2013 Honda Accord Review and Prices

Styling: The 2013 Honda Accord again offers both a four-door-sedan body style and a two-door coupe. Final styling details of the 2013 Accord won’t be revealed until shortly before the car goes on sale in autumn 2012. But the 2013 Accord Coupe Concept auto-show car unveiled in January 2012 suggests there won’t be wholesale visual changes. Accord has earned a broad and loyal ownership base during its eight design generations and Honda’s hesitant to alienate potential repeat buyers with a radically different ninth-generation design.

The two-door Accord Coupe has always been a lower-volume adjunct to the Accord sedan and Honda has allowed it more styling flair. The 2013 Accord Coupe Concept showcases a series of gentle curves and sheet-metal creases absent on the outgoing coupe. It also has a new, lower roofline and a four-sided grille.

Don’t expect the 2013 Accord four-door sedan to have quite that level of flair, though Honda is undoubtedly conscious of criticism that its redesigned 2012 Civic did not change enough in looks or personality. In any event, a body shorn of the extraneous bumps and creases that characterized the 2008-2012 Accord sedan is a good bet, though the redesigned 2013 sedan should still be easily recognized as a Honda.

As for its exterior dimensions, the Accord Coupe has traditionally been several inches shorter than the Accord sedan, and Honda says the 2013 coupe’s size won’t change much. It acknowledges a more pronounced reduction in size and weight for the 2013 Accord sedan compared with its 2008-2012 counterpart. The reduced bulk will benefit fuel economy and tighten the front and rear sheetmetal overhangs, lending a more athletic posture. That attribute would be hammered home if Honda does not alter the 2013 Accord’s wheelbase.

Wheelbase is the distance between a vehicle’s front and rear axles and largely determines how much space can be allotted to the passenger compartment. The 2008-2012 Accord sedan’s 110.2-inch wheelbase was among the longest of any midsize car and contributed to near class-leading interior roominess.

Honda says it will retain generous accommodations as an Accord asset, which suggests little change to the wheelbase. It also implies a roofline for the sedan that preserves plenty of rear-seat headroom and a tail tall enough to retain family-vacation-friendly trunk space.

Expect the 2013 Accord model lineup to take its cue from a basic roster that’s proved successful over the years. It probably will begin with the volume-selling LX trim and escalate in price and equipment through EX and EX-L models. The 2013 Accord Plug-In Hybrid could be offered in EX and EX-L trim. As this ninth-generation Accord ages, Honda would likely blend features equipment to slot-in additional models, as it’s done recently by creating Accord LX-P and SE editions.

Mechanical: The 2013 Honda Accord continues to come only with front-wheel drive and again offers both a four-cylinder engine and a V-6 while adding the nameplate’s first plug-in hybrid model.

Honda also sets an Accord precedent by fitting four-cylinder 2013 models with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) in place of a conventional automatic transmission. And on V-6-equipped 2013 Accords, a six-speed automatic transmission replaces the outgoing model’s outdated five-speed automatic.

Honda says all three of the 2013 Accord’s powertrains are new designs.

The 2013 Accord sedan and coupe are the first Hondas in the U.S. to receive a new four-cylinder engine that the automaker promotes under its “Earth Dreams” powertrain branding.

Like the four-cylinder in the eighth-generation Accord, the Earth Dreams four is a dual-overhead-cam 2.4-liter but it adds direct fuel injection for a more precise combustion process. Honda claims significant performance improvements compared with the engine it replaces, preliminary quoting an output of “more than” 181 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque. Accord’s outgoing 2.4-liter four-cylinder was available in two states of tune: 177 horsepower and 161 pound-feet of torque and a more expensive version with 190 and 162, respectively.

The outgoing four-cylinder was paired with a choice of manual or automatic transmissions, both with five speeds. The 2013 Accord Earth Dreams four is available with either a six-speed manual transmission or a CVT. The latter design replaces a finite set of gear ratios with a belt-and-pulley system designed for a more seamless and efficient delivery of power. Honda says its CVT, however, will feel more responsive to the driver than CVTs used in competitors’ cars.

The V-6 available in both the 2013 Accord sedan and Coupe is again a single-overhead-cam 3.5-liter and when paired with automatic transmission employs Honda’s Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) system, which saves gas by idling three cylinders in low-demand cruising.

The automaker says the 3.5-liter V-6 in the 2013 Accord is re-engineered and generates more horsepower and torque, but as of this review it had not released estimated output figures. The V-6 it replaces had 271 horsepower and 254 pound-feet of torque.  

That the 2013 Accord is again available with a V-6 is significant because midsize-car buyers in general are gravitating toward four-cylinder engines for higher fuel economy and lower purchase prices. Their decision is being made easier by today’s crop of high-tech four-cylinder engines that produce enough power to render V-6s superfluous in most daily driving. And where V-6-like power is desired, carmakers have turned to turbocharged fours. Indeed, the Hyundai Sonata is a bellwether for this approach. The redesigned 2013 Chevrolet Malibu and the all-new 2013 Ford Fusion pick up the all-four-cylinder mantle, and the redesigned 2013 Nissan Altima could, as well.

Although the V-6 will again account for a small percentage of Accord sales, continuing to offer it helps differentiate the redesigned 2013 from its all-four-cylinder competitors. And it helps Honda cater to upscale Accord buyers who prefer the smoothness and easy torque of a V-6.

In a notable advance on the transmission front, 2013 Accords with the V-6 are available with a six-speed automatic. Honda would have shocked industry observers if it did not exchange the outgoing Accord’s five-speed automatic transmission for the more efficient and modern six-speed automatic. The change makes the 2013 Accord more competitive with the majority of midsize rivals, which already employ six-speed automatics.

Honda says 2013 V-6 Accords will also be available with a six-speed manual transmission. This was true of their eighth-generation counterparts, as well, though it’s likely the six-speed manual will continue to be limited to Accord Coupes, in keeping with their sporty-performance mission.   

The 2013 Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid features the first application of the carmaker’s new gas-electric powertrain that enables a partial battery charge via connection to household or commercial electrical outlets rather than relying solely on onboard recharging.

Honda says its system is distinguished from competing designs because it enables the driver to choose when to run in pure-electric mode. It says this allows more flexibility than limiting pure-electric driving to the initial portion of a trip and then relying on a combination of gas and electric motivation once the plug-in charge is dissipated.

The 2013 Accord Plug-In Hybrid can be driven in three modes: all-electric; combined gasoline-electric, in which onboard computers determine the optimal mix; and in direct-drive, in which only the engine drives the front wheels to maximize fuel economy in high-speed cruising.

In all-electric mode, the 2013 Accord Plug-In Hybrid uses a lithium-ion battery and electric-motor power to achieve a claimed all-electric range of approximately 10-15 miles in city-type driving and a top speed of 62 mph. Honda says that fully recharging the battery will take less than four hours using a 120-volt outlet and less than 1.5 hours using a 240-volt charger.

In the gasoline-electric hybrid mode, the 2013 Accord Plug-In Hybrid relies on a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that utilizes the Atkinson-cycle intake and combustion design to maximize efficiency. The Plug-In Hybrid’s sole transmission is a CVT.

The 2013 Accord Plug-In Hybrid counters hybrid versions of the Sonata, Camry, and Fusion and the electric-assist edition of the 2013 Chevy Malibu. It’s the first gas-electric version of Accord since the 2005-2007 Accord Hybrid. That model, however, achieved increased performance by teaming a V-6 engine with electric-motor assist; it made 255 horsepower and was the most powerful Accord of its day.

All 2013 Accord models incorporate the Honda ECO Assist system. This provides a dashboard button to automatically recalibrate engine and transmission behavior and climate-system operation to reduce fuel consumption. The system also illuminates a dashboard icon that furnishes the driver with visual feedback to promote a more efficient driving style.

The vast majority of midsize cars have a front-wheel-drive layout and the 2013 Accord does too. Front-wheel drive concentrates the weight the engine and transmission over the tires that propel the car. That benefits traction in snow and, by massing mechanical components in the front of the car, leaves maximum space for passengers and cargo.

Features: The 2013 Honda Accord must make available a range of convenience, comfort, and infotainment features to stay competitive in a class where the latest amenities and gizmos are important to manufacturer bragging rights -- if not prime motivators for a majority of buyers.

The 2013 Accord does introduce several new features, including Honda's first application of its lane-departure and Forward Collision Warning technology. Both systems use a camera mounted behind the windshield to alert the driver if the car is unintentionally moving from its lane or to warn the driver of a potential frontal collision.

Additionally, the 2013 Accord is available with several new technologies designed to help improve the driver's visibility around the car. It’s the first Honda to get the carmaker’s LaneWatch blind-spot display, which uses a real-time video-camera system mounted on the passenger mirror to provide an enhanced view of the passenger-side roadway. Also standard on every 2013 Accord is a rearview back-up camera and Honda’s double-pane Expanded View Driver's Mirror.

Other newly standard features on all 2013 Accord models are Bluetooth hands-free mobile-phone connectivity and an SMS text-messaging function that can read received texts from compatible cell phones aloud over the audio system.

Another standard feature, and a first for the Accord, is an iPhone-compatible Pandora Internet Radio interface. The 2013 Accord also adopts Honda’s i-MID (intelligent Multi-Information Display), a full-color dashboard screen that supplements monitoring and control of audio, climate, communications, and vehicle-information functions.

Honda’s initial release of 2013 Accord information gave little clue as to how it plans to apportion some of the new features throughout the 2013 Accord lineup. Pushed by Hyundai’s practice of equipping all but the very least expensive models in a lineup with a liberal range of infotainment features as standard equipment, Honda and other automakers are wrestling with introducing technology at appropriate price points.

Honda does not offer options ala carte, favoring instead a rigid model hierarchy in which equipment multiplies as you ascend the price ladder. It’s traditionally reserved the best features for the more expensive models, a policy which has evidently not discouraged sales, which have historically been strong. But the breadth of features at each price point may need to broaden as buyers come to consider certain items essential and expect them even on less costly models.

Honda’s other challenge will be to preserve Accord’s high grade of passenger-compartment materials and workmanship. Every carmaker is struggling to control costs and cut weight, leading to a proliferation of thinner, hard plastic panels in place of more luxurious padded surfaces.

Toyota avoided such regression in its 2012 redesign of the Camry, providing interior materials that are in some areas better than those of the outgoing model. For its part, Honda’s redesigned 2012 Civic fell prey to the trend and suffers markedly undistinguished cabin décor. The pressure will be to avoid such a pitfall in the 2013 Accord, for which prices, and expectations, are higher.