2004 Honda Accord Executive Estate 2.0 petrol from UK and Ireland
Summary:
Gone but not forgotten - a lovely old barge
Faults:
Ancillary electrical devices, e.g. power tail gate, driver's heated seat stopped working. But this is an old complicated car.
The engine and transmission were fine.
Brakes and tires needed replacing.
General Comments:
I got this after my Honda Civic was written off by a truck that failed to stop in time. I bought a petrol Honda assuming old petrol Japanese cars tend to be reliable. This assumption proved true for the major mechanical items. I've now driven three old Japanese petrol cars that were reliable throughout their lives.
My model had a luxury spec; powered leather seats, powered tail gate, heated seats, upgraded stereo, cruise control etc. However no automatically folding mirrors, which I thought a strange omission.
The powered tail gate stopped working - I think the motor failed because of the weight of the door. The driver's heated seat failed. It went through light bulbs, which were difficult to replace (though could be done without removing the front bumper). Apart from this, reliability was good in 25,000 miles. My biggest fear was that the driver's electric seat would fail in between adjustment for me and my wife (which would mean neither of us could drive it). Fortunately it was flawless.
It's a long car, though easy to park because of parking sensors and good views out of the windows. The sloping roof made it harder to put my mountain bike in the back of my car compared to my Civic. However for suitcases etc it was a great load carrier. The front seats were really comfortable once you got the adjustment right. Space in the back was not great - I think my old Civic had more space.
I found the car very easy to drive, felt just like my old Civic (in fact I never ever stalled it). The petrol engine produced most of its power above 4500 revs - so did not really suit a big heavy estate car. If you needed to accelerate you had to use low gears / high revs - not a relaxing combination. But once at speed it was refined, and the 6 CD hi-fi was very good. You could turn it up loud without distortion.
The car suffered a bit from under-steer compared my old Civic and my wife's Ford Focus. I discovered this when booting it hard out of a roundabout in 2nd. But it steered well. Handling was OK, though the ride could be a bit choppy on our broken roads.
It was a good motor way cruiser - useful as in the past year I've done a lot of motorway miles. No problem at high speed cruising, with power to accelerate, though sometimes I needed to change down a gear.
Whilst the car was long, it was not too wide - not much wider than my wife's Focus. It also had a very good turning circle - better than my old Civic. This made it easy to drive in town.
I struggled to get more than 30 MPG day to day, 33 MPG on the motorway - I think partly because it was so heavy. However it was cheap to buy (old big petrol cars are not that popular) which offset this. Road tax was £240 per year.
Sadly this car was written off when I was unable to avoid an SUV travelling on the wrong side of the road. Being an old car, the insurance company decided to write it off when I phoned in the accident, even before they looked at it.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 24th December, 2014
3rd May 2015, 17:02
I find that because you need so many revs to make good progress, I would drive at an indicated 80 (real world 73 mph) just to make sure I was within the power-band so that I could pick up speed without changing gear. And this is in a car with just 5 gears.
I now have a 6 gear Honda Civic, 1.8 liter petrol. This car is so much lighter that I don't have to work the revs so hard. On the motorway I try to stick to 3000 RPM in 6th gear (73 mph indicated). The car can still pick up speed OK if I need to, without changing down. I get about 45 MPG on the motorway in this car.
3rd May 2015, 15:43
I also have a 2004 Accord Estate and have had two years of good service from it. It hasn't been totally problem free (it is 10 years old) as I had to replace the rear calipers, although the service history indicates they were probably the originals.
I get somewhat better MPG than you have reported - when I was covering 90 miles a day commuting, it would return 36-38 MPG. I moved closer to work last year so the commute is now only 12 miles (half dual carriageway and half urban), and predictably the MPG is now closer to 30-32 MPG.