[coolbob]

Mailed the last payment on the Ridgeline and immediately started looking for a new car for my wife. She couldn't decide between an SUV or a sedan so we looked at lots of cars, including Accuras, Volvos and Lexus. Looking at our comfort zone price wise, we decided we would rather own a loaded mid-price car rather than buy a basic luxury model, so we drove 2016 Camry, Accord, Rav4, CRV, and Rouge. The Accord was tied for the top of the list, but acceleration, road manners and Apple CarPlay sealed the deal for us.

2016 Accord Touring Orchid White/Tan.

 

[ddx77]

Congrats! Nice looking garage too!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tmy3329]

Nice! That's a good lookin' duo! Congrats!

 

[Dnick]

............ The Accord was tied for the top of the list, but acceleration, road manners and Apple CarPlay sealed the deal for us.

2016 Accord Touring Orchid White/Tan.

So what else was the Accord tied with in your assessment, before you finally went with the Accord?

 

[Carsmak]

Nice Ride, CoolBob. And both in White, Looks Good!!!

 

[zroger73]

I envy the size of your garage and lack of (visible) clutter. I don't envy those kitty cats, though! I like the looks of the Accord Touring - particularly in black. I see Lexus (rear styling), BMW (rear tail light lenses), and Mercedes (wheels and side profile) influences in it.

 

[Parsec]

I envy the size of your garage and lack of (visible) clutter. I don't envy those kitty cats, though! I like the looks of the Accord Touring - particularly in black. I see Lexus (rear styling), BMW (rear tail light lenses), and Mercedes (wheels and side profile) influences in it.

+1

When I park the RL in the garage I barely have enough room to walk around it (I have shelving against the front wall) and I have what is considered a 2-car oversized garage in my area. Most of my friends have 1-car garages that are maybe 20x10 and would barely fit an Accord if it was completely free of clutter. Not only does coolbob have tons of space in front of his cars, but his Accord isn't right against the side wall either. That thing is the size of a small 1-story house.

As for the Accord, that thing looks huge! It might be the camera angle, but it looks like the same length as your Ridgeline. It's pulled even with the Ridgeline, yet there's hardly any space between the Accord and the garage door behind it.

 

[zroger73]

As for the Accord, that thing looks huge! It might be the camera angle, but it looks like the same length as your Ridgeline. It's pulled even with the Ridgeline, yet there's hardly any space between the Accord and the garage door behind it.

Although the garage appears larger, I'm guessing it is about 24' x 24' or less. He's using an extremely wide angle lens on his camera.

 

[coolbob]

Thanks for the kind words!

One of the things that attracted me to our home is the larger than usual 2-car garage. I built a good sized shed to store all the yard stuff, and I do my best to keep the garage neat and tidy, thanks for noticing.

The cats were sniffing at the kitchen door as soon as we brought the Accord home, they knew something was different. You can see one of them on the left checking out the car, the other one is at the kitchen door because he heard cat food being poured in the kitchen.

Here in town we have a Chrysler, Ford, GM, Nissan and Toyota dealership. The nearest Honda dealership is 60-miles away, so Honda was at a disadvantage there.

On the other hand, the most drama-free period we have had with cars was when we owned two Accords in the 90's, so Honda has that in it's favor.

Of the mid-size utes, (Rav4, Rouge, CRV) the Rouge was the peppiest, but it was also noisy and the interior was the least appealing. The Rav4 was nice, I did like the 360-degree view feature, but it felt underpowered. We liked the CRV best overall.

I am not a fan of the Toyota Camry styling (IMHO, the gaping mouth of the Camry is almost as objectionable as the chrome nose on the Acura). But once behind the wheel, the Camry was a nice place to be. We had thought about an Avalon, but we really wanted to get something that was about $35k out the door.

We drove a 4-cyl Camry and thought it was fine, but once we drove the Accord Touring, we punted the idea of getting anything with a 4-cyl.

Accords have come a long way since the last ones we owned, the driving experience is very european and reminiscent of the Audis and Volvo we recently owned. Honda's active noise cancelation does a lot to get rid of the 'Honda hum' road/tire noise that Hondas are known for. The Accord Touring checked all the right boxes for us in terms of size, performance, practicality, reliability, features and price.

My wife and I sat in the car last night and synced the homelink, set up Bluetooth cellular and music streaming, set all the stations and connected her iPod. We had the manual handy, but it was all very intuitive and simple. For all the technology the car has, it's easy to get comfortable with and feel right at home.

I did detect the EarthDreams system doing it's thing under light acceleration when we put the car in Econ mode, but i did not find it objectionable and I doubt she will ever notice.

I'm about to order a few accessories for the car and we are hoping for many trouble-free years with the Accord.

 

[Dnick]

Thanks for the thorough overview.

 

[zroger73]

We drove a 4-cyl Camry and thought it was fine, but once we drove the Accord Touring, we punted the idea of getting anything with a 4-cyl.

A like the simplicity of an I4 since it has half the number of many components compared to a V6. Unfortunately, no matter how big of a turbocharger they put on an I4 or how sophisticated the active noise cancellation is or how advance the motor mounts are, it still feels and sounds like an I4.

 

[OhSix]

Everyone is talking about pictures of garages and cars and cats but I don't see the images. Dang it.

Great choice Robert. The new Accords are very attractive sedans. The touring package makes an already awesome car even awesome-er.

My only question is, what are cars doing in a g-a-r-a-g-e? I thought that where overflow went to live?

 

[henni]

zero6, here is one of the cats...

 

[Dnick]

His name is overflow........

 

[coolbob]

We keep out cats indoors after a close call a few years ago, we live in the county where there are no leash laws and one of our cats got cornered by a couple of dogs and thankfully one of our neighbors intervened before anything bad happened.

I let them out in the yard when I'm outside with them, but otherwise the only time they get out of the house is to go explore in the garage. They circle the cars, sniffing at everything and then lie down of the doormat. Occasionally the bob-tail cat will catch a mouse, lizard or frog and try to bring it in the house.

 

[Jonb]

Very nice, love the color/wheel combo looks really sharp! We still have a few yrs before our next vehicle but I'm really leaning towards an accord for the wife when the time comes.

 

[coolbob]

It's been raining and very cold since we took delivery, so I haven't had a chance to wash it yet. I've ordered a Honda trunk mat (cheaper than Weathertech), OEM body side guards, 3M clear door edge guards, and some clear 3M material to protect the door sills, and a few other goodies, but will have to wait for warmer weather to install a lot of the items.

We took it on a day-trip yesterday and I still can't believe how well it rides, especially considering it's on 19" rims with 235/40-19 tires. It's feels every bit as tight and hunkered down as our previous Audis and Volvo. Hope it drives/feels this good years from now.