The Honda Accord and I have a bit of a history. At the tender
age of 15, the very first car I ever drove was my father's washing
machine-white 1992 DX. I remember that day vividly. It was only a
handful of cautiously slow laps around an underground parking
garage—but over the following several months it became the vehicle
that confirmed for me yes, I did love driving more than I could've
possibly imagined.
Looking back, it was mainly the tool that taught me the art of
three-point turns, knowing who goes first when someone else arrives
at an all-way stop the same time as you, and parallel parking. But
if you asked my aspirational teenage self, in the moment, it might
as well have my personal Championship White NSX with its
flattened-box proportions, old Honda switchgear, and
Lexy roxx dildo test.
Chris Tsui
Fast forward more than a decade and there's an Obsidian Blue
Pearl 2020 Honda Accord Touring 2.0T in my proverbial driveway.
I've always had a fairly good time behind the wheel of the Civic's
big brother but does this modern, slopier-roofed version provide
the same responsible, reasonably-priced thrills it has throughout
the years? More or less, yeah.
At $37,355, the 2.0-liter Touring is the most expensive 2020
Accord you can buy and, transitively, the Honda brand's flagship
sedan, competing against the Toyota Camry, Hyundai Sonata,
Volkswagen Passat, and Nissan's Altima. It's also priced around the
same as the top-trim CR-V Touring or a mid-level Pilot. Of course,
if you're part of the growing cohort of buyers that refuses to be
seen in anything without raised suspension and black plastic body
cladding, the Accord is a non-starter but for the big brains in the
crowd who still appreciate the virtues of the good ol' sedan,
Honda's mid-sizer is as good as it ever was.
Quick Take: A comfortable, well-appointed
cruiser with a decent driver's car underneath.
Chris Tsui
On the outside, the 2020 Honda Accord's aesthetics seem to vary
wildly depending on where you're looking at it from. The fastback
proportions can look quite sleek from some angles but awkward and
hunched-over from others. The front end, in my eyes, looks a bit
weird but the strong shoulder line that runs the length of the car
is quite attractive. Touring-specific touches include the tasteful
chrome trim that underlines the doors and kicks up towards the rear
and some 19-inch wheels that fill the wells out nicely without
looking like they're trying too hard. All in all, it's a dignified
design that blends into the crowd nicely without being completely
beige.
Stepping inside and shutting the front doors shut with a heavy,
secure-sounding thwump, the Accord's interior is pleasant
and well thought-out. One of the first things you notice is the
wood-pattern trim that's very convincing at mimicking open-pore
lumber. Reach out and touch it, though, and you'll realize it's
ultimately a ruse. The second thing you notice is the three HVAC
knobs. They look expensive, operate with a satisfying clickiness,
and—as a luxury car-aping party trick—feature backlighting that
turns red or blue when you change the temperature. The volume and
tuning knobs, meanwhile, may look similar posh at first glance but
aren't nearly as nice upon further inspection. Although, given
their absence in the previous-gen Accord, perhaps we should just be
grateful that this car has them at all.
Chris Tsui
Speaking of infotainment, the Accord uses an eight-inch, 720p
touchscreen sitting high up in the dashboard, putting it well
inside the driver's line of sight. The system itself is a vast
improvement over the company's last-gen software still found in the
current Civic and CR-V. It's fast and reasonably easy to use but
compared to systems from, say, Toyota or Mazda, Honda's UI
looks the most like...business software. It isn't very
pretty but it gets the job done. (The IT middle managers who buy
this car will feel right at home.) Thankfully, the Accord comes
standard with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (wired in this 2020
model, wireless in upper trims of the new 2021) for the rest of us
who'd much rather have our in-car infotainment be designed by the
horn-rimmed glasses of Cupertino or Mountain View.
Controlling this mid-size sedan's 10-speed automatic
transmission is Honda's now-customary button shifter with enough
variance in the angle and action of the buttons to make it easy to
use without looking after a few tries. We're long past requiring
the traditional automatic PRNDL shifter for any real reason other
than people are used to it, and while that's completely valid,
buttons at least don't have the same learning curve as some of the
new and confusing tiny-stick setups out there. And it makes for a
slightly airier-feeling cabin to boot.
Sitting directly in front of the driver is a half-digital
instrument cluster meaning the speedo on the right is analog but
pretty much everything to the left of it is a screen. That screen
can be configured to display everything from navigation or audio
info to fuel consumption stats to Driver Attention Level and, for
the traditionalists, a good ol' tachometer. It all looks pretty
seamless, changing the left-hand display is intuitive and snappy,
and is a smart workaround that makes the Accord seem like it pushes
more pixels than it actually does. (Small quirk on the gauge
display: the car that shows up when you choose to show Driving
Support info appears to be a last-gen Accord and not the one its
driver would be sitting in.)
Chris Tsui
The heads-up display and wireless phone charger both standard on
this Touring trim (and available only on the Touring trim) are
forward-thinking, appreciated touches.
Tech aside, the basics of the Accord's cockpit are solid. In
typical Honda fashion, visibility is top-notch thanks to some
mightily thin A-pillars and split C-pillars, the seats are quite
comfy, the back row is spacious, storage space is generous, and
there's even a little shelf in the center cubby perfectly-sized for
mask storage. Really, there isn't much glaringly negative about
this cabin. It's practical, useable, well-equipped, and handsomely
designed.
Chris Tsui
Among the mainstream mid-size family sedan segment, Honda's
entry has always been a bit of a leader when it comes to the actual
driving experience and that remains true for this 10th generation
model. Behind the wheel, the 2020 Accord Touring has clearly been
tuned, first and foremost, for comfort, exhibiting a pleasing
smoothness that's consistent across its steering, braking, ride,
and power delivery. It's a car that makes light work of both
long-haul highway cruising and low-speed urban travel on both the
driver and itself.
That's not to say it's lazy, though. Hustle it a bit and you'll
discover a sophistication to the Accord's chassis and suspension
that isn't present in the competing Toyota—Daddario sex scene—nor
the previous-gen Accord. Even when saddled with winter tires, its
frame feels light on its feet and destined for greater things.
Tighten those inputs up a couple notches, "un-detune" the engine
and I reckon an Accord Type R would be quite a good time.
Chris Tsui
While we're on the subject of Type R, the Accord Touring's
2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder is essentially the
Brigitte kingsley hot's motor with a smaller-diameter turbo. Here,
it's putting out 252 hp and 273 lb-ft. with all of that torque
available at just 1,500 rpm. The result? A quicker car than most
owners will ever reasonably need and front tires that will screech
a good amount when flooring it from a stop.
When my fellow Canadians over at the Cadey mercury atk drag
raced this exact Accord against the aforementioned CTR, the hot
hatch eventually won but
only just. Sasha gray porno, meanwhile, recently put
the mildly refreshed 2021 model on its 10Best list for the 35th
time. It's only natural that we don't always see eye-to-eye with
C/D but in the case of crowning the Honda Accord as one of
the best cars to buy for those who care about driving, I get
it.
The Accord can be switched into its Eco and Sport driving modes
via buttons beneath the gear select module and, somewhat
surprisingly, they do change this car's character quite a bit. Eco
dulls the throttle significantly for the Accord owners out there
who, deep down, would really rather have bought Nahla monroe only fans
Sport, of course, goes the other way, making the throttle more
sensitive as well as stiffening up the steering and adaptive
dampers. Yes, exclusive to the Touring trim, the Honda Accord can
be had with adaptive friggin' dampers.
Switching to this more athletic driving mode resizes the tach so
that 6,000 rpm is at 12 o'clock and even throws up a little boost
gauge. Go ahead and put it in Sport on the one day a year you take
your Accord Touring out to the good roads and drive it for the sake
of driving it but if it was me, I'd just leave it in the regular
default mode 99 percent of the time and let the car do its
thing.
Chris Tsui
Honda Sensing is standard and includes the following:
Adaptive cruise control with low-speed follow
Traffic sign recognition
Forward collision warning and emergency braking
Lane-keep assist
Lane departure warning
"Road Departure Mitigation"
ACC does a decent job of keeping up with the varying velocities
of traffic sans driver input while Lane Keep is able to
autonomously negotiate gentle curves in the highway but requires
the driver to steer it around sharper bends and provide input every
several seconds or so as a rule. Traffic Sign Recognition
continuously reads the view out for speed limit signs and displays
the last one it picked up next to the speedo in a thoughtful effort
to keep "I didn't know I couldn't do that"-type situations with law
enforcement to a minimum.
Chris Tsui
I've got one more confession to make. You're reading this right
now thanks to another Honda Accord—specifically, my parents' 2016
Sport that I reviewed for one of my writing samples when I applied
to write for this site a few years ago. My editors never published
that one thankfully, but somehow it's now become my job to tell a
bunch of people what it's like to live with that car's successor at
a time when a lot of buyers are wondering what sedans still have to
offer.
Thankfully, just like the Accord that came before it (and the
Accord that came before that), the 2020 Honda Accord Touring 2.0T
is a super solid mid-size family sedan. It looks alright, is
extremely well-made, comfortable to drive and ride in and quite
well-appointed in this top Touring trim. It's also a decently
enjoyable tool as a driving machine as well.
What's really heartening to see is that there's still this
accessible ease to its spirit. Rarer every day, it's the kind of
family car where a bit of playfulness is baked into the DNA rather
than tacked on with re-engineered performance editions, the kind
that gives you a glimpse of how engaging driving can be. I mean,
who knows? If there are any licensed teenagers in the family, it
might just be good enough to put them on the path to becoming a
bonafide auto journalist. Because writing about cars on the
internet is precisely the upstanding, well-paying, respectable
career every parent wishes for their kids... right?
