I recently test-drove the 2008 Honda Accord as a possible replacement for my BMW 3-series.
Question: Why replace a sweet-handling 3-series with a plain old Accord?
Answer 1: When I want to have fun, I hop on the motorcycle. Don’t get me wrong, a BMW is fun to drive. But a motorcycle is more fun than any car. These days, I only use the car for Getting Stuff Done, not for Having Fun. So, it makes sense to trade performance I’m not using for comfort and economy.
Answer 2: BMW has priced the 3-series out of my market. I just can’t bring myself to spend $40K+ on a car only slightly larger than a Honda Civic. By comparison, a well-equipped Accord is $25-30K.
Answer 3: The Accord is a large car; the 3-series isn’t. I am 6′5″. As I’ve eased into my 30s, comfort and roominess has become more important to me than performance.
Sitting in the Accord
The new 2008 Accord is larger than the 2007 Accord, both in height and length. I literally could not sit in a 2007 Accord equipped with a sunroof because my head hit the roof; I barely fit in a 2007 without a sunroof. By comparison, the 2008 Accord fits with and without a sunroof.
In many cars, if I position the seat so that the pedals are at a comfortable distance, the steering wheel is too far away. Conversely, if the steering wheel is at a comfortable distance for my reach, my legs won’t fit under it. The 2008 Accord’s tilt-telescoping wheel fixes this problem quite nicely.
The interior materials are very nice. There’s no cheap, shiny plastic, and no casting seams. The cloth in both the LX and EX is very nice. (You can also get leather in the EX, if that’s your thing.) The entire interior has a nice, “upmarket” feel to it.
The 2008 Accord also has a usable back seat. When I positioned the driver’s seat to fit me, I could also sit behind the driver’s seat comfortably.
The test drive
I test-drove the LX-P, which has a 177 HP inline-4 engine. (By comparison, my BMW has a 189 HP inline-6 engine.) This isn’t a fire-breathing engine by any means, but it powerful enough to get me onto and around the freeway without any complaint. It has a good torque curve, and it never felt “gutless”. I consider a weak engine to be a major safety issue — sometimes you need to accelerate right now to get out of a developing situation. The four-banger was good in this regard; it never felt flat-footed.
No sedan is going to handle as well as a BMW. That said, I generally liked the handling of the Accord (in that it didn’t offend my sensibilities). The suspension is fairly firm, which leads to a confident, planted feel; the car isn’t “floaty”. Consequently, the car stayed flat in corners rather than leaning. I felt a little bit of understeer on the freeway on-ramp, but nothing that couldn’t be compensated for with a little more steering input. On the other hand, it is a large car — it may be confident, but nimble, it is not.
The car is quiet inside at speed — much quieter than my BMW. It’s also quieter than previous-generation Accords that I’ve driven (where tire roar is often a problem).
One concern I have is the so-called “Variable Gear Ratio” steering; this is similar to BMW’s “Active Steering”. The idea is that, for a given steering wheel position, the steering rack will angle the front wheels a different amount, depending on the car’s speed. So, to steer a given circle (say, a 75′ circle), you have to turn the steering wheel a different amount depending on your speed. I believe this is a universally bad idea. Not only does this require the driver to do different things under different circumstances, it also increases mechanical complexity, which means there are more parts to break — just ask Roundel, which crashed a new BMW 3-series in the Italian Alps when its Active Steering failed at an inopportune moment.
Final thoughts
The 2008 Accord is a large car that fits me quite comfortably. Despite the car’s size, it handles reasonably well, and has decent power. The inline-4 engine should return mileage in the high 20s, which is reasonable for a car this large. I could get better mileage, but then I’d have to shoe-horn myself into a smaller car — and I haven’t found any comfortable small cars besides the BMW 3-series.
I can definitely see myself in a 2008 Accord when the time comes.
Tags: accord, honda, new car, test drive
I too am a Bimmer 3 series zealot, not 6.6″ like you, but I still found the profile and access of the 3 series a hassle. My son is 6.4″ and he could barely get comfortable in the 3’s interior.
That said, I just test drove an 08 EXL V6. I found the handling to be nearly as good as the Bimmer’s, the interior better, more comfortable in just about every way, buttons more complex, perhaps too many buttons (I have always liked the intuitive simplicity of the BMW 32X’s), and as you said Eric, Bimmers are just getting way too pricey for what you get. The 3 series is becoming a worse value (IMO) and the quality is becoming lower with the exception on the important stuff like the engine, handling and drive train
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All that said. The Bimmer is out of my garage, the Accord with Nav and Bluetooth, leather, heated seats, deck lid spoiler and all kinds of other stuff that I probably don’t need arrives this Tuesday at (conservatively) $9K less that a comparably equipped 08 328.