We're thinking of having kids soon, so we sold our silly old Ford Ka and got a Honda, on the advice of a neighbour about its safety and comfort (need to be comfy when pregnant!).
The Honda Accord stood out as it's really plush and big inside, but also gives fantastic mileage. On paper it says 53 miles a gallon, which isn't quite true I wouldn't say, but near enough. For a nice big car like this, that's hard to beat really, at least from our shopping around. You do expect good mileage from a diesel, and it's good for that. It's not noisy though - I'd always expected diesels to be sluggish and really loud, but this isn't like that at all.
The only place I haven't put five stars is comfort, and that's because the back seats are a bit skimpy. It's lovely in the front though, perfect.
The panel display in the top-centre of the Honda Accord's dash is a bit swish, but it's not all that practical because if you put anything on top of the dash, chances are it'll fall onto the display and block your view of it, which is a bit silly.
The stereo is really easy to work, and all the buttons are lovely and easy to get hold of. The only slight trouble is having the hazard warning light tucked just under them all, so you might hit it by mistake. I haven't done that yet, but it's been on my mind from the start and it might not occur to everyone.
The other little problem with the back seats is that the air blowers shoot out in between the legs of the person in the middle seat, and as that may well be a lady, then things might get a bit sort of embarrassing. That central bit with the air blowers in also does sort of jut into the leg room as well, which can only make matters worse. That hasn't happened to us yet, but it might do.
There's loads of fancy gadgets in the Honda Accord as well, the sort of thing that you might expect to be added extras but just come normally. It might just be our specific type of Honda Accord but it seems pretty well kitted out. Things like the glovebox that doubles as a mini fridge, and the height adjustable seats. The cruise control is amazing as well. It just feels pretty luxurious to drive.
The main down side with our Honda Accord, which we only really realised a few months in, is that it's really really difficult to adjust the seats just right to fit four or five adults in, and it often means arranging people in a specific order so that the long legged one is sitting behind the short legged one, or vice versa. And you can't have more than two long legged people at once or it all goes a bit wrong.
It's odd really because it looks like a lovely big car, but the space inside just gets used up far too quickly. Meanwhile the huge bonnet sort of sits there taking up space and mocking your attempts to fit inside the cabin. It's all a bit demoralising and we're sort of regretting getting the Honda Accord now for that reason.
Having said that, we don't routinely have adults in the back, it's usually just the kids, and it's perfectly fine for that. It's also been extremely reliable in the time we've had it. That's only been two years but I've heard plenty of horror stories about other cars coming apart long before that time.
The parking camera is a godsend, really fantastic, no idea how I got on without it. It does get a bit steamed up sometimes, and it's not really as if you can just pop out and give it a wipe when you're in traffic, but that doesn't happen too often.
I said about the cramped cabin. The boot is actually pretty small too, and again we didn't notice that until we wanted to get four adults in (with a week's luggage each) and it struggled. It seems silly for an estate to have a confined boot but it did, which was less than impressive. Those aren't the sorts of things you notice on a test drive though, or not what we noticed. Worth thinking these sorts of things through before you buy.
I've had five Hondas over the years, and my only deviation was a company car that I didn't have very much say over as I was working for Fiat at the time. The difference was shocking and you couldn't pay me to get back into a Fiat. I always take extra care when driving near one as well, who knows what might give out.
So the Honda Accord I bought partly as a gift to my partner and partly as we did need a second vehicle after she got a job with a long commute. She's always said it's amazing for that, really eats up the miles. From my point of view the fuel economy is outstanding, and it still gives out plenty of power. It's easy to forget that it's a diesel really.
The Honda reliability reputation is well deserved, and the Accord is no exception. I bought this second hand at about 18 months old and with 20 thousand on the clock. We've done another sixty thousand on it, and not so much as a brake pad has needed doing. We're keen on the services, and making sure chips don't turn into rust patches, that sort of thing. But if you take care of it, the Honda Accord will take care of you.
Now, I've marked down the handling. That's because the dimensions of the car are a bit hard to gauge. Basically the boot is very large (which is a good thing in itself) and the bonnet is very long, so parking can be difficult, and manoeuvring about in traffic can be tricky.
I did knock a car doing that once and they raised a claim against me. It was surprisingly expensive, I suppose bodywork can be quite long work, and new panels are expensive. That also caused the insurance to go up, which is already quite high on the Honda Accord. So just be careful with the size and you'll be fine.
I got my Honda Accord after a lot of bother with a Vauxhall Astra, and being nudged towards Honda by a friend. I'd never bothered with Asian cars before, not really sure why, and I doubt I'll go back now. The Honda Accord has had none of the problems that the Astra had, and no problems at all of its own besides.
The only little tiny problem I could find if I had to point one out is that the automatic rain sensitive wipers don't really work very well, but who cares? It's nearly six years old and hasn't missed a beat. The most expensive repair so far has been an exhaust section, and that's expected much sooner round here as we live by the sea (salty winds). Actually that's a point - if you see a car advertised near the seaside then check thoroughly for rust.
Back when I got it, my Honda Accord seemed absolutely stuffed with fancy extras like the in built sat nav and the parking sensors. I suppose those sorts of things are a bit more normal nowadays, but I was delighted to see them on what seemed like quite an ordinary car at the time.
Maybe the biggest area where it falls down these days is fuel consumption. It's a 2.4 litre injection so I'm not that bothered about it as I'm getting it back in power, but 30MPG isn't so great, especially when I hear colleagues banging on about how they're getting twice that. The insurance is also pretty high, but not as bad as a lot of BMWs I've been poking around at.
I marked the comfort as four out of five because, although it's massively comfy up front, the space in the back can be a bit meagre, especially with the front seats rolled back.
We've had this for nearly 15 years now.. why? because it's totally reliable, starts first time every time, never lets us down, and just keeps going and going. What more could you want? I think the most expensive thing we ever had to do on it was something to do with the exhaust, but that wasn't very much. Apart from tyres and exhaust it's been plain sailing.
The Accord 1.8 Auto is really nice and quiet inside, makes the car feel really classy and secluded. We sold an Escort when we moved up to the Accord and we never looked back. We were impressed by things like the air bags but I suppose those are pretty standard these days. Various other things really set it apart when we got it, like the air conditioning, the electric seat controls. It's actually really easy to adjust the driver's setup overall so that people of different sizes (ahem!) can drive it just fine. There's plenty of space in the back too, even for three adults. The one thing that worries me is that the middle seat only has a lap belt, whereas I've seen that a lot of modern cars have proper three point belts for all the back passengers. I might be looking out for that in future.
I would say the boot could do with being a wee bit bigger, or just smarter with the space it has, because there's some part of the underside of the car that pokes into the boot space which makes it a bit tricky to load. The lip of the boot is a wee bit high up too, no that bad but altogether it can be a bit of a job to get two buggies in there for example.
The miles per gallon on the Accord 1.8 LS isn't bad, I think about 40 on the motorways. That might be a reason to sell up at some point through, with the way the fuel prices are going, as I know that a lot of modern cars really make that look quite puny by comparison. The fuel tank is massive though, so you don't actually fill up that often.
The Honda Accord is good for towing too. We had a caravan for a few years and it never complained about that. We would plan not to go anywhere with any hills though. It's also quite fast overall in quite an understated way. If you want to get away in a hurry you certainly can!
The Accord is one of the best car that you can truly rely on. You rarely see it by the road or being towed by the tow truck.
The reason is because the quality of this Japanese car is superb!! Fuel economy was great durng that time and technology. And its consider a luxury sedan at that time too.
When I was driving it, the only common problems were small problems. change of spark plugs, signal light bulb fused, and once a punctured tyre.
But that was 10 years ago....