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BusinessCar Office Blog: 30 April 2008
Date: 30 April 2008 | Author:
When Honda said it needed to bring one of the cars back to the UK from its Accord launch in Austria, and would BusinessCar like to do the honours, we naturally jumped at the chance. The more time you spend with a new car, the more you learn about it. The opportunity to spend a couple of days and 800 miles with a vehicle Honda hopes will help it break into the prestige sector was one we couldn't miss. So, what did we learn?
The first thing is it's an excellent cruiser, munching up the miles across Austria, Germany and Belgium on the way up to Calais. It's comfortable, impressively lacking in wind noise and manages 40mpg, even at the higher speed limits and stretches of derestricted German Autobahn.
In fact, the notes scribbled at various fuel stops (mainly for me - just the one thirst-quencher for the Accord, after 550miles) read: "Seats comfy; stereo good; controls logical once you've worked out what everything does; steering heavy just off centre - a little wearing on longer runs; ride great; comfort good at high speed where it's also very quiet; Tourer looks great and the wheels now fit the arches; IT STILL BLOODY BEEPS TOO MUCH!"
That last, vociferous, point is my biggest bugbear with the last car, and an illustration of how the little things irritate. The Accord will chime away annoyingly the moment you switch on the ignition to point out that you haven't put the seat belt on, even though the engine isn't running. It's enough to make you go digging for the fuse...
But rant aside, it's an impressive tool, and I covered significantly more ground than expected due to the lack of noise, comfy seats and good motorway ride. The safety systems 'Adaptive Cruise Control' and 'Lane Keep Assist' also help, but I'll cover those in a separate blog coming soon. And to tease you a little, expect two others coming out of our marathon trip - one in relation to the problem that left us feeling a little flat at the end of the trip, and the other coming out of observations made while barrelling across Europe. Stay tuned...
