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Comments
I've been especially bemused by invidious comparisons to another car no one has driven on this board, namely the Mazda 6. After listening to all of this invective for the past couple of weeks, my keyboard developed a case of the reluctant participants...weekend notwithstanding...
From what I've seen, I wouldn't be in a big hurry to run out and buy an '02, because this new car has everything that one does and more. The pics in MT with the Camry clearly show that this in not an ugly car and may in fact be better proportioned than the Altima.
Speaking of Altima, in the same MT issue as the Accord review, they have the following comments regarding the long-term Altima with something like 5,000 miles:
"...the front cupholder broke..."
"...the car has since developed a squeak in rear window area, and the shift boot separated fromthe console..."
"...Altima offers one of the best center-stack layouts in the industry, but all the plasticky bits indicate some cost cutting..."
The Mazda6 v. Accord fourm here at Edmunds is a hoot with the back and forth. Reminds me of the "Return of GM's Might" board...
I think the two-tone treatment is reminscent of the Legend. The 91-95 Legend had a black upper portion over a beige lower. I love that look (my 90 Legend is similar) - the climate controls were housed in the upper. Check out acura-legend.com for Generation 2 pics.
A lot of people do wish that Honda would indeed revisit their past more often. I think in fact that if they rebuilt the 91-95 Legend today, gave it some modern materials, they would sell every single one. 10 years later that car still looks new and better than most cars on the road. To me, that car had some of the most perfectly designed lines, curves and overall styling of any contemporary car. IN a way, they are indeed re-using past styling cues with the Insight, which borrows the rear half of its styling straight from the CRX.
On the other Hand Accord 4 cyl is suopposed to perform similar to Altima, with 24 City/33 mpg for Automatic !!! Isn't it crazy..almost Radical ??
Getting a 5 sped Auto in mainstream 18,000 Car (4 cyl Lx) with ABS is almost as radical as it gets !! It is masterfull touch from Honda.
AND I loved the tip from Healy's review, 10 more hp & lb-ft with premuim fuel !!
Leave it to Honda to under-estimate there HP - 250HP with 92 octane? Bring it on!
the altima v6 may have a great engine and handling dynamics, but its ride sucks along with lackluster refinement. edmunds may think this car is the greatest thing to hit this market, but they're alone in this.
two tone interior: this is nothing new, the current accords have this for crying out loud.
Jim
My 00 Ody produces 205 HP with 87 - 210 HP with 92.
But i'm not one of those who needs to spend more money or have luxury-branded cars to make me feel good. I'm buying a 2002 Accord SE this month and will wait (about 18 months) for the 2003 Accord to mature before upgrading to what i think will be an excellent automobile for my needs - safe, reliable, comfortable transportation.
Add an A/C and I am happy to use it as a commuter car.
I wish the V6-EX has memory seats! I can trade heated seats for memory seats.
The host site has no problems with photo-shopped images, as long as the image was taken from Edmunds (I'm assuming that's the theory, otherwise "Amateur Redesign Studio" wouldn't be able to exist). So why was my photoshopped photo of the Accord with amber tail lights deleted? The photo was taken from the photo gallery of the Accord in Wardlaw's review. It's the one with the frown comment.
Honda did the same thing with the 3.5 V6 used in MDX. That engine achieves its advertised rating with premium gasoline. For Odyssey and Pilot the V6 was detuned to use regular gasoline, the max power output (240) stayed the same but came at slightly higher rpm, and a little low end torque was also given up.
It might be a matter of minor tweaks to the Accord V6e to get 250 (or even 260) HP with premium.
Any modern engine that includes computer control with a knock sensor can indeed use just about any fuel. But each manufacturer will tune the "base" setting to accomplish different things. The NEW V6 from Honda in the Accord uses variable valve timing and electronic controls, and with a 10.0-1 compression ratio, is genuinely different from the current-gen engine. And yes, it is easy for me to see that feeding the new engine higher octane fuel would indeed result in a small hp bump, and that doing the same with the old engine would not.
Toyota gets the same results with its V6, specifying regular with premium optional for Toyota-branded cars, and specifying premium [with regular an unspoken option] for Lexus. This is not a marketing conspiracy, just the results of upping the compression ratio to handle premium, but dialing back the timing in any case where the octane in the tank doesn't quite come up to optimum.
Not every engine with variable valve and variable ignition timing is going to benefit from an octane jump [or suffer from moving down the scale] - the compression ratio has to be high enough for it to make a difference, and the computer has to be smart enough to take advantage. In the current Accord, that is not the case...in the new one, it is. The higher compression is also a factor in getting better fuel consumption figures - all other things being equal, lower compression means higher fuel consumption, and vice versa.
The performance gain is significant and definitely noticeable.
Our 99 Ody (205 reg, 210 premium) always felt like it was missing a gear without premium (4spd auto back then), this without a load. I always used premium cause I didn't like the noticeable reduction in power. and it wasn't the 5hp I noticed, it was the 29lbf torque benefit from the premium!-)
Reminded me of the 90 626 GT (turbo) I owned. It was a sleeper rated at 140 hp but 180 lbf torque on 92 octane. With regular, felt like I lost 40hp. Granted this was a turbo, but apparently vtec can be programmed to have similar effects.
Only just refilled the first tank of our Pilot (with premium), but the manual states to use premium if towing. The Pilot gets 240hp with reg and 242lbf torque. Premium yields a few more lbf torque, but with the vtec motor this is across the torque curve and therefore can be substantial, especially at low rpms.
BTW, my old 626GT was rated (C&D) at 7.9 sec to 60 and 15.9 sec to quarter mile; the Pilot is 7.8 sec (motorweek) and 16.1. This with 4400lbs and frontal area of a bus. The Accord at 3k ot 3.3k lbs and 240-250 hp should do........very well!-) The Honda engineers are very credible IMO.
Just found a leftover bottle of 104+ Octane boost....now I know where to use it!
Not to worry; the little brain (motor ecu) is doing this constantly for you in evaluating the fuel quality, air density, temperature and other parameters to ensure that pre-detonation is not excessive; and even when you use the same grade fuel. It's not an on-off switch; it's an ongoing process, and you're not wearing it out. BTW, the technology has been around awhile (knock sensors, and now tied to vtec) so I don't see any concern for "first year" problems.
apparently from james healey who got it from a honda engineer (USA Today article on the 2003 accord). you're right, unless honda makes it official forget about premium fuel.
If you don't own the picture, you cannot use the img src tags to reproduce it in a message. Unfortunately, it has to be that way.
As for the V6 downshifting hesitation, I haven't notices anything unusual with my v6. I haven't pushed it yet as it only has 800 miles on it. It could be a quality of honda transmissions. I had been driving a 94 prelude up until now, which had very hard shifting, so maybe I am just used to it. I will try and pay more attention to the downshifting this week. Did you try manually shifting it, putting the car in "2" gear from D3 when driving? See if it does it.
"Honda also did some trick things to its six-cylinder, which result in a 40-hp jump over the outgoing 3.0-liter to 240 horsepower at 6250 rpm, and a corresponding increase of 19 lb-ft to 212 lb-ft of torque at 5000 rpm. For starters, Honda chopped 20 pounds of weight out of the engine, strapped on an electronically controlled throttle body and dropped in a new three-rocker VTEC system. It also reduced exhaust backpressure by 30 percent and increased the size of the intake valves. But more interesting than any of that is what Honda did with the head castings. Each head actually has an integrated exhaust manifold; head and manifold are cast in aluminum as a single part."
"The truth is the Accord has become spectacularly successful because it deserves to be spectacularly successful. But familiarity breeds contempt, and there’s a significant portion of the mush-headed press that figures the Accord has to be tepid simply because anything that sells in such huge numbers must be built to the lowest common denominator."
http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=5152&sid=180&n=157
IMO, you can't go wrong with this strategy.
Here's an article that documents how all the recent huge rebates and low apr financing has affected the used car market. (Prices have taken a huge dive).
Autonews.com article
--from the Car Connection review
http://www.nctd.com/review-intro.cfm?ReviewID=1210