Honda Accord CTDi (Diesel)

Author's product rating:   

Safety	Good
Comfort	Excellent
Road Handling	Excellent
Looks	Good
Features	Good

Advantages:	Refined engine, excellent ride and handling, superb seats and driving position
Disadvantages:	Interior trim rattles, dissapointing fuel consumption .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

NOTE ON THIS REVIEW:

Many, many moons ago, I wrote a review on my own car - the Honda accord I-CTD-i (Diesel) EX saloon. At that time my car had covered around 20,000 miles and had suffered unduly from many various problems which had undoubtedly tainted my opinion of it.

I have now totally updated that early review in the light of far more "normal" and 100% reliable experience with this car.

WHAT IS IT?

The current Saloon is the latest in a long line of Accords from Honda, starting, if memory serves me correctly in 1976, although originally, as launched, the Accord was a much smaller three door hatchback. Each successive generation of Accord since has grown a little bigger and rather more sophisticated.

The Accord now sits in the rapidly diminishing "family saloon" market competing with models such as the Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Vectra and other Japanese marques such as the Mazda 6 and Nissan Primera.

Honda would however, rather have you think that it is a "Junior Executive" car, in the mould of the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Jaguar X-Type.

WHICH SPECIFIC MODEL?

The car reviewed here, is the i-CTDi Executive Saloon. The Accord range has recently (January 2006) undergone a minor face lift, I am reviewing the very first Honda diesel model here, launched in January 2004.

Having driven the updated model only this week I can tell prospective purchasers that minor but useful improvements have come about largely through the fitment of the six speed gearbox which means that this car is even more refined than before. The new instrument pack is also a treat for the eyes and improves on the original version.

IN WHAT CAPACITY AM I REVIEWING THIS CAR?

Well, just to surprise you all, this is my regular, every day transport! It is owned by my company and I have now covered 53,500 miles during the course of the last 27 months. With an average of 1980 miles experience each month with this car since its' purchase I guess I know it as well as any.

As you may have read elsewhere, amongst my many other duties is that of fleet manager of our small fleet of cars. This is one part of my job that I perform with relish and allows me the opportunity to drive very many other cars too during the course of the year.

COSTS

Very unusually, for me, costs were my sole reason for choosing this particular car to replace my much loved four and a half year old 105,000 mile Vauxhall Omega V6. Due to it being a company funded vehicle and therefore taxed as benefit in kind on its CO2 emissions, the Omega had become cripplingly expensive to run.

In terms of fuel, depreciation and insurance (a competitive group 12 of 20), this car is saving the company a small fortune.

In terms of its ultra low 143CO2 g/kg figure, it was until this April, taxed at the lowest 15% income tax group. Only electrically powered hybrid cars will cost less in percentage taxation terms.

The Honda Accord therefore very much suits both parties in cost terms!

In overall hard total cost terms - pence per mile, my Accord diesel has cost a very reasonable £0.348 per mile to run.

PURCHASE COST 9 / 10

During the 27 months that I have had this car, there has been very little movement in the list price. It currently costs £21,130, only £300 more than the list price when mine was purchased in March 2004. I was amazed that the local dealer - Brighton Honda - discounted the car by 5%. Very unusual that on a car just launched. At £19,700 including metallic paint, this was a lot of car, and technology, for the money.

Included in the list price, as standard, is just about every creature comfort that you could think of, from a superb multi-disk CD player to full leather electrically operated seats, electric sun roof and head lamp washers. There are few cars equipped as well as this one at any price, let alone at £20,000.

THE OPTIONS GAME: 9 / 10 or "How much do I need to spend to make it habitable?"

If you are prepared to have a bright red Accord, and it looks good in red anyway, then not one penny extra NEEDS to be spent before putting it on the road. We chose an Indigo Blue (pearlescent) paint finish - primarily because my wife liked it, but also because we wanted the attractive standard ivory leather interior that comes with this colour and makes this car look so much more spacious inside. The metallic paint option was £300.

The only other option that I had the dealer put on the car was a full "City Pack" at £329. As with many modern cars, the Accord is ill equipped to take the little knocks and scrapes of city life. The City pack is a set of rubberised "bumpers" which attach front and back and to the sides of the car as well. This was £329 very well spent as 53,000 miles later my Accord is entirely free of any of those annoying dents and pimples from careless door opening - usually by supermarket shoppers.

DEPRECIATION 8 / 10 - Always the biggest running cost.

Company Car magazine alerted me to a brilliant new car valuation site last month, www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/drive where you can type in your car details and it comes up with an estimated valuation on your specific car.

I have read several times that the Accord is a low depreciating model, indeed compared to its major competitors it looses less money. Never the less I was astonished to discover that my high mileage car would cost £13,095 at a Honda dealer to buy and that I would receive a trade in offer for £11,345 on it.

FUEL ECONOMY 6 / 10 Average fuel consumption 41.46mpg over 53,000 miles.

Oh I can hear some of you sucking your teeth here, asking why I would be rating a spacious five seater car that produces an average of 42mpg so poorly. Driving all of my previous (petrol engine) cars, I have been able to improve on the manufacturers claimed "combined cycle" average by around 5%. Honda was claiming an average consumption of 53mpg for this car.

A 20% shortfall in the claimed consumption after the first 6,000 miles was enough to have me complaining to Honda Fleet about my car. Others too found exactly the same thing, they were between 8 and 15mpg short of Honda's claimed consumption figures.

We do actually get 50mpg from the Accord in Poland, where the road surfaces have a very shiny (low rolling resistance) surface on them and driving around at 60mph is the norm on A and B roads. Stranger still is that our full speed dash across Europe, mostly on de-restricted autobahn only reduces the overall consumption to 40mpg. By comparison the Omega, once cruising above 100mph would be using twice as much fuel.

Our car is run exclusively on BP Ultimate diesel - fortunately also available both in Poland and en-route. The one tankfull of Shell diesel tried, saw an immediate 10% increase in fuel consumption.

SERVICE & MAINTENANCE COSTS 7 / 10: are you going to make the dealer rich?

With a strange 12,500 mile service schedule, we do not see so much of our dealer - Honda Chiswick. However this is not a cheap car to service, each one costing roughly £50 more than an equivalent (9,000 mile) one on the six cylinder petrol Omega. As an example the 37,500 mile service cost £339.87 including VAT, which did include replacing the front brake pads - for the first time. The rears incidentally have been replaced twice! Unusual a car devouring rear brake pads faster than the fronts.

At 53,000 miles the Accord is on its third set of front tyres, they last about 23,000 miles and its second pair of rears, which lasted 47,000 miles.

Let the "fun" begin! You want to know what this car is like to live with and to drive and be driven in…….

THE EXTERIOR:

STYLING 8 /10: A very subjective category here.

Now that the current Accord has been on the market for over three years, its novelty has had a chance to wear off. To my, and more importantly, my wife's eyes, this is a very good looking car. Ours is particularly enhanced by the charcoal grey rubbing strips which lower and widen the appearance of the car.

OVERALL BUILD QUALITY AND FINISH 7 / 10 Does it look as though it was slung together?

No it does not. Indeed its initial appearance flattered to deceive, all of the various fittings, doors, bonnet and boot LOOK as though they fit perfectly, so tiny are the gaps between the panels. Worryingly however, from new, there was a surprising amount of movement (read rattling potential!) in the bonnet, boot lid and fuel filler cap. Our car arrived from the factory with a loose offside fog light unit too.

As time went by, at about 13 months and 23,000 miles, the alloy wheels were showing signs of "corrosion", the surface being split and blistered. I am scrupulously careful about avoiding curbs, the blistering was appearing in the centre of the wheels too. Honda replaced all four alloy wheels with new ones - a similar time and mileage later and guess what? The replacements are starting to go the same way!

The offside headlamp unit actually started splitting of its own accord (pardon the pun) from the inside and was replaced by Honda under warranty.

SAFETY 7 /10 If it comes to the worst, how well are you and your family going to come out of it.

This was the one factor that came close to putting us off of buying the Accord at all. It has only a 4 Star Euro NCAP safety rating, this is a poor showing against some major (and cheaper) competitors such as the Renault Laguna and Toyota Avensis.

On the other hand, having driven all of the "safer" competition, I came to the conclusion that, most importantly, none felt as dynamically safe - on the road to me as a driver.

THE INTERIOR:

ERGONOMICS 7 / 10 Before I can start the engine and drive away I need to feel at home in the "working environment". The relationship between the controls and how I, the driver, am able to instinctively operate those controls is, all important. This for me is make or break, before I drive a car, if it does not instinctively "feel" right in this department then I will never like it or ultimately buy it.

The Honda is one of those rare cars, for me at least, that I can sit in, achieve my perfect driving position and drive away quite confidently without any reference to the handbook.

What looses the last two points here are the infuriatingly fiddly lighting and windscreen wiper control stalks. After all this time, and all those miles, I still have a job fathoming out how the front and rear fog lamps work.

Even more exasperating are the windscreen wipers, which are used rather more often than the fog lights. They have no intermittent setting, but an automatic one, using a windscreen mounted rain sensor, instead. This has driven me mad since day one, I long to be behind the wheel of a car with a proper intermittent wiper setting!

VISIBILITY: 9 / 10

The Honda is as good as any modern car here, large windows, excellent mirrors, both inside and on the doors. The only complaint here is that those door mirrors very quickly become opaque in wet weather, the front side windows seem to pick up a lot of muck too.

Not usually raising mention in my car reviews are the headlights. These on the Honda are worthy of comment as they are simply superb, both in terms of illumination and range

The windscreen wipers, whilst fiddly to control, clear an excellent portion of the windscreen - after 52,500 miles I replaced them (£18.80 the pair from the dealer) for the first time last Friday, a two minute job.

SPACE: 9 / 10:

Honda seem to have gained the knack of designing cars with a lot more interior space than you would give them credit for looking at them from the outside. Our Accord has done long distance journeys "five up" with no complaints even from the central rear passenger.

The boot is also deceptively large, after having the Omega for over four years - making those twice annual journeys to Poland; I was expecting the boot to be a problem. It is not, being deep, squarely shaped and very well trimmed, we have never felt the need to compromise on packing for our trips!

STYLE 7 / 10:

Here is one area where I would like to have seen Honda upgrade the interior on their recently re-launched Accord. I spend a lot of time in a car, and although you could argue am not looking at the interior whilst driving, the style of a car interior is a big draw for me.

Ours is a cut above the Accord norm. The Ivory leather makes a huge difference, black leather trimmed Accords which we have been loaned feel like coffins inside by comparison. However, there are far too many different materials used in here and that fake wood on the dashboard and central console is just hideous!

I was delighted to discover, upon driving the latest model, that the fake wood has been junked in favour of much more classy metallic look trim panels.

MATERIALS, FIT & FINISH 6 / 10: Aspreys or Ratners?

What is leather inside the Accord is great - only our front leather seats have been now replaced twice! Yes, you read that correctly, due to faulty die processes, both front seats have been swapped and then re-covered again!

Many of the plastics are either soft or brittle. The soft ones mark appallingly, whilst the brittle ones look cheap and flimsy and scratch far too easily.

I take pride in the appearance of my cars and at 105,000 miles the Omega looked immaculate inside. The Honda was showing far more signs of wear by the time it had covered 15,000 miles. Hard used company examples will look very tatty indeed by now.

AUDIO & CLIMATE CONTROL SYSTEMS 10 / 10: Strange grouping?

Very much a grouping in this case, the audio and climate controls share the same panel in this car. Both systems are highly efficient and are a major contribution to this cars superb long distance comfort.

ON THE ROAD……..

……Time to start it up and to offer you a driving assessment.

NOISE, VIBRATION & HARSHNESS 9 / 10 Silk purse or sow's ear?

This Honda four cylinder diesel truly is a revelation in refinement terms. Under almost all conditions it is as smooth, yet more quiet, than the silky six cylinder petrol engines that I was used to driving during the previous ten years.

Even at tick over there is no vibration to be felt anywhere in this car, with the sole exception of the 5 cylinder Volvo S60 diesel, this is the only diesel on the market at the sub £30,000 price level that I can say that for.

And NO this diesel does not smoke either!

PERFORMANCE 9 / 10 Sh*t off a shovel or a constipated tortoise?

This is an extraordinarily, deceptively, swift car. With an anaemic looking 136bhp, I was expecting this 1450kg car to actually be quite slow, especially compared to its 170bhp predecessor. What I had not factored in was the massive amount of torque - twisting power if you like - the 2.2 Honda engine produces a class leading 251lbs/ft of torque at around 2,000rpm.

The above may mean little to you - what it does translate to on the road is a car that is an absolute peach to drive. Keep the revs above 1800rpm and above 30mph, the car will simply take off in any gear. In ordinary every day performance terms, the Honda simply annihilates any petrol engined car that I have previously owned, including the quite rapid V6 Cavalier's and Vectra's.

This addictive quality may explain the poor fuel consumption! I wish I had a £ for every time over the last two years that I have said "I bet that surprised him" when I've left an ostensibly much more powerful, or sporty, car in the Honda's wake!

Aiding this performance is a superbly light and precise gearchange, perfectly matching the clutch action. Yes the replacement model may have five gears, but in all honesty I have never felt the need for an extra gear ratio - at 70mph mine is only turning over at 2000rpm anyway!

RIDE & HANDLING 9 / 10

The Accord has a superb chassis. This was our biggest surprise on the initial test drive, the ride is cosseting, whilst you travel country lanes in complete safety and comfort at much higher speeds than you have previously been used to.

This is a very tyre sensitive car though - it needs the best Michelins to give of its best, my car has never felt the same since swapping for cheaper, but quieter rolling, Dunlops just before Christmas.

CONCLUSION - Would I buy one myself and would we want to drive it to Poland in a day?

In spite of the many initial niggles with this car, I would unequivocally recommend it. Indeed we have driven the Accord on the 1150 mile journey from Brighton to Mielec in south eastern Poland in a day, on no fewer than three occasions now. That is 18 hours driving - at the end of which, I the driver, have stepped out feeling remarkably fresh.

Dodgy leather or not, this car has superb seats - after all those hours "in the saddle" neither my wife nor I have suffered a single twinge.

I would also like to mention here that both Honda Fleet and Honda Chiswick have provided customer service way above and beyond the norm - if all customers are treated as well as we have been I am sure that they are promoting tremendous brand loyalty.

Despite my initial reservations regarding this car, I would unhesitatingly trade it in for another one - I am sure that we have been somewhat unlucky with our particular car. As a second hand purchase "my" car would also be a good buy as during its time with me it has, second rate tyres (down entirely to my bad decision) apart, just become better and better.

The sixty million dollar questions, well three actually:

1) Would I buy another Honda Accord Diesel? - YES!

2) Would I spend my own money (as opposed to the Company's) on an Accord Diesel? - YES!

3) Would I recommend this car as a new or second hand purchase? - YES!

FINAL SCORE: 136 / 170 - 80.0%

As a comparison, using the same criteria:

ALFA ROMEO 147 1.9JTD Lusso (5 Dr) - 67.8%
HONDA ACCORD i-CTDi Saloon - 80.0%
HONDA JAZZ 1.4 SE CVT-7 (Automatic) - 74.7%
SAAB 9-3 TiD Vector - 68.2%
VAUXHALL MONARO VXR - 71.1%
VOLVO S60 D5 SE - 70.6%