2011 Honda Accord EX-L Sedan

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2011 Honda Accord EX-L Sedan

Postby sonya zafar on Fri May 06, 2011 1:11 am

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EXECUTIVE EDITOR ROGER HART: This car is spectacular in its unspectacularness. And maybe that's not fair. But this car is just so competent in being exactly what it's meant to be: a terrific all-around car, and it does it without a lot of fanfare. It does not wow in its exterior styling, nor does it swaddle you with a luxurious interior. But, it's a handsome car and the interior is comfortable, efficient and quiet, with a decent sound system. The center stack is dominated by the now dated-looking deep-set nav screen and multiple-button control panel for the nav/entertainment/HVAC controls. But again, it all works well.

There is a minor hesitation in the V6 when the car goes into its Eco cycle. And the only reason to mention it is because it was noticeable. With most of the systems that shut off cylinders in other cars and trucks, it happens so effortlessly as to not be noticeable. The V6 is plenty potent to haul this car around, and the five-speed shifts smoothly and quickly. The fuel gauge barely moved on my lengthy commute.

The Accord remains at the top of the list of midsize (full-size?) sedans. It's a big, thick chunk of white bread in an ever-increasing multigrain market. But it's as good a white bread as you're going to get, and lots of people love white bread. There's nothing wrong with that.

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MOTORSPORTS EDITOR MAC MORRISON: Spot on, Hart. I had not driven an Accord in quite some time, and I chuckled as I realized that I kept thinking, "Wow, what a supremely solid, supremely boring car."

That's been the Accord sedan's appeal yet weak point for ages. It's simply just a finely engineered real-world workhorse that goes about its business in cool efficiency. For the masses who just want to know that their car is going to fire up and get them to wherever they need to go in quiet cruising comfort, it's hard to argue against it.

I prefer the coupe, however, as that version at least injects a bit more style and life into this time-proven Honda formula. The sedan is reasonably attractive, but nothing about it wows you or makes you stop and take a second or third glance. The same goes for the interior, which is put together well and ergonomically appealing yet tried-and-true and again, boring, at the same time. The radio/nav display and controls do now look and feel dated, as Roger noted.

NEWS EDITOR GREG MIGLIORE: It's interesting every time a new midsize sedan hits the market, we all drool over it if it's even sort of respectable. Thing is, Honda's already there with the Accord. It's been solid for so long we probably take it for granted. There is nothing spectacular about this car, and it's stout in almost every way. The worst thing you can say about it is other, newer models are considerably flashier than the Accord. The interior, especially, looks dated and drab--even though it's comfortable and nonoffensive.

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The engine and the five-speed automatic are a smart pairing, with plenty of power and revs channeled effectively. Merging onto the expressway is little trouble, and I summoned more than 4,000 rpm to hit 80 mph and smoothly join traffic. The tranny shifts dutifully, and there's a confidence to this car. The 271-hp output is downright impressive, in my book, for a Honda Accord.

The chassis is comfortable yet not too soft. There's bearing through turns and the car stays mostly flat through slightly aggressive cornering. Whacking road imperfections isn't mind-numbing or teeth-rattling, so I would say Honda has struck the right blend of tightness and agreeability in the suspension.

The steering is solid and true, with just enough feedback into maneuvers to be satisfying. You can direct this car with the flick of a wrist, or put both hands on the wheel, lock in and try to hit your lines properly. Well done.

The interior is rather plain. It's hard to rail on a car for that, because the quality is quite good. With black leather and nice materials, everything looks and feels fine. But when every other car in the market is trimmed up and down and offers clublike ambient lighting, it's hard not to notice the vanilla effort here.

The outside looks good to me--a stately design with nice cues, though nothing stands out as it does on the Ford Fusion (grille) or the Hyundai Sonata (swoopy lines).

Overall, Honda remains a leader in this segment. And when you drive this car, it's not hard to see why.
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ASSOCIATE EDITOR JONATHAN WONG: Yeah, the car is boring, and the exterior and the interior don't excite, but this is a solid car, as everyone else has stated. It's an all-around contender like a mixed martial artist who has good stand-up, wrestling and jiu-jitsu to make him a threat in all areas but rarely finishes a fight in spectacular knockout or submission fashion.

Instead, it grinds out a win by decision, and there's nothing wrong with that, because in this class you have to appeal to a broad range of people, and any loud styling may turn some customers away. People don't buy an Accord based on looks (well, not the sedan anyway), but because it's good at everything and will most likely last forever with proper maintenance. This coming from a member of a family that has two Accords in the stable. One is a 1991 Accord LX with more than 320,000 miles on it, and the other is a 1998 with 240,000 miles on it. So I've had plenty of Accord Kool-Aid.

Greg summed up my thoughts on the drive nicely, so I'll save you from that, but I did ponder a couple of things last night during my stint. The first involves the five-speed automatic transmission, while the Toyota Camry, the Nissan Altima, the Chevrolet Malibu and the Fusion are packing six-speed units. Honda has always been a bit slow in the transmission department. That's not to say that this five-speed is bad because it isn't, and it performs smooth and quick upshifts and downshifts.

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Being a cog down, you would think that the Accord would suffer in the fuel-economy department compared with the others, but you would be wrong. The Accord's fuel-economy ratings went up by 1 mpg in both city and highway calculations for 2011, to 20 mpg and 30 mpg respectively. To compare, the Camry V6 has a 20/29 city/highway mpg rating and the Malibu V6 is rated at 17/26 city/highway mpg. Even the Altima with its CVT falls short of the Accord with 20/27 city/highway mpg figures. And the Accord beats all of those with one less gear. Just think what having a six-speed would do.

It's also worth pointing out that the Accord's V6 packs the most horsepower of the group with 271. The Toyota produces 268 hp, the Malibu has 252 hp and the Altima makes 270 hp. All V6s are 3.5-liters in displacement with the exception of the Chevy, which is 3.6 liters. And I'll also say that I find the Honda V6 to be the smoothest and most refined unit of the bunch.

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The second thing that got me wondering was how Hyundai's all-four-cylinder powertrain lineup in the Sonata compares. In place of a range-topping V6 is a 2.0-liter turbocharged I4 with 274 hp mated to six-speed automatic, which has a fuel-economy rating of 22/33 city/highway mpg. So the force-induced Hyundai is both more fuel-efficient and more powerful than the Accord V6 and the rest of the V6 midsize-sedan players mentioned previously. And if you're thinking that the Sonata 2.0T has nothing on the low end, think again, because the 269 lb-ft of peak torque is available from 1,750 rpms up to 4,500 rpms. I think Honda and the rest of the competition should find that downright scary.

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2011 Honda Accord EX-L Sedan

Base Price: $32,380

As-Tested Price: $32,380

Drivetrain: 3.5-liter V6; FWD, five-speed automatic

Output: 271 hp @ 6,000-6,200 rpm, 254 lb-ft @ 5,000 rpm

Curb Weight: 3,605 lb

Fuel Economy (EPA/AW): 24/20.0 mpg

Options: None

sonya zafar
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My Ride: Honda Accord
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