2016 1.6 dtec 4wd auto doesnt use 9th gear

[Peter Shore]

Hi, my car drives lovely but draws me to ask about the auto gear selection and if this is typical with other like model owners. When cruising on a motorway at 70mph on a level road the car sits in 8^th gear at around 1800 rpm and if on a slight gradient it drops to 7^th.  I don’t seem to experience it using 9^th gear for cruising. If I sneek up to around 80 mph, It appears I still have to manually select 9^th with the paddles, it will then  change up to 9th but unless going downhill it soon goes back to 8^th.  Is this how the car is designed to run in regards to the gears and 9^th not being used when at our national speed limit? I have contacted Honda and oddly, they dont know the answer.

 

[Trevor]

A remap of the engine ECU could cure this. 

Found when I remapped my CR-V for economical and driveability reasons that the gears had 'longer legs' and contributed to better gear usage

[Peter Shore]

Hi Trevor, thanks for your reply. My research finds that this is the same with all CRV's of my type and model,  as has been verified by quite a few owners on another Honda forum.