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The Honda Accord is one of those cars that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but I'll tell you what, I could drive one of these things all day long as so many millions do.
A little secret sauce going on here and it's a little sauce
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The 2016 Accord is not a completely new car.
It's on the same platform as the one we've had since 2013.
So the basic volumes and dimensions are all still the same.
But they really revised the front and rear in particular on the outside.
Look at the face, it's much more sculpted and scowly.
People like angry The scowling car faces for some reason.
Out back, there's a lot more accurate DNA to my eye, and again, more finely sculpted and muscular.
You got LED tail lights on all the '16 Accords and up front you've got LED headlights available now, on the top line, that's called the Touring.
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When I got in this '16 Accord
In a couple ways, I wasn't sure I was in a Honda.
First of all, they've done some really smart stuff with cabin tech, which to be honest, they don't normally do.
In this case, it's Android auto and car play side by side No excuses, no extra cost.
I've got my phone cable down here to a convenient USB data and charge port and that's that.
And check this out.
You've actually got a live web browser.
No, not while you're driving obviously, but this is normally really high end car stuff.
You can pull over and watch CNET on cars.
Who wouldn't?
I still have my gripes about the interface though.
First of all, there's no volume knob.
Knob [SOUND].
You've got to use that rocker on the wheel or this touch thing the left of the screen.
And you can get to many weirdness on these dual screens.
Like having audio on one and the same thing on the other one that's a waste.
The over all interface though has been revised to be more elegant, yet still featuring some of the cleanest, largest touch buttons in the biz.
I like that.
[SOUND] Honda hasn't strayed too far from the playbook under the hood.
A 2.4 liter, direct injected in line [UNKNOWN] [SOUND] Okay, first thing I want you to do if you go test drive this new 16 Accord.
It's coming to a stop like this, hang on to the wheel and feel the pedals.
I find that in idle, there's kind of a vibration coming through that I don't expect from a modern car that isn't exactly cheap.
So you gotta check that out for yourself.
Maybe I'm not but I don't know.
Now once you get going, all that harshness kinda blows away and I'm left with a surprisingly perky four-cylinder, and I thought we might have had the six when I first drove this.
I was impressed.
CVT gearbox, you can hear it going through its machinations there.
That's the only choice on this EX-L trim.
It's a good one.
I gotta give you that.
You know I'm not a huge CVT buff.
Now it's not to hard to [UNKNOWN] this engine and find it's breathless spots, so it's not a real super powerful engine.
But in everyday driving you're not going to notice them.
The big tech ticket on the road is Honda sensing their driver assist pack.
Package, including collision mitigation breaking, which can go to a full step, forward collision warning, lane departure that is active to keep you in your lane, road departure mitigation, which is different from lane departure and keeps you from going off the road, and adaptive cruise control.
First time in an Accord are amplitude reactive dampers.
That means two valves in the shocks to read the road surface based on frequency of vibration And move between the two valve sets to be either firm or compliant.
Okay if the onion ever does a special on first world problems, there's a technology in this car that needs to be the cover story.
It's called straight road assist or something.
I mean, just the name is What it does is it uses the electric power steering and the vehicles various sensors to help you steer straight when you're going down one of those peaked crowned roads.
I never knew that was fatiguing maybe I was missing something.
And I continue this lane watch camera it's one of the best cameras in the auto [UNKNOWN] the one that looks down the right side.
Right on.
A 16 Accord, four cylinder, EXL, which is very high trim, is a little over 29,000.
I'm gonna load up some sensors and that wireless charging tech, but definitely move my trim up one more notch to get the navigation, but more importantly, the Honda Sensing Adaptive Drive tech.
That bundle for two grand, you're stealing that all day long.
Or at about 32 2 CNET style.
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More cars driven CNET style standing by now at CNETOnCars.com.
Click On the Road.
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