalent. Moving on, both have traditional shifters, though the Honda's has a non-traditional placement. When you go into reverse, both will have multi- angle backup cameras with trajectory, as well as electronic parking brakes and brake hold functions. Next up, we have the dual zone automatic climate control systems. There's not a great deal of differences between them, but the RAV4 is the more ergonomically sound setup, since in the CR-V, you have to use the touchscreen to get some of your functionalities like the zones. As far as audio systems, both have the standard options, which could be characterized as decent. And now let's quickly check out the infotainment systems. Both Toyota and Honda give you 7-inch displays at this price point, and both have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment, but no integrated navigation. Both models also have auto-dimming rear-view mirrors, and as you would expect, both have regular-sized moonroofs. Now heading to the rear quarters, both models are undisputedly spacious, but the CR-V continues to be pretty much the best option in the class. It has 40.4 inches of legroom and 38.3 inches of headroom, compared to 37.8 for legs and 37.7 for heads in the RAV. After getting in, you will notice that both provide air vents for the rear passengers, as well as two smart charging USB ports. Walking to the back areas, both have power tailgates, and the kick-to-open function is reserved for the higher-end trims only. Once the gates open up, the CR-V is also significantly more spacious here, giving you 39.2 cubic feet with the second row in place and 75.8 cubic feet with it folded. In comparison, the RAV4 has 37.5 cubic feet, which expands to 69.8 cubic feet with the seats folded. And the last thing worth mentioning is that the CR-V gives you a power passenger seat, which the RAV4 does not. Alright, so heading out on the road with these two, you'll find a surprising number of differences. Toyota goes with a more traditional setup, a two and a half liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine, making 203 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. Honda goes a different route and gives you a smaller turbocharged one and a half liter four-cylinder that makes less power at 190 horsepower and 179 pound-feet of torque. That power difference can be felt out on the road. Yeah, as far as acceleration, it definitely handled coming up this hill here with ease. Yeah, no, I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the power. We were just in the Forester just a few days ago and, you know, I think this feels more powerful. And the Rogue as well, definitely feels more powerful than the Rogue. As far as the actual acceleration itself, I would say it's not bad. It's, you know, I wouldn't say it's the best in the class. Of course, you know, some of the rivals have up-level engines. I'm not talking about that, but I would say it feels a little bit slower than, for instance, the RAV4, but quite a bit faster than the Rogue. Those are, of course, the things that people most often cross shop with this CR-V. For the transmissions, the same thing plays out. Toyota went with a traditional 8-speed automatic, while Honda chose a CVT. So even though Honda did an excellent job tuning the CVT, the average consumer is going to prefer the instant response and traditional feel of an 8-speed automatic. Now, we haven't mentioned the transmission up until this point, but as you can probably tell, it is a continuously variable transmission. That's standard equipment on every single trim level. You know, Honda, what they do basically is just make a really good CVT, but they don't bother with any of the tricks or anything. So it doesn't simulate gear shifts. It's not going to make you think it's anything except a CVT. But like I said, they do a very good job at making a CVT kind of blend into the background. You know, so even when you're heavy on the throttle, you avoid things like heavy droning, and it's just very responsive. You're not ever waiting on it to start making things happen. And I'd really say for the average driver of something in this class, I'd really say that you wouldn't notice the difference too much over a regular transmission. Let's talk about the 8-speed automatic transmission. Now, I've been driving it for a few minutes. I have to say I really like it. They do a great job. Like I said, a lot of the competition is going to have CVTs, so it's really nice that Toyota stuck with a traditional automatic. Now this, it really does a good job of keeping the vehicle in its power band. As you probably noticed, it shifts around quite a bit, but that doesn't bother you because they've done such a good job at making it smooth that it's just shifting up and down quite a bit, and you're not even noticing when it when that happens or anything. Like we already discussed, the engine and transmission combo in the RAV4 does feel more responsive, but an important thing to point out is that the Honda is a lot quieter as it delivers its power. But like Mason's saying, Honda delivers you that speed in a way that's much, much quieter and much more refined than the main rivals. It really does create a much more, I don't know, it feels more upscale to me when you don't, when you push the accelerator and it doesn't you know, kind of like the RAV4 does. Now one thing I will mention is something we mentioned last year and in the Camry as well. This two and a half liter four cylinder is a little bit on the noisy end of things. It, for whatever reason, it just seems to make a lot more noise when you're accelerating heavily. I mean, of course, once you, if you're just driving more casually and once you're cruising here, now everything is really quiet inside the cabin. But as far as when you first take off and accelerate heavily, you will notice more noise than what most of the competition produces. Now as far as the other driving characteristics, both have fantastic ride quality as well as surprisingly nimble handling. However, by the seat of my pants, the RAV4 has the sportier setup. And now the last thing I just want to talk about here is your steering and handling. I have to say, really, really impressed by this. The switch to the new TNGA platform is like life-changing for the RAV4, you know, because it went from frankly not real sport, real sporty or real good handling or anything to now this is kind of towards the top end of the class. I can only think of a few things, you know, like Mazda CX-5, some stuff like that, that, you know, feel better out on the road. Like, it really has a surprisingly agile feel. Like, you can take this, like, into this corner here and it stays really flat, feels really well balanced. The steering actually has a decent amount of heft and as you can see, it responds immediately. This is really all that I could ever ask for in this class of vehicle. Like, you know, it just, it just works. It works really well. Lastly, in regards to fuel economy, the CR-V does outdo the RAV4, but not by more than our 5% margin to get a point. It gets a class-leading 29 combined with all-wheel drive versus the RAV4's still great 28 combined. Well, there you have it. The CR-V edges out the RAV4 this year, but as you can see, both have distinct advantages and disadvantages over each other. As always, we encourage you to check them out in person at a dealership and all in all though, there are definitely many reasons why these are the two best sellers. Anyways guys, thanks for joining us on this car confections comparison and be sure to subscribe for more comparisons as well as our signature full review videos. Take care.