My Type R Christmas Eve-Eve Test Drive (Long read)

I read this thread from the beginning all the way until the last post. I came from a Civic Touring '16 to a Accord V6 Touring Coupe '17 and is now contemplating on replacing the car for either an Accord 2.0T Touring or a Type R.

So I contacted my local dealer, whom I've bought LOTS of cars from and asked them if it were possible that I get a Type R at MSRP and if yes, I'd be available to deal immediately. What do they say to their long time loyal customer? "Well there was a guy who was willing to pay 5k ADM and we turned him down.." and at that point I just hung up the phone. Then the thought came to my mind that I had forgotten that the Accord and the Type R's engines are the same, albeit the Accord being 'detuned'. So I figured why not just get an 2.0T Touring and flash it with Ktuner?

At this point, I had already weighted the difference between my needs and what each of these cars could do and the 2.0T made the most sense. Also, I had already test drove the 2.0T Touring and I have to say it is a ROCKET. It's enough for me to want to replace my V6. A custom exhaust can take care of the 'sound' issue associated and that interior is just WOW.

So while the Type R might be the best FWD car you can get today in terms of performance, the attitude of these dealers towards the Type R is putting me off and the Accord will just do.

Thank you for your wonderful posts, OP. I enjoyed reading them.

FYI, don’t mod the Accord 2.0T thinking it’s just a detuned Type R motor. There are some notable performance oriented parts missing or changed in the Accord that make it less robust.

Good discussion, actually, I checked my printout from the Roebling Road scales, my 2002 (AP1) car weighed 2,755 lbs (with 3/4 tank of gas), so type type R is 3,117-2,755=362 lbs heavier, my guess is a lot of that is over the front wheels, which helps with grip but still had lots of wheel spin due to weight transfer. Even though the Type R is a great handling car, it's really great handling "for a front wheel drive car." It didn't beat other RWD cars around the ring, just other FWD cars. Yes, like has been discussed, I prefer the balance and feel of my S2000, I was hoping the Type R would appeal to me more, but since that just didn't happen, so I started shopping for other cars. At the time of the test drive, my wife could tell I was a bit disappointed, she knew right then I probably would not be getting a Type R. Even though I like the looks, the 20" wheels, the big wing, and the big brakes. I'm sure I could have lowered my expectations a bit, but when a car feels right to me, I just know it. Ideally, I would keep the S2000 and buy the CTR, but I decided that I really would be happier with a car that was more of a daily driver.

I finally came to the decision that the best route for me to go is to get the Accord Sport 2.0T as a daily driver, not the CTR. The Accord is within ~30 hp and ~30 lb-ft of torque in a car that is 181 lbs heavier than the Type R, both the CTR and the Accord Sport 10AT have about the same 0-60 times, both are FWD, but the Accord will make a better daily driver, and the S2000 a very good track car. For mountain drives and trips up to the Tail of the Dragon, there is nothing like having a laser focused, open top, sports car. I don't care if the CTR is faster, there are lots of cars that are faster than the CTR, if I wanted the fastest car for the money, I would have purchased a Camaro SS, Mustang GT, or used Corvette C7. Probably my biggest hesitation to going all in, getting rid of the S2000, and buying one of those car is I'm a big fan of Honda. Always have been, always will be.

I'll post pics of the Accord when it arrives.

I'm not going to argue which one of S2000, Accord 2.0 and CTR is better, because they are totally different cars that excel in varying aspects, as perceived and judged by individuals with different wants and needs. I think we can all agree on that. Comparisons of apples to oranges to bananas are kinda fruitless. haha.

Just as a general matter in the online car world, I don't understand why it is so important to own the best/better car in the category. No matter what you own, there's always someone with a better car. But so what?

You know, I feel compelled to react to some posters above who say that handling is entirely subjective. I disagree. There is a good reason why, over many decades, automotive magazines and reviewers have uniformly accepted the skidpad g figures to be measurable and objective means of comparing respective cars' handling. Sure, there are some objective components to "handling" such as the "feel". But to say that handling is "entirely subjective" is, IMHO, hogwash. . . .

On the flip side, to be fair, 0-60 is not entirely objective either, in the sense that there is great variability in driver skills, road and environmental conditions, instrumentation, so on. (Yes, the same factors create variability in skidpad numbers, too) That's why you see CTR's 0-60 having significant variability, from 4.9 to 5.8 sec. which is a massive difference when measured in equivalent car lengths at 60.

If skidpad is useless in real life because no one would take a corner that fast, I would say 0-60 is not relevant to most folks above 20 because they'd almost never do that either. A rolling start from 5 mph or a freeway merge from 35 mph? Sure. But a stoplight race? Not so much.

S2k_Dude said:

Yes, like has been discussed, I prefer the balance and feel of my S2000, I was hoping the Type R would appeal to me more, but since that just didn't happen, so I started shopping for other cars. At the time of the test drive, my wife could tell I was a bit disappointed, she knew right then I probably would not be getting a Type R. Even though I like the looks, the 20" wheels, the big wing, and the big brakes. I'm sure I could have lowered my expectations a bit, but when a car feels right to me, I just know it. Ideally, I would keep the S2000 and buy the CTR, but I decided that I really would be happier with a car that was more of a daily driver.

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The S2000 is really just ..... a great car to drive. The CTR is faster but who cares, I get a lot of enjoyment out of revving the piss out of my F20C and hearing that cross over at 6k rpm. I'm sure most person who currently owns or drives a S2000 can relate. If they wanted a faster car, most of them wouldn't be driving the S2000 still since we all know it's not a very fast car lol.

Mick the Quick said:

Just as a general matter in the online car world, I don't understand why it is so important to own the best/better car in the category. No matter what you own, there's always someone with a better car. But so what?

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This.
Isn't it a great thing that there are tons of choices to suit all varieties of people. If Car A was so much better and if everyone drove Car A, it'd be pretty boring.

Mick the Quick said:

I'm not going to argue which one of S2000, Accord 2.0 and CTR is better, because they are totally different cars that excel in varying aspects, as perceived and judged by individuals with different wants and needs. I think we can all agree on that. Comparisons of apples to oranges to bananas are kinda fruitless. haha.

Just as a general matter in the online car world, I don't understand why it is so important to own the best/better car in the category. No matter what you own, there's always someone with a better car. But so what?

You know, I feel compelled to react to some posters above who say that handling is entirely subjective. I disagree. There is a good reason why, over many decades, automotive magazines and reviewers have uniformly accepted the skidpad g figures to be measurable and objective means of comparing respective cars' handling. Sure, there are some objective components to "handling" such as the "feel". But to say that handling is "entirely subjective" is, IMHO, hogwash. . . .

On the flip side, to be fair, 0-60 is not entirely objective either, in the sense that there is great variability in driver skills, road and environmental conditions, instrumentation, so on. (Yes, the same factors create variability in skidpad numbers, too) That's why you see CTR's 0-60 having significant variability, from 4.9 to 5.8 sec. which is a massive difference when measured in equivalent car lengths at 60.

If skidpad is useless in real life because no one would take a corner that fast, I would say 0-60 is not relevant to most folks above 20 because they'd almost never do that either. A rolling start from 5 mph or a freeway merge from 35 mph? Sure. But a stoplight race? Not so much.

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I agree handling is not entirely subjective, but magazines are out to make most people happy. Skidpad Gs is an easy metric to obtain and compare. But it's so tire dependent, as well as temperature, conditions, dampness, whatever. Describing handling is much harder task.

For example, the tacoma X-runner pulls 0.91 lateral Gs, the same (or higher in some tests) than the FRS/86. I wouldn't say the X-runner is just as good in handling as the 86.

To me, anyway, handling (feel) is a combination of steering ratio, understeer oversteer characteristics, balance-what part of the car it feels like is the center/pivot point, trailbraking characteristics, "tossibility", and some other stuff that probably wouldn't be easily figured out with numbers. And the only real way to do this is to actually drive the car, and in most cases, drive it hard.

But as usual, to each their own, and YMMV.

I'm surprised you're still out and about here, OP. By the time I've excluded one car, I pretty much just leave the forum. Maybe there's something about this car that compels you to stay

lawl said:

I'm surprised you're still out and about here, OP. By the time I've excluded one car, I pretty much just leave the forum. Maybe there's something about this car that compels you to stay

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I know, I still get notifications for posts to this thread so I'm happy to keep the conversation going. There's already been a couple others who joined the thread and posted similar experiences or questioned if the CTR was the car for them. I'm sure once the new car is here, I'll post some pics and this thread will die. In the meantime though, it's been good to get various points of view without it turning into a flame war. BTW, yes I still like the Type R and maybe part of me still questions my decision just a bit.

S2k_Dude said:

I know, I still get notifications for posts to this thread so I'm happy to keep the conversation going. There's already been a couple others who joined the thread and posted similar experiences or questioned if the CTR was the car for them. I'm sure once the new car is here, I'll post some pics and this thread will die. In the meantime though, it's been good to get various points of view without it turning into a flame war. BTW, yes I still like the Type R and maybe part of me still questions my decision just a bit.

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Eh, you like what you like. The CTR is fun, no doubt, but if I hadn't found one for a price I was willing to pay, I'd have moved on. I've had great handling RWD cars (E36 M3 sedan, E46 M3 coupe), and I've said before that the E46 was the best car I ever owned. CTR is a different experience but IMO equally enjoyable to drive, though I sold that M3 11 years ago, so my memory of the driving experience isn't exactly fresh. If I still had it, my reaction to the CTR might be different. You still have your S2000, so it's a fair comparison.

Picked up my car yesterday afternoon, here are the obligatory pics from the dealership, along with one I took when I got back to work. The dealer has a CW CTR in the showroom when I was signing the paperwork for the Accord. They were still asking $5k over MSRP. The salesman said it had been there for a few days, it is the 4th or 5th one they've gotten and the first to not have sold the day it came in. I sat in it again, I like the seating position and the interior layout, however, the Accord was still a better fit for my needs.

5 miles on the odometer (after the dealer put gas in it).

grats on the car! there are many days where having some sort of mobile couch is nice. And for the other days, there's the s2k.

i also wanted to thank you for that comment about that first car being the first not being sold right away. I have been getting increasingly less patient and was feeling like maybe i had to buy 5k in accessories (as good as it gets down here in socal for now)

But that gave me renewed hope and hopefully that patience will be rewarded

S2k_Dude said:

Picked up my car yesterday afternoon, here are the obligatory pics from the dealership, along with one I took when I got back to work. The dealer has a CW CTR in the showroom when I was signing the paperwork for the Accord. They were still asking $5k over MSRP. The salesman said it had been there for a few days, it is the 4th or 5th one they've gotten and the first to not have sold the day it came in. I sat in it again, I like the seating position and the interior layout, however, the Accord was still a better fit for my needs.

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Ah I had the impression that you got a 6MT. Well, the 10AT ain't too shabby either tho.

Congrats. I really like the new accord. I would love to trade in my ILX and get one if i can lol.

lawl said:

grats on the car! there are many days where having some sort of mobile couch is nice. And for the other days, there's the s2k.

i also wanted to thank you for that comment about that first car being the first not being sold right away. I have been getting increasingly less patient and was feeling like maybe i had to buy 5k in accessories (as good as it gets down here in socal for now)

But that gave me renewed hope and hopefully that patience will be rewarded

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Not to mention, at the other Honda dealership close to me North of Atlanta, they sold the ABP Type R to a buyer on this forum from CA, for $1,100 over MSRP. He flew out to Atlanta and drove the car back to CA.

S2k_Dude said:

Not to mention, at the other Honda dealership close to me North of Atlanta, they sold the ABP Type R to a buyer on this forum from CA, for $1,100 over MSRP. He flew out to Atlanta and drove the car back to CA.

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Hah, I know exactly who you're talking about.

It's like we're all in prison and know exactly who's next for parole and cheering for them.

lawl said:

grats on the car! there are many days where having some sort of mobile couch is nice. And for the other days, there's the s2k.

i also wanted to thank you for that comment about that first car being the first not being sold right away. I have been getting increasingly less patient and was feeling like maybe i had to buy 5k in accessories (as good as it gets down here in socal for now)

But that gave me renewed hope and hopefully that patience will be rewarded

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it will take a while for these thick headed stealers to realize that the demand is less now (I suspect in largely part due to the weather in January in most parts of the country). By the time they think about reacting, it will be March and, I suspect, people will be inquiring about CTR once again.

I would have thought that this ADM business would have died by now, what 6 or 7 months after release?

S2k_Dude said:

Not to mention, at the other Honda dealership close to me North of Atlanta, they sold the ABP Type R to a buyer on this forum from CA, for $1,100 over MSRP. He flew out to Atlanta and drove the car back to CA.

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But, in reality, this person paid a lot more than $1,100 in ADM, no? Like the airfare, transportation to the airport, hotels and meals along the way, extra mileage on the car (reduction in fair value of the car), gasoline, time at the CA DMV to register the car (isn't there like an extra inspection for out-of-state cars in CA?), and, most importantly, time . . . . time away from friends, family, hobbies, so on.

I am not putting anyone down for doing this, because I have done this many times when I was younger. I realized at some point along the way that it really wasn't worth it . . . . to me . . . . because time is sometimes more valuable than money when you get older.

I read this in a fortune cookie once.