Our 2008 Honda CR-V EX-L has been a great family car for us. It is the primary vehicle that my wife drives. The car has good visibility out of it and the seat has a wide range of adjustment so that shorter people (like my wife) can adjust the car for easy and safe driving. We have never had the car in for any major repairs. It has only needed routine maintenance such as fluid and filter changes. The Honda CR-V has plenty of safety features for being a smaller SUV. There are front and side air bags, for example. I can also mention that the AWD makes this car able to go in any snowfall equal to or less than the car's ground clearance. And to be more clear about the AWD capability, I have never had the car get stuck in ice either. It gets just enough traction from the AWD to always escape. So far we have 100,000 miles on the car, and it runs and shifts the same as when we purchased it. Honda really has this 4-cylinder engine perfected for long life.