MrJoshua wrote: So I have to ask: How much?
uh...with the awesome prelude wheels and sweet (kinda taller too) michelin tires, 3k should be get-able i think. that should be under the kbb value, i'll have to check.
just changed the oil today, and figured out it needs sway bushings. makes a "pop" once in-a-while.
on the way to church today, i remembered i wanted to add to this thread that the interiors in these things are virtually indestructable. (cloth)....its rather incredible.
One of my wife's co-workers has a 1999 CRV with 150,000 miles on it for sale. It's blue but I'm waiting to hear if it's an LX or EX. I do know it's an automatic. He's asking $1,500. Seems like a good price but the knowledgeable people here can correct me if I'm wrong.
In reply to Sultan:
Look for rust on the 1gens, but other than that you really can't go wrong. Great cars.
I like this thread...I'm also looking at small SUVs for DD and maybe even lowering it for aweswome wrongness. My first two options are the first gen Kia Sportage and the Suzuki Sidekick and now I might add the CRV to that list.
My mother has one with almost 300K on it. Just timing belts so far. I think its rocking the OG water pump. its been garaged its while life but the paint is fading very bad. Its an auto, Its been a really great DD
Vigo wrote: I actually really like the styling of the first gens.
Me too - I always thought it had a kind-of taut angular look to it, without a bunch of heavy crap tacked on (it is rather small by modern crossover standards I guess). They absolutely ruined the styling on the 2nd gen. 3rd gen is nice in some ways, but in modern Honda fashion a bit of a mixed bag. They must have at least 3-5 designers working in solitude over there, all working on the same car, but unable to actually talk to one another. 
One of these would actually work pretty well for our family as a 3rd car, a.k.a. German-shepherd-mobile.
I haven't looked at prices yet, but $3K seems reasonable for a useful, reliable, halfway modern conveyance.
I had one for a while, 99EX. Boring, slow, tippy, nothing good to say, but fine for its intended purpose. I was just surprised at how much I didn't like it.
Diff is sensitive and wants special Honda fluid (don't know how real this is but I wasn't going to find out). Rear door is heavy and cumbersome opening wide and the wrong way.
99 changed the rear door panels to include cup holders. That's about the extent of the excitement.
Good news is that there is a folding table under the cargo floor in case you ever need to have a spontaneous roadside picnic.
In reply to digdug18 :
The awd on 1st gen cr-v's is actually pretty cool. It uses two interconnected hydraulic pumps (one per axle) and a hydraulic actuator on the high side of the circuit. When both axles are spinning in sync, the pressure across the circuit is even, but when the front axle spins faster than the back, it creates positive pressure on the high side, which activates the actuator in the rear differential, giving you AWD. Once the pressure equalizes the actuator returns and disengages the rear axle, saving you fuel economy and torque. The reason it's a popular swap is because it is a completely isolated fully mechanical system. I'm unaware of any "over 20mph disengagement"; in theory as long as the front is spinning faster than the rear it would stay engaged, so good for slippery hills, and you shouldn't lose any fuel economy unless your front tires are sufficiently more worn down than the rears (causing constant engagement). The reason it loses potency with age is either worn clutch disks in the differential, or worn (airlogged) fluid, which gets spongy and becomes slightly compressible and stops moving the actuator in the differential. Newer cr-v's changed to an electronic system which is both more complex and difficult to work with.
Yes, for all the crap talk you hear about the Honda dual pump awd system on the internet, there sure are a lot of Youtube videos of 9 and 8 second 1/4 mile AWD civics using basically stock CR-V rear diffs. Hmmmmm.
"A couple of AWD CR-Vs would pull a premium one week before race wars..." 
Although to be fair to the haters, the AWD system only works well when you can spin the front tires. An 8 second car can spin the front tires for an entire 1/4 mile so they would have 'full time AWD' if they ran street tires, unlike a stock CRV.
I have a 5spd AWD 1st gen CRV sitting here with bent valves. I drove it before it blew up on the customer and i did actually launch it. Might not be an optimal system for off roading but it does work for silly launching your family SUV.
I tried to buy it from him, but he's been waffling. My least favorite thing about it is the nearly 4k rpm at 70mph.
EDIT: hey where'd the post i was responding to go? Now i look weird.
Odd I wonder why my post disappeared
Edit to add: Was the valve burning issue ever figured out on the B20 CRV? I know routine valve lashes fix the issue to address the lash selft tighening, but it still doesn't explain why so many non-vtec integras don't seem to have the same issue despite using the same exact head.
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