The awd in crv has a short maintenance interval for honda dual pump fluid. I think it‘s 15k miles. If theyve let that go, a $5000 crv probably doesnt have much left in its AWD. The sh-awd in the mdx uses a system which is much lower maintenance, and effective in snow, but also limited beyond that if you ever started drooling over trail work. Those gen 1 mdx’s are heavy and solid. We had a gen 1 and never had a lick of transmission trouble, but they will get you at the gas pump. They arent bad to work on, but at the $ youre talking about, its going to need work. At that age/price just about anything youre looking at will need work.
slug-bug mentioned minivans. Ill second that, and in a pinch, airing down to ~12psi can dig out of a lot of snow if you have higher series rubber on them. I did just fine in a fwd town and country in MD for a few years, and if you get hit, theres a lot more metal around you, and they do “truck stuff” pretty well with the cavernous rear space. Insanely practical, hauls musical equipment with ease. Excellent view of the road... but i just got tired of driving a van after not too long.
M
