What a surprise (Honda Accord (1998 on) in general)

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Product:	Honda Accord (1998 on) in general
Date:	04/12/01 (53 review reads)
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I returned from holiday and faced a mountain of mail. Amongst the usual collection of bills and junk mail was an envelope from the Daily Telegraph with a pleasant surprise in it. A competition I had entered earlier in the year included a prize to win a weekend holiday break at a luxury hotel with the use of a top-of-the-range Honda Accord 2.2I V-Tec. No sooner back from one break and I could look forward to another.

A few days later I contacted Honda UK and set up the dates when we would have our break and which dealer would supply the car. The date was a month away and having arranged to put the kids in kennels (well grandparents look after them it?s about the same thing) we collected the Accord.

The first thing about the Accord has to be build quality and in saying that you have to ask whatever possessed Rover to ditch its alliance with Honda and go with BMW. If ever there was a disastrous corporate blunder BMW buying Rover is up there with the Millennium Dome and new Coke. There is no doubt that had Rover been able to produce mass volume cars with Honda quality as it once had sought to do then it would now be one of the most profitable car producers in Europe.

As you drive in town traffic the Accord is very restrained almost slow and you wonder whether you should stop and look under the bonnet to see if there really is a state-of-the-art 2.2litre engine under there. The car is very well equipped and comfortable and boasted leather seats, a CD player, air-con and all the usual ?extras? which are now not extras because they are de rigeur for this type of car.

It is when you get out on the open road that you get the meaning of the V-Tec which involves a very clever lifting valve arrangement which massively increases the power from the engine above 4000rpm. This is initially great fun, waiting for a straight bit of road, dropping into third and then accelerating from 35 to 70mph in a whispered moment. After a time though the p
oint of this starts to get lost. You have here a very good engine ? a great engine even -and you also have a very good car but somehow the two don?t match. It?s like Brad Pitt marrying a nun, each good in their own way but together it couldn?t work.

A few years ago the turbocharging of petrol engines was seen as the future. A comparatively standard 2-litre engine would behave impeccably until you squeezed it beyond 3000rom and then off it went. The phase passed and Honda?s engine evokes the same principles and I wonder whether the same will happen to the V-Tec.

Overall though the Accord is a fine car, good value, well built, cracking engine an excellent drivers car with very good handling I wasn?t that sorry to hand the keys back. In some ways it was like having two cars for the weekend or one car with two personalities and perhaps while Mr Hide may love it Dr Jekyll would not approve.

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