Test drove the 2008 Honda Accord last weekend. The sales guy had got the car to my place and I took it on my standard test drive route. This includes some nice empty stretches where she can be floored and also some broken bits which test the ride and build quality. The car was a 2.4 Manual. Forgot to put in my impressions earlier.
+ Very big car with acres of headroom, legroom, shoulder room and very comfortable front seats.
+ The front Visibility is excellent. You know exactly where the front left corner of the car is as you can see it. No more guessing game.
+ Excellent Ride quality compared to the last gen Honda Accord
+ The build quality is a few notches above the Civic. The plastics felt more solid and so did all the interior fittings.
+ Very eager and rev happy engine. I hit 100 in 2nd gear with another 1300 or so rpm left on the odo. Acceleration comes thick and fast if you rev the engine.
+ [b]The best manual gearshift I've experienced ever[b]. You can literally change gears with one finger. It is the most precise short throw gear box I've seen. The gear shift is even better than a Porsche 911 Carrera that I drove last year. That was my benchmark until now.
+ Very light controls - a very light clutch and brake too was easy to depress. The steering is quite light too but still had decent feel of the road.
+ Brakes work really well. ABS cuts in quite late and only when needed
+ The car changes direction quite nicely for something so massive. This was quite a surprise.
+ Turning circle is quite small for such a big car. U-turns were not too much of a trouble. Was quite easy to take it thru very dense traffic as well.
+ Gigantic Boot that can be made ridiculously big by folding the seats.
- Not too many negatives. The lack of certain features like steering mounted audio is pretty sad. These exist on the american accord so taking them out in India is pretty much unacceptable at the price being charged.
- The single biggest problem with the car is body roll. It is just way too much. There's a turn right beside Sankey road that I typically take at 100 on daily basis in my car. This thing rolled way too much at 80 to feel comfortable. Though it changes direction, the rolling doesn't inspire much confidence.
- Complete lack of bottom end torque - The honda signature feature
. You need rev the engine to atleast 1500 rpm before it gets moving. The problem is not as bad as the Civic but its still a pain to drive it in traffic.
- Poor Sheet metal quality. The doors didn't feel solid at all. The build quality is not even at Mitsubishi level let alone VW or Skoda. The sheet metal is so thin that a car with 1200km on the odo already has a few bumps here and there.
- The audio system was rather boomy. Had to turn down the bass to -6 to make it listenable. Again unacceptable for a car of this price.
- There are way too many confusing buttons on the center console. Had no clue which button does what. The screen in the middle is a bit hard to read as well.
- Lack of much equipment that is standard in this segment such as Projectors, Trip Computer etc.
- There's no way to store the electric seat settings. So essentially you need to adjust it everytime it gets changed.
The final negative is the price. Not so much Honda's fault but rather the fault of the horrible karnataka govt. The MT model costs 20.76 lacs on road. That is a terrible price to pay :(. Overall the only significant downer of the car is the the soft suspension and body roll. A slightly harder suspension might have helped the car to a great degree. I'd buy the car if I was looking for a bigger car right now.