Honda Cars : New Honda Accord outperforms higher-priced luxury vehicles like BMW, Mercedes and Lexus | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

The release of the all-new 2013 Accord arguably marks the biggest launch in Honda’s history, and the automotive giant is not holding anything back. Coupled with a complete redesign and a whole slew of industry-leading standard features, the ninth generation Accord is living up to the hype of the media buzz surrounding its launch.

“The latest incarnation of the Accord represents the best value-per-dollar of any vehicle on the market,” said Chris Kelly, who road tested the all-new Accord for VehicleTests.com. “After seeing all the high-tech standard features that come with the Accord, I got reverse sticker shock because the car was so inexpensive with more technology and safety features than a lot of luxury cars that are twice its price,” which is why VehicleTests.com awarded the 2013 Honda Accord with its vaunted 5-Star rating.

The 2013 Accord comes at starting price of $21,680 with an array of hi-tech standard features, including a rearview camera and Expanded View Driver’s Mirror. Other standard technologies include Bluetooth HandsFreeLink phone interface, Multi-Information Display (i-MID), SMS text messaging function and Pandora Internet Radio interface. These are just some of the reasons for the high praise from VehicleTests.com, which produces independent test-drive videos for consumers.

Honda

Citing "reverse sticker-shock" based on the vehicle's high-tech features compared to its affordable price, VehicleTests.com awarded the 2013 Honda Accord a 5-Star rating.

“After I spent the whole day driving the new Accord, I found myself missing the great features it has once I got back into my own car,” adds Kelly. “You get used to those features really fast.”
 
Drive safer
One of the features to which Kelly refers is the new Honda LaneWatch blind-spot display, which enhances visibility of the passenger-side roadway thanks to a camera that displays what is in your blind spot on the i-MID screen. The Lane Departure Warning system uses cameras to make sure the vehicle is aligned within the lines on the roadway and alerts the driver if he or she is drifting. There is also Forward Collision Warning, which alerts the driver if he or she is closing in too fast on the car ahead.

This new technology, coupled with the 2013 Accord’s standard safety features, also contributed to its 5-Star rating from VehicleTests.com. The vehicle comes with four-wheel anti-lock braking system, a total of six airbags, including front and rear head airbags and dual front side-mounted airbags. In addition, the Accord has emergency braking assist, electronic brake force distribution, both a driver and passenger head restraint whiplash protection system, stability and traction control and tire pressure monitoring. Additionally, the Bluetooth HandsFreeLink phone interface and SMS text messaging function allows for hands-free phone usage, which means less distracted driving.
 
Go faster for less
The 2013 Accord comes in eight different trim levels, from the standard LX to the EXL, including the all-new Sport and top-of-the-line Touring models. Engine options include the 2.4L four-cylinder with 185 horsepower and the six-cylinder with 278 horsepower, which is more horsepower than the Lexus ES, BMW 328i or Mercedes Benz C Class. However, more power doesn’t mean less fuel economy. Due to its new Earth Dreams technology, the 2013 Accord offers better gas mileage than previous Accords that had less horsepower.

While the all-new Accord has a lot more horsepower, the cabin was extremely quiet during the road test. “Normal conversation volume measures in at 65 decibels,” says Kelly. “The new Accord measures in at an exceptional 56 decibels. It was amazing to see the amount of soundproofing that Honda put into the vehicle.” Under the hood of the 2013 Accord, you’ll find a thick soundproofing mat, which helps keeps most engine noise away from the cabin. However, Kelly says that the Accord also features additional rubber gaskets around the edges, which provides even more soundproofing.

As part of its road-test, VehicleTests.com drove the vehicle for 50 miles on the highway at 60 miles per hour with cruise-control, in order to test the fuel economy — listed at 35 miles per gallon. Kelly and his team found that the Accord they tested actually exceeded the listed miles per gallon by a good amount. However, he could not disclose the actual figures for legal reasons.

The American-made Honda Accord has been one of the best selling cars in history, which is one of the reasons why it has boasted the highest resell value of any car in its class and has won many resell value awards from Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds.com. In fact, New York Honda dealers are already celebrating its sales success - it is selling faster than any Honda in history.

Based on early reception, this vehicle is receiving — including the high rating from VehicleTests.com — it looks like Honda’s problem is not going to be market share because customers know a deal when they see one. With industry-leading standard features, a shockingly low MSRP and more technology and safety features than many more expensive luxury vehicles, Honda may have a challenge keeping up with the demand in the market place.

“The new Accord is selling faster than any Honda in history,” said Rob Sabbagh, President of the Tri-State Honda Dealers Association.

Source (with video of the road test);

http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/review-2013-honda-accord-article-1.1193218

Honda Cars : The Wall Street Journal; Review: 2013 Honda Accord V6 Touring | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

by Dan Neil

LET’S BEGIN WITH your state of mind: You want to buy a sedan, mid- to full-size, good gas mileage, nice cabin. You want it to look good, but you’re averse to showy displays. Safety is important, so, seat belts.

A sedan! What a splendidly calculated choice. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your sense of equilibrium. Four doors, four seasons, four winds blowing. Makes you think.

You have lots of company. Four of the 10 best-selling vehicles in the U.S. are front-drive, four-door, five-seat, C- or D-segment sedans, about a half-million annually, representing nearly 20% of the total light-vehicle market. These are the sturdy milkmaids of the middle class.

But perhaps you’re wondering why a sedan seems so inevitable, given that there are so many other kinds of vehicles, from a Mini Cooper Countryman to a Ford F-350 Club Cab (long bed, fifth wheel), and every coupe, cabrio and compact that flies or crawls? Family sedans do sort of have a penitential air to them. You don’t own them so much as do time in them.

It’s because you’re rational. You’ve taken a very complex set of vehicle attributes, plotted them as coordinates in three-axis space—the axes being money, performance, commodity—and concluded the classic, three-box family sedan represents, altogether, the best compromise on all fronts. Sedans have great-looking number clouds.

People shopping for family sedans are therefore predisposed to extreme reasonableness. It is here that the Honda Accord has the segment by the throat.

Has there ever been a more radically reasonable automobile than the Honda Accord? Even its name means consensus. Big, but not too big; attractive, but too familiar to be provocative; well-appointed, but incapable of igniting sustained envy. The car’s trademarked engine note—sweet, high, isolated—is flirtatious, never carnal. Across a host of comparative metrics, from trunk space to fuel economy, from horsepower to stopping power, year after year, the Accord strives not for superlatives in any one category but a portfolio of general excellence in all.

Example: The segment bogey at the moment is the great Hyundai Sonata with a 2.0-liter, 274-horsepower turbo four-cylinder. The new Accord EX-L and Sonata Turbo are almost identical in price (around $28,500), size, interior room and cabin amenities. The Accord’s new direct-injection 2.4-liter four gives up 89 hp (185 hp) but is lighter, quieter and returns a whopping 4 miles per gallon better in combined fuel economy with a new continuously variable transmission.

Since fuel economy matters all of the time and marginal advantages in acceleration matter almost none of the time, reasonable people agree that’s a constructive compromise. And while big horsepower is nice, so is a refined, pleasant powertrain sound. The Sonata’s shimmering turbo thrash is fun but not exactly family-friendly.

Plus, the Sonata…dear, don’t you think that’s too flashy to go out in? Flashy is for other people.

It’s no secret that Honda has had a miserable couple of years. Like the rest of Japan, the company was deeply affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Production was also disrupted by flooding in Thailand last year. The yen has been strong and European demand weak.

And in the midst of all that, the U.S.-market products have slumped, drifting into mediocrity, which is the stupid stepbrother of reasonableness. Honda lost market share. The press was unkind to the redesigned Civic—it’s possible I might have used the word “treason”—and the company is now embarked upon what its chief executive last month called nothing less than “global reform.” Please have him swing by the U.N. when he’s done.

The early results can be felt in the Accord redesign, which returns the nameplate to its usual holistic excellence. Actually, this car feels less like a ninth-gen redesign than a proper sorting out of Gen 8. Even though the car is 3.5 inches shorter overall, and even though the front suspension has gone from double A-arm to McPherson strut, it looks as though the team of stylists barely changed pens. The Accord is still a deliberate, substantial hunk of sedan, with a spacious greenhouse, thick flanks and large doors. A bit bovine, really. It’s an optical wonder the way so large a car can seem to disappear before your eyes.

In the upper trim levels you can get LED headlamps that tuck under the headlamp assembly like beaded eyelashes. That jazzes up the look quite a bit. There’s more brightwork and definition around the car’s grille—but not unreasonably so.

As I count them, the new Accord had three priorities, all achieved: to regain competitiveness in fuel economy and powertrain sophistication; to re-establish the brand’s advantage in refinement and noise abatement; and to correct—even overcorrect, if possible—the impression left by recent Hondas that management cheaped out on materials.

As for the first, the Accord will be available with three powertrains: the 2.4-liter (185 hp, 181 pound-feet) with either CVT, auto or manual transmission; the carry-over 3.5-liter V6, now with 278 hp (21/34 mpg) buttoned to the six-speed automatic only (the Accord Coupe V6 will be available with a six-speed manual); and a 196-hp, plug-capable hybrid powertrain arriving next year with a marquee economy number of more than 100 mpg-e (gasoline-gallon equivalent).

I know the 2.4-liter is the newsy powertrain—the Accord’s first direct-injection engine—but I have to tell you, after recently driving big, clattery DI engines like the one in the Cadillac ATS[?], I was glad to drive the Accord with the V6, which is still port fuel-injected and still a spools to the 7,000-rpm redline with an easy athleticism and aerospace smoothness. With the six-speed automatic pulled down into Sport mode, the V6 cracks off a 5.6-second 0-60 mph time and pours midrange torque over the first four gears. If the Sport mode feels a bit too antsy, the transmission regular Drive mode is almost too calm (balance, see?). If you engage the Accord’s ECON mode—the bezel of the speedometer glows an encouraging green when you do—the Accord’s powertrain gets downright aggressive in the fuel saving. I was seeing almost 25 mph on a couple-hundred-mile interstate drive.

By stick and rudder, the Accord feels direct, agile and capable, with quick reflexes summoned through the electric power steering system and an appealing tendency to stay planted in corners. The light, lofting ride compliance on the highway gives way to a surprisingly muscular cornering on country lanes.

But the biggest improvement of the car brings together the second and third priorities. This is a resoundingly more solid and satisfying car than before, an impression of substance that extends from the door handles to the seat frames. Wind noise at 70 mph is just about nil, for instance. The cabin materials of our full-dresser V6—with fine-grain leather seats, door gussets and steering wheel, as well as lovely gloss-black resins and alloy trim—step way up from last year’s car.

Look, people who shop for family sedans are Vulcans, driven by logic, denying the temptations of emotion. They constitute a self-selected audience of the deeply reasonable and intensely practical. The new Accord will resonate with them. I predict it will live long and prosper.

2013 Honda Accord V6 Touring
Price as tested: $34,220
Powertrain: Naturally aspirated 3.5-liter, multipoint fuel-injected, 24-valve, DOHC V6 engine with variable valve timing; six-speed automatic transmission; front-wheel drive
Horsepower/torque: 278 hp at 6,200 rpm; 252 pound-feet at 4,900 rpm
Length/weight: 191.4 inches/3,559 pounds
Wheelbase: 109.3 inches
0-60 mph: <6 p="p" seconds="seconds">EPA fuel economy: 21/34/25 mpg, city/highway/combined
Cargo capacity: 15.5 cubic feet

Source;
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2012/10/06/review-2013-honda-accord-v6-touring/?mod=google_news_blog

Honda Cars : 2013 Honda Accord Review - The new Accord is good, and it knows it | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

Honda Cars : Honda sees 2013 Accord powering revival from troubled ’11 | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

By Dan Eaton

Honda has high hopes its signature car is ready to make a new mark.

Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. on Monday started production of the 2013 Accord, the automaker’s flagship sedan that has been assembled at the company’s Marysville plant for the past 30 years. In that time there have been eight generations of the Accord.

“Many people doubted Honda in the last few years,” Honda of America CEO Hide Iwata told a group of workers and visitors at the launch. “Many wondered if we would overcome the many challenges.”

Honda encountered a turbulent 2011. It dealt with production and supply problems caused by a March earthquake in Japan and flooding later in the year in Thailand. Sales have rebounded in 2012, and the newest Accord is expected to further drive that improvement.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich attended the launch and praised Honda for its commitment to the state and its $8 billion in investment in Ohio since opening its motorcycle plant in Central Ohio in 1979.

The new Accord is scheduled to reach showrooms next month. Pricing hasn’t been disclosed, but it is expected to be comparable to the 2012 model, which starts at $21,480.

The 2013 Accord has a more sculpted exterior, in auto industry speak, and though most details about its interior remain under wraps, the company made public a few of the technological elements, including a standard-feature Bluetooth phone interface, Pandora Internet radio and a variety of voice controls. Safety features include a driver’s view mirror, lane shift warning and front collision warning systems and a blind-spot camera mounted in the sideview mirror and activated by using the turn signal.

Accord Model Leader Mike Fischer said that feature is exclusive to Honda and gives the driver an 80-degree view of their blind spot compared with a normal 20-degree view.

Fischer said the interior has more space but the exterior dimensions are smaller than the eighth-generation Accord.

It also is the first Honda to get the company’s next-generation engine and transmission, dubbed Earth Dreams. Denis Kovacs, engine model leader, said the newest powertrain gives the vehicle improved fuel efficiency and better performance.

“That’s a balance our customers like,” he said.

Fischer said the powertrain provides 10 percent more output; fuel economy is improved by 4 percent. The engine is made at Honda’s plant in Anna, and the transmissions are manufactured in Russells Point.

Spokesman Ron Lietzke said Honda is not disclosing production projections but said the Marysville plant is running above capacity with overtime work. The facility, which is the sole producer of Accords for North American market and some exports, has an annual production capacity of 440,000 vehicles. It also produces the Acura TL sedan.

Source;
http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/2012/08/honda-sees-2013-accord-powering.html?page=all