Honda Accord – Not Just For The Elderly

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April 23, 2009

Some cars are unduely categorised into rather derogatory owner stereotypes. The Ford Ka will forever be associated with young women’s first cars, the Mondeo will always nod toward the middle-of-the-road family man and the BMW M3 will always belong to smug executives. There is one categorisation that has stuck in my mind and been noticeable during car journeys; the Honda Accord is a car for senior citizens.

Anyone who is familiar with the British roads will have been stuck, frustrated, behind an elderly person in an Accord, who insists on doing 30mph in a national speed limit area with no sign of moving out of 3^rd gear. After about 10 miles of this, you can feel your anger welling up inside you like a volcano that’s about to blow and you make a risky manoeuvre to overtake which results in you either crashing headlong into an oncoming lorry, or careening off into a ditch . Either way the Honda Accord driver will tut and shake his head as he slowly drives past your lifeless corpse.

This maybe a slight exaggeration, but the Honda Accord has really built up a reputation for being the pensioner’s car of choice, but why exactly? Let me state my case. It’s the multitude of gadgets Honda include that take away all choice and responsibility from the driver. In the top spec model there is an annoying beep if you accelerate over the speed limit, there is annoying beep if you change lanes on the motorway and there is an Adaptive Cruise Control system, which presumably involves some kind of annoying beep. All of these little beeps and blips seem to attract the elderly car buyer; they are obviously reassuring or potentially keep the driver awake as they are cruising at 26Mph on the dual carriageway.

Despite all the annoying warning noises, the Honda Accord is a pretty handy car. The two petrol and diesel engine options are all eager, responsive and impressively economic. If I had to choose between the i-CDTi Diesel and the i-VTEC petrol engines, the diesel probably makes the most sense. Its performance is very close to that of the petrol and the monetary returns you’ll get at the petrol pumps are worth the minor drop in performance.

The quality and reliability of Honda cars is renowned throughout the world and these factors are also going to appeal to the more sensible and prudential senior market. You can’t really picture a 61 year old man going out and buying a sporty, but famously unreliable Alfa Romeo can you? No, they always choose the safe options and there is little safer than a Honda Accord.

The Honda Accord’s current reputation is slightly undue though. At its core it is a prefect choice of car for anyone looking for a good performance saloon with low residuals. I’m sure Honda aren’t overly concerned by their consuming demographic, as long as they keep buying the car in droves...which is a dead cert.

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