2018 Honda Accord Performance and Driving Impressions

From Car and Driver

Performance and Driving Impressions Rating:

All the evidence suggests that family sedans don’t have to drive well to sell well. Luckily, someone forgot to tell Honda. The Accord is balanced, engaging, athletic, and refined, so we’d pick it over almost any car in this segment any day of the week.

Acceleration

When the Accord’s new 2.0-liter engine is paired with the 10-speed automatic, it’s a few tenths of a second quicker to 60 mph than the outgoing V-6 despite its lower horsepower rating. It takes only 5.5 seconds to zip from zero to 60 mph, which puts this Accord in the company of sports sedans. A 2018 Accord with the same 2.0-liter engine and a six-speed manual transmission was a few ticks slower, but it’s still very much in the hunt with comparable cars. The entry-level 1.5T engine needed a little longer to reach 60 mph, but its 7.3-second effort when equipped with a CVT nearly matches the efforts of the brisk Mazda 6, and is 0.3 second quicker than last year’s four-cylinder Accord with the CVT.

Test Results: Acceleration

Ride, Handling, and Steering

The Accord’s chassis is well sorted and encourages the driver to push the car hard through corners, where it stays flat and composed even as it approaches its impressive-for-a-family-sedan 0.88-g skidpad limit. The steering is light, as befits a car in this class, but we wouldn’t mind if it transmitted a little more feedback from the road. Still, it’s hard to complain about a helm that’s accurate, predictable, and never suffers from the torque steer—when the front wheels dart back and forth under heavy acceleration—that can plague powerful front-wheel-drive cars. The Accord’s ride is firmly controlled but never sharp, which helps it strike a winning balance between a sports sedan and a practical family car.

Test Results: Maximum Cornering Capability

Braking

The Accord Touring 2.0T needed 170 feet to come to a stop from 70 mph in our testing, closely matching the efforts of the other cars in this set. The Sport 1.5T needed just 163 feet.

Test Results: Maximum Braking Capability

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