Midsize Sedans Comparison Thread

w9cw · December 2006

thegraduate - I live in a university town, so to speak. This area has a quite high per capita income level, and the Honda, Toyota, M-B, and Volvo dealers have no trouble in moving cars. In fact, it seems like one out of ten cars I see anymore is a Toyota Prius. Typical, major university town - a lot of tree huggers and "green" people - not that it's bad mind you. Our metro area is around 125,00 population with one Honda dealer. BTW . . . this dealer was the very first authorized Honda automobile dealer east of the Mississippi.

My closest Honda dealer beyond the local one is around 50 miles east. That may be an option.

I get down to Huntsville quite often on business trips, and I think the largest Suzuki dealer I've ever seen is located there. I've seen more Suzukis in the Huntsville, AL area than any other city.

thegraduate · December 2006

Well, if you want, I can give you the name and website of the dealer we use in Birmingham (110 miles or so south of Huntsville). Shoot me a message on the Civic or Accord Prices Paid forums; I'm there a lot this week with my dad's recent deal.

captain2 · December 2006

ESC will only kick in when the yaw sensors detect that the vehicle is going offline from the intended steering direction.
Exactly. This must be one helluva smart computer that it 'knows' what I intended, don't you think?

thegraduate · December 2006

Exactly. This must be one helluva smart computer that it 'knows' what I intended, don't you think?

Yeah, that's actually how it works bud. It can tell if the car is following your intended plane and take steps to ensure that it does what you asked it to do.

thegraduate · December 2006

The tornado:

From the Birmingham National Weather Service

TORNADO 3 SW DEMOPOLIS 32.47N 87.87W
11/30/2006 STRENGTH-F1 MARENGO CO. AL NWS STORM SURVEY

PRELIMINARY PATH LENGTH 1.2 MILES AND 150 YARDS WIDE. THE
TORNADO STARTED NEAR US HIGHWAY 80 AND MARIA AVENUE.
SEVERAL LARGE TREES WERE BLOWN OVER ONTO HOMES PRODUCING
SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. SEVERAL MORE LARGE TREES WERE KNOCKED
OVER AND DESTROYED A FEW MOBILE HOMES. ONE APARTMENT
COMPLEX RECEIVED SIGNIFICANT ROOF DAMAGE. A FEW MOBILE
HOMES WERE ROLLED OVER. NO WARNING WAS ISSUED AT THE TIME OF THE TOUCHDOWN.
(Touched down at 9:30 PM)

Nobody was killed or even hurt amazingly. Thanks for the prayers. Back to the cars!!!

backy · December 2006

So you think that these biases and prejudices cause their drivers to intentionally apply the brakes in their braking tests to skew the results a certain way? Somehow I doubt it. I think it's more likely they have demonstrated in a practical way the benefits of ABS wrt stopping distance in both wet and dry conditions.

kdhspyder · December 2006

It takes your direction from where you point the steering. If it senses through the yaw sensors that the backend is whipping around and forcing you away from the original direction you pointed then it kicks in to slow you from getting more out of control. But it only does so when for example you aimed N and now without any additional input from you the vehicle is heading ENE ( oversteer ). Similarly if you told the vehicle to go NE but the yaw sensor determine that the vehicle is continuing in a straight line due N ( understeer ) then too it kicks into force. These are the only two cases it's in use.

plekto · December 2006

I suggest you someday try running aroung in a 4-Runner off-road in a freshly plowed field or gravel road. My friend did this and it was instantly apparent when the stability control kicked in.

The was this *beepbeepbeep" sound and the rear end went right back into place instead of allowing the vehicle to do a drift-like maneuver on the gravel road - and kept it from oversteering when he was doing doughnuts at 30mph and changed directions/returned to normal driving.

Yes, he's a bit nuts off-road, but he never ends up at the edge of the road against a berm or ditch anymore thanks to it. (imagine sliding to a stop against something and then getting yourself out in 4WD)

You have to actually push it like that to understand how incredibly useful it is - more than ABS in fact.

Now, traction control - that's a whole other story. I disable it every time I can. It definately kicks in in bad weather when you don't want it to. This is what 90% of people seem to think of when they hear "Stability control" though.

akirby · December 2006

It's called a yaw sensor and that's precisely what it does. It determines if the car is understeering (you're turning the wheel but the vehicle is going straight) or oversteering (the back end is sliding out. Only then does ESC activate. You're confusing it with simple traction control. You might want to do some research before trashing a feature you apparently know nothing about.

mm99 · December 2006

Are there really any cars in which the ESC cannot be turned off? The two ESC-equipped cars that I drove, Sonata and Altima, both have a dedicated button for it. So those who are not convinced by this govt. conspiracy have the freedom to exercise their beliefs.

kdshapiro · December 2006

This is the video. It may be manufacturer slanted toward Subaru, but it is interesting. Taken from the one of Subie board links. It's 11 minutes but interesting footage.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4999142340359932162

moparbad · December 2006

Now I know what happened to the diesel engineers at Oldsmobile, they are designing dashes for Honda and Toyota. :P

mfletou1 · December 2006

Or, you join the the 24,000+ others (ytd) who have purchased a Camry Hybrid. The VDIM system is standard. A quick perusal of Fitzgerald's inventory indicates that virtually every SE and XLE has stability control.

Camry Hybrid + SE + XLE > Fusion.

jaxs1 · December 2006

V6-only unless you get a hybrid.

scape2 · December 2006

Some just don't get it. The reductions by Ford are long overdue. Thier market share has fallen, so must their capacity. I know in the long run this will make Ford a leaner and meaner car company. It will allow Ford to get thier product to market faster. Quality/fit/finish will rise also. Its all a part of the changing market.

scape2 · December 2006

Nice try with the spin, but a 100 year automobile company that is shrinking in an environment where the global market is exploding and the potential for huge sales numbers down the road is huge - is BAD NEWS!

This is a major league cluster when the rest of the world is going all out to capture the millions of new car buyers coming down the pipe. China, India, Latin America, Brazil, in addition to North America are all BOOMING!

Hyundai, VW, Honda, Toyota, BMW - all jamming.

Ford, Mitsubishi, Volvo, Jaguar, Isuzu - not.

Once again, wrong! Ford is doing fine in Europe and China. The ONLY market Ford lost $$ is North America. guess you don't read that GM is the LEADER in China.. Stop spreading incorrect information.

scape2 · December 2006

How up above Edmunds lists actual owners of vehicles and their reviews. How the Camry with 223 reviews scores the lowest!!?? If this is such a fantastic vehicle then why isn't it at least in the 9.5 category?? with actual people that bought the car. Same could be said for the Accord.. 35 reviews and a 9.3? These two cars are supposed to be the best of the best, no other car manuafacturer can or will ever build a car as good as these two right? Then why are the actual owners not giving all 10's???

62vetteefp · December 2006

Now I know what happened to the diesel engineers at Oldsmobile, they are designing dashes for Honda and Toyota.

Actually they are all retired. That was a long time ago.

plekto · December 2006

Well, of course the XC90 is hard dressed. It's the size of a 4-Runner and doesn't belong.(though the hill climb was interesting). I wonder how the new Suzuki crossover would do in 4 wheel only mode?

They also should have tested the new RAV-4. It's extremely capable off-road.

kdhspyder · December 2006

Are you back to the statistical relevancy of these reviews above? Didn't we already show you how they can be manipulated by anyone? This is the third time I believe that someone suddenly discovers the reviews and says 'Ah Ha..'

the reviews are not random and there aren't enough of them to give any statistical relevancy. I personally could create 1000 different persona's, give any vehicle on the list perfect scores - or zero's - and skew the results to make them say whatever I wanted them to say.

Here is the bottom line in any free market.. 'Money talks [ everything else ] walks'. The public speaks with it's wallet. Noone is holding a gun to the head of 750,000 separate individuals forcing them at gunpoint to go to Honda/Toyota.

Also why is it that it bothers you so much that so many people exercise their right of free will and choose to spend their money as they wish. It's not like they are taking sales away from the Fu-lans. These two are allegedly at full production capacity in Mexico so even if they were the two best vehicles ever made, the CamCord buyers would have to go somewhere to get a vehicle. There are no more Fu-lans to buy.

All midsized vehicles are doing very very well in this current market.
CamCords
Fu-lans
SonOptima's
Mali-6's

kdshapiro · December 2006

The RAV4 will probably perform like the Highlander.

alpha01 · December 2006

Thanks, kdshapiro, I thought that was a really interesting video.

A few notes. For touting the many advantages of Subaru products, the organization would do well to extend VDC to the entire line of Legacy/OB products. In Consumer Reports test of the 2.5GT-L, they noted a tendency for excessive tailwag (oversteer) in advoidance manuvers. I can attest to this as my father, who exited a highway off-ramp on the Garden State Parkway at too great a speed for the raining conditions (his fault), spun across a grassy median and over a drainage grate/ditch which tore up the the lower body and some underbits after the rear of the car broke loose and he lost control (Like the Volvo XC70 in the video). I'm convinced that ESC would have prevented or mitigated this incidents in that vehicle.

Although I've not had that experience, I can say that I've driven vehicles with and without ESC back to back, thanks to one of the best automotive events I've had the pleasure of attending: The Hyundai Sonata Competitive event in July of 2005. At this event, Sonatas of all trims, and Camry XLE V6s and Accord EX V6s were made available, for driving around several plyon marked courses.

The handling course was a blast, and it the results of my drives surprised me. Though regarded as the sportiest of the bunch, being a good but not professionally trained driver, I had the hardest time piloting the Accord around the course quickly, in my opinion owing to the fact that 05s DID NOT have ESC. At the wheel, the Accord definitely felt as though it had the most responsive steering, excellent road feel, and very agreeable brakes, but modest tire grip, more transient roll than I expected, and the lack of ESC left me white-knuckled. I mean, I really drove to the dual limits of 1) my ability and 2) the cars ability within that threshold, and it was in the Accord that I felt the least comfortable, and the only car in which I knocked a few cones down, IIRC.

The non-SE Camry, while slower in responses, rolling a bit more (though I expected that) and being much less powerful than the Sonata and Accord (we're talking last gen, here, remember) was very forgiving due to its ESC. More invasive than the Sonata's, I never felt like it was so invasive that it would cause the car to shut down(?), though I think its a good move that Toyota is now offering drivers the ability to switch off the ESC in many of its Lexus sedans (GS, IS, LS).

The Sonata was great - no surprises, easy to control, quick, and enjoyable to drive.

Really, I think its funny that people can call certain vehicles 'not fun to drive' - the last gen Camry was supposed to be boring as hell, but for everyday enthusiasts like the folks on these boards, I don't see how one WOULDNT have fun driving at an event like this, in any car. I could drive a Chevy Aveo around those courses and have a blast, taking that dime box to the limits of its capabilities (and mine). Its not something we do every day, drive at 10/10ths...ya know? I'd like more events like this.....

Ok so.... long-winded way of saying: I'm a very firm believer in the benefits of ESC in assisting non professional drivers, based on personal experience, and in this segment Hyundai should be lauded for making it standard, and Ford should be embarrassed that its FuLans are incapable of even carrying the option because of the limitations of its ABS system.

~alpha

explorerx4 · December 2006

...even dustin hoffman is an 'excellent driver'.
i'm waiting to see the real life accident results(stats) for esc vs non esc vehicles. using the '05 accord as an example, the '06 stats should be noticably better.
anyone have those? maybe other models had esc earlier?

jeffyscott · December 2006

There have been several real world studies comparing collision and death stats for ESC and non-ESC equipped vehicles. Summaries of a couple of them are available at: http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/esc.html

kdshapiro · December 2006

My pleasure. Without sounding like the poster-boy of electronic nannies (which I'm not), people who don't understand what benefit an ESC system could bring to the control of a car when needed, are selling themselves short. You first understand the benefit then make the decision whether you want a vehicle that offers it or not. Not all ESC systems were created equal, but they all attempt to help the driver maintain control of the car.

kdshapiro · December 2006

It's going to be a long while before you see those stats. If you can imagine the XC70 and Subaru on crowded highways. The Subaru avoids a collision and then stays on track because of ESC, the Volvo avoids the same obstacle, but then hits another car due to fishtailing.

ESC only works within the physical limits of the car though. A car going 80 mph will probably spin out and roll over no matter what type of tires, brakes and ESC system the car has.

In addition, accidents or accident rates could be worse for the 06, but collision avoidance is better. You can't tell from accident rates whether the driver could avoid the crash or not. It's like ABS and DRLs in that regard. How many accidents have ABS and DRLs avoided?

imidazol97 · December 2006

>According to a new analysis by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, losses under collision coverage are about 15 percent lower for vehicles with ESC than for predecessor models without it. However, ESC doesn't have much effect on property damage liability claims or the frequency of injury claims. These findings track police-reported crashes, which show little effect of ESC on the risk of low-severity multiple-vehicle crashes.

This says the property damage and injury claims are affected.

Who wants to tackle what the meaning of this quote is.

My opinion on ESC is that it may keep the car from doing what a driver wants to do because it senses that's going to cause oversteer or understeer and "correct" that. That means the vehicle will tend to continue in the same direction and at the same speed due to the effect of the Stabilitrak. The laws of physics can't be repealed. In cases where traction is good, the effect of the Stabilitrak can be positive much like ABS has little impact extending stopping distance due to its wheel slip control. But in marginal cases, ice, snow, rain, wet surfaces, the maintaining of vehicle direction may take the car in a different,undesirable path.

moparbad · December 2006

My comment was humor, though I kow for a fact that there are automotive engineers still working that were employed in the late 70's and 80's.

exshoman · December 2006

I can't think of a single case where understeer (continuing in a straight line when turning the wheel) is desirable. This is the type of thing that ESC is supposed to help with. If the driver comes into a turn a bit too fast, and turns the wheel but the car understeers and wants to continue going forward, it will brake the inside rear wheel to cause the car's rear to swing around slightly so that the car will now go in the direction that YOU wanted it to go.

True, no system is going to defy the laws of physics. You go into a 25 MPH exit going 90 in the rain, you're going to eat the guard rail, ESC or no.

I think what all you guys are worried about is ESC removing the fun you can have with oversteer (where the rear loses traction and wants to swing the rear around). Oversteer has provided plenty of thrills to drivers over the years, and this aspect is what the car magazines complain about when the ESC cuts in too quickly. ESC can't tell if you know what what you're doing, or if you're getting in over your head.

So in that case, true, ESC is keeping you from doing what you want it to do. Which is why most systems have an off switch. If you want to go out and play "Tokyo Drift", by all means have at it.

As far as ESC and ABS being more effective on dry traction than wet traction, I think you've got that backwards. ABS and ESC really show their advantage on wet traction situations where it's really easy to end up sliding out of control, especially in quick response accident avoidance type maneuvers.

elroy5 · December 2006

I agree with everything exshoman said. Even if I believe ESC will probably never be needed by me (don't drive my family car on the edge), it's still nice to know the other "distracted drivers" on the road have ESC. It may save them from a situation where they might hit me. It would be nice to have the option, to turn ESC off, but even if you can't, I still think it's a good (not great), but a good idea.

The best way to prevent more accidents from happening (IMO) is to better educate (formal driver training) drivers before they acquire a driver's lisence. This should be a mandatory requirement.

imidazol97 · December 2006

>If the driver comes into a turn a bit too fast, and turns the wheel but the car understeers

The scene I'm seeing is there's a reason for the understeer, water and the wheels are not gaining traction, ice, or snow. The wheels are not gaining traction to effect side thrust on the front wheels, so the rear tires with even less weight on most FWD cars is going have the inside rear brake apply and it will somehow gain traction even though the two front tires aren't and that force will cause an angular force to rotate the car in the direction the front wheels should have been rotation the vehicle.

Or the car is in oversteer meaning the rear wheels are not sticking, water, ice, or snow, and the car will apply the rear brake on the outside to cause the car to rotate with less angular momentum than it was causing the car to go straighter rather than turning. So the driver ends up going where they didn't want to go or they wouldn't have been turning the wheel, i.e. a telephone pole on the outside of the turn.

These are the examples I can see happening. The usual Stabilitrak type example is changing lanes quickly in a row of cones into the next lane. I still see it as you can't have more force applied to the tire contact patch to control the car than the physics of the situation allow.

I take the example of a heavy rain and entering a 180 degree ramp much, much too fast. The car is not going to turn 180 degrees without a drastic reduction of speed. But the ESC is not going to let it try to turn because it's going to straighten the path as it prevents oversteer or understeer...

smittynyc · December 2006

"Even if I believe ESC will probably never be needed by me (don't drive my family car on the edge), it's still nice to know the other "distracted drivers" on the road have ESC. It may save them from a situation where they might hit me."

I think it's also possible that it'll cause a lot of drivers to drive even further beyond their and their vehicles' capabilities than they do now. What's worrisome about the preliminary ESC research is that its most profound effect is on high-speed, single-vehicle accidents. The effects on multiple-vehicle accidents are far less impressive.

As stability control becomes mandatory, I sincerely hope that manufacturers and dealers do a good job of explaining to customers what it is, how it works, and what it all means. I agree with you that education and training are key.

elroy5 · December 2006

So the driver ends up going where they didn't want to go or they wouldn't have been turning the wheel, i.e. a telephone pole on the outside of the turn.

I would say, in reply to this, that the car would turn (where intended) around the corner, instead of sliding sideways into the telephone pole. I think ESC would help the car go where it was intended, rather than sliding sideways out of control.

kdshapiro · December 2006

"I think it's also possible that it'll cause a lot of drivers to drive even further beyond their and their vehicles' capabilities than they do now. What's worrisome about the preliminary ESC research is that its most profound effect is on high-speed, single-vehicle accidents."

So you believe drivers will now be blantly ignorant about the limits of their vehicles? If ABS didn't do this, I'm not sure why a DSC type system would do this.

I agree that education and training are the key. But that starts at 16 or the learners permit, not when a car is purchased.

smittynyc · December 2006

"So you believe drivers will now be blantly ignorant about the limits of their vehicles? If ABS didn't do this, I'm not sure why a DSC type system would do this."

I think it'll be a combination of ignorance, falling for marketing hype, and an increased sense of invincibility.

ESC most benefits those drivers who would be likely to have a high-speed, single vehicle accident. I am worried about a segment of drivers/vehicles (esp SUVs) which already exhibits plenty of bad judgment (imo) getting ESC and feeling utterly bulletproof (like the Escalade drivers mentioned earlier in the thread).

imidazol97 · December 2006

ESC is going to benefit those who are driving within a margin of safe driving. It can allow an adjustment and control to be regained when the difference between correct driving and the actual driving is small.

It probably will help most often with high profile, high center of gravity vehicles with rear wheel drive and save them from oversteering and sliding sideways so that they tip over when the wheels hit something firm. keeping the direction of wheels close tot he direction of travel minimizes that rollover.

It's my feeling too that the driver expecting ESC to correct for gross driving will be saved by the ESC to the level of the advertising.

exshoman · December 2006

Interesting, that was the theory put forth in the article in Time magazine I posted a couple pages ago. They were saying that the benefits of seatbelts is somewhat mitigated by the fact that now people think they are much safer and can therefore drive more aggressively than before.

While I don't doubt that some of this type of behavior may go on, I think it is massively outweighed by the benefits of each new safety technology introduced over the last few decades. You could make the same argument about anti-lock brakes, air bags, etc. I bet if you put NASCAR type roll cages in cars, it would convince a segment of the population that they could go that much faster and not have to worry about dying. As for most folks, it doesn't change the way they drive, it just make life a little safer.

I'm not surprised about the ESC research showing the biggest effect is for single vehicle accidents. It's going to do very little to help intersection accidents, or rear-enders, or many different types of accidents that involve more than one vehicle. Many multi-vehicle accidents have no opportunity for a vehicle to swerve to avoid the accident. The recent VW commercials showing car crashes are great illustrators of that type of accident.

mfletou1 · December 2006

Not this again.

plekto · December 2006

One thing about the Rav-4 is that it has 4x4 for the price of most pf the competition's AWD. The new model is like a 3/4 size 4-Runner.(and would probably have eaten the others alive in the off-road parts)

(Roughly $22K for the base 4*4 model)

thegraduate · December 2006

These two cars are supposed to be the best of the best, no other car manuafacturer can or will ever build a car as good as these two right?

ONLY YOU ever really say this, just like ONLY YOU say things like "My Escape should have fallen apart after 75,000 miles."

Enough with the pity party for Ford. Quit compensating for something, and being a Ford martyr, and take some pride, you have a very good automobile.

zzzoom6 · December 2006

Surprised? I kind of am...thought maybe the camry might bump off the accord, but the Accord seems to be a beloved car over at C&D. Actually, no toyota product made the top ten... that's pretty interesting.

moparbad · December 2006

Surprised? I kind of am...thought maybe the camry might bump off the accord, but the Accord seems to be a beloved car over at C&D. Actually, no toyota product made the top ten... that's pretty interesting.

It is funny since there are whiners at other forums complaining that C&D is totally biased toward Toyota since C&D is on the Toyota payroll. Funny the excuses that are made by fans of a certain make to try to make other makes appear inferior.

IMO you can't change reality and reality is that Camry, Accord, Fusion, Sonata, Altima are all better cars than a Malibu, or Sebring irregardless of which automaker may be a personal favorite.

elroy5 · December 2006

but the Accord seems to be a beloved car over at C&D.

The Accord has always been the same. It has never been the fastest, smoothest ride, or best handling, but the best combination of each. Then the interior, and ergonomics seal the deal. The more you drive it, the more you like it.

plekto · December 2006

I guess if mediocrity is your thing...

I hate driving cars with no soul.

savetheland · December 2006

I am wondering why Accord does not put the world on the fire - only C&D. I think they just cannot come up with fresh ideas. And all those "Best 10 cars" or "100 best metal bands" or "George Clooney - sexiest man alive" are so boring. I did not even read 10 best cars portion of C&D.

And does anybody really believe that George Clooney is the "sexiest man alive"?

louiswei · December 2006

I guess plekto doesn't know what "overall package" means...

akirby · December 2006

And does anybody really believe that George Clooney is the "sexiest man alive"?

My wife certainly does.

w9cw · December 2006

Check out this link. I just went to the Hyundai website to compare a Sonata to another manufacturer's vehicle, and it states the GLS, SE, and Limited (per se) have been discontinued! Replacements include: GLS XM, SE XM, and Limited XM. No other info available, but it looks simply like an subtle trim update to include XM radio. Why Hyundai would change the actual trim nomenclature is beyond me??

http://www.hyundaiusa.com/vehicle/comparison/comparison.aspx?vehicle=Sonata

jimmy81 · December 2006

How about the Sonata NSODS ? The package with the Non Slide Off Driver's Seat ?

XM is a must tho.

w9cw · December 2006

That's a good one. No problem for the driver with the power seat, as that problem can be eliminated, but no help for the passenger riding "shotgun" as yet!

Midsize Sedans Comparison Thread

Comments

Helpful Tools

Most popular vehicles