2017 Honda Civic EX-L vs 2017 Honda Accord Sport Special Edition

iulianm

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Hey guys,

I have a 2017 Honda Civic Sedan EX-L with 6.000 miles now. I've been to the first service at the Honda dealer and while waiting I started to look at the Honda Accord a bit.

I have some dislikes with my car:
- Road noise on bad pavement is high
- Climate control doesn't do it's job properly and I have to use it more like a manual A/C tuning it all the time
- The car starts really slow from a dead stop (probably turbo-lag + CVT)
- No paddle shifters so for engine brake
- Rattles
- Poor standard audio system (I upgraded the front speakers to JBLs but no improvement)


I took a Golf 1.8 TSI from ZipCar earlier this week and it's way better at all the above.

I wanted to see how the Accord Sport Special Edition stands vs my Civic and here are my thoughts after 1h of driving the Accord:

Sport Special Edition has the following versus the base model:
- Engine 2.4l 189HP
- CVT with paddle shifters
- Exterior sport package
- Different ratio for the steering
- Bigger front brakes
- Wheels 235/40 R19

Pros:
- The car is faster off the line as with the NA engine there's no turbo
- The paddle shifts are working nicely with the CVT; it simulates gears very good and the engine brake is there
- it has way more buttons and I do prefer the buttons. I like to have full control for the climate system, radio, changing easily the volume, source and so on.

Cons:
- The car is faster off the line but up to 10-15mph; after that the acceleration feels numb
- Road noise is similar with the Civic; Accord has "Active Noise Cancellation" but I don't feel it
- The engine is louder and has more vibrations
- More body roll and numb steering
- No rear air vents (Civic doesn't have those either but at least Civic is in the compact car class)
- Only the driver's window has illuminated button with auto up/down
- Driver seat is not so low as in the Civic

I checked C&D spec sheet and their noise measurement at 70mph on Accord and Civic are roughly the same, the idle noise is higher in the Accord and the acceleration is slower in the Accord.

The Accord Sport SE has only 4 speakers and the system is worser than the Civic EX-L with 8 speakers. It has no Apple CarPlay or Navigation.

The sticker price (including destination) is 26,190$ for the Accord. There is a discount of 3,250$ so the price drops to 22,940$. The dealer offered 19.000$ for my Civic so I could have paid 4.000$ and drive home with the Accord.

The upgrade for me is just not big enough to worth the hassle. Probably the new Accord with 2.0t + 10 speed AT will be really nice.

Still, the Accord Sport SE with 22,940$ I think it's a good deal. I believe further retrofits could be made to add more options.

If I would have been now in the position to choose between a Civic EX-L Sedan vs Accord Sport SE, a big battle would have happened in my mind and probably I would have had sleeping problems for several nights :)

I hope at least some of you find this useful.
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kritz

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I really like the looks of the Accord sport. You can get it with a stick too!
 

d1zguy

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The engine, tech and old platform kill the Accord for me in comparison to the new Civic. Dealers going to have a hard time unloading those old gen cars to savvy consumers when 2018's come around.

The only accord worth considering is the V6. But still have lower MPG's and old tech behind it.
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