[Montauk17]

My wife and I were in the market to replace her 2007 Honda CR-V EX AWD. The CR-V was a good vehicle but had more road noise than my wife could tolerate any longer.

She liked both the Honda Crosstour and the Toyota Venza. However, the fit and finish of the Honda was nicer and the Honda offered more features that we wanted than the Venza. Plus, we have had good experiences so far with Honda's.

So, we decided on a 2010 Honda Crosstour EX-L 4WD w/Navi, Opal Sage Metallic w/ Ivory Interior. We purchased the vehicle from Ourisman Honda of Laura Maryland. They couldn't have been more pleasant to deal with.

After a few weeks with the CT and driving in rain, snow and dry conditions I think we made an excellent choice. The vehicle handles well in all driving conditions and is really a quiet ride. I am amazed at how quiet it is compared to the CR-V and also compared to our 2006 Honda Accord.

-Jerry

Honda Automotive History:
2010 Honda Accord Crosstour EX-L w/Navi 4WD (presently own)
2006 Honda Accord EX-L v6 w/Navi (presently own)
1999 Honda Civic LX (Handed down to my son, 230k miles)
2007 Honda CR-V EX AWD (traded in at 83k miles, too utility like for the wife)

 

[RyansQuick6]

Glad your happy with your purchase and welcome to the forums! Lurk around all you want and feel free to post if you any questions or issues, just please utilize the search function as many topics have been covered, but we're always wanting to get more feedback.

 

[HHaynes]

Congrats on your new ride! I'm still in my honeymoon phase, too.

You bought your CT in "Laura", Maryland. By any chance did you mean to type "Laurel"? I lived there several years while working in the DC area. It's right in the burb/rural area between Baltimore and DC.

 

[Montauk17]

Congrats on your new ride! I'm still in my honeymoon phase, too.

You bought your CT in "Laura", Maryland. By any chance did you mean to type "Laurel"? I lived there several years while working in the DC area. It's right in the burb/rural area between Baltimore and DC.

Yes, I meant to type Laurel Maryland. My fingers were on auto pilot. I actually live in Calvert County Maryland and went to Laurel for my purchase because they offered me USAA auto buyers service pricing and Calvert County doesn't have a Honda dealership.

 

[HHaynes]

USAA fairly rocks in many cases. If you ever see a TV ad with an F-16 in it, you'll probably see my buddy Chris Vasquez, who helped them do the shoot. He's an F-16 pilot (or *was*, at least) who now runs the UAVs as a reservist. He was here in LA LA Land doing meetings about a project and got asked about doing the commercial, and he jumped at the chance to see them put together a national ad like that. But I digress...

I really liked living in Laurel. There was an old mill they had restored into a shopping mall right up the street from my apartment complex. There was a nice pub (maybe even a micro-brewery, can't recall...) in the basement that had a great vibe, and a few posh places on the other floors too. Laurel was an interesting mix of work-a-day people, rural/agrarian types, and then the contingent from Goddard/Fr. Mead. For my commute I rode the train from Laurel into Union Station, and got to hang with all of the stoic blue suits when 9/11 was still fresh on everyone's mind. That was chilly outside and inside the train, if you know what I mean.

OK - must dash - enjoy your CT! I just put a bike rack on mine, and plan to take my bike out to the Thousand Oaks area to peddle along the nice bikeways they have on the side roads that run parallel to the 101. Fun stuff.

 

[RyansQuick6]

Oh I love USAA, but I bought mine before USAA even knew what it was lol They still helped with the car buying service, but I was able to snag a little better deal.

 

[intropiles]

USAA is pretty nice! Love it very much!

 

[Montauk17]

OK - must dash - enjoy your CT! I just put a bike rack on mine, and plan to take my bike out to the Thousand Oaks area to peddle along the nice bikeways they have on the side roads that run parallel to the 101. Fun stuff.

Thanks! Yeh, Laurel has a little bit of everything. Just curious if you bought the Honda Roof Rack for your CT or did you go with Thule or some other Roof Rack. I have been contemplating the roof rack and then a cargo tray. Just haven't decided which combination of both I would like to buy.

 

[Montauk17]

Oh I love USAA, but I bought mine before USAA even knew what it was lol They still helped with the car buying service, but I was able to snag a little better deal.

I was really happy with the USAA pricing for our Crosstour EX-L 4WD w/Navi that I didn't even try to negotiate a better deal. All my negotiating efforts were focused on getting as much for our 2007 CR-V trade-in as possible. I didn't want to sell the CR-V myself, especially with the economy like it is presently.

 

[Montauk17]

USAA is pretty nice! Love it very much!

This was the first time I used USAA's buying service. It was very easy and a no brainer. I have my auto insurance through USAA, Home Insurance and some investments. Although, USAA couldn't beat Honda's .9% financing deal.

 

[HHaynes]

I was able to get a great price through my credit union brokering service (I'm at the First Entertainment Credit Union) and since I qualified for the .9% financing directly through Honda they set that up for me, too - which I thought was very cool. I didn't have a trade-in so it made things relatively simple for me. I had used Truecar.com to shop for the best price in the area (about $1200 below dealer cost) and the broker matched it - and found the color I wanted. They also beat the best insurance quote that I got on my own by $400/yr, again - in my book that's a no-brainer.

For a bike rack I bought a Yakima Quickback 2 which is a hatch-mounted rack. I put some pics in an album here. I like that I can put it on and take it off whenever I need, and it is *very* well engineered. I'm not really interested in overhead storage, and didn't particularly care for what the OEM cargo rails did to "the line" of the CT (not to mention partially blocking the sun roof - somewhat of a deal-breaker on a vanity level). I live in an apartment complex with multi-level parking (and I live on the top floor), and I did not relish the idea of bashing my bike into the concrete abutment overhead or catching it on the entrance/exit gate arm.

FWIW, my primary reason for buying the CT was for hauling music gear, which I want to store securely in the trunk area. The bike rack is for the occasional off-site ride.