Crosstour

Auto or manual trans?

 

last accord i drove was 2006 dx. that had /plenty/. i don't know what
kind of problem your car seems to have, but in my direct personal
experience, even the base accord will lay rubber and pull just great,
especially at high revs. sure, some cars have even more power, but some
people clearly don't know how to drive.

yeah. repeat until believed, right?

eh? gear ratios??? what a ridiculous statement!

"seems"??? so no personal experience??? first, you clearly haven't
driven the si or the s2000. second, you need to check your facts on the
red lines.

again, check your facts - the s2000 is "long stroke". oh, and check the
accord red line.

no, you need to learn to drive. all this b.s. coming from someone that
clearly doesn't have experience is just so much hot air.

 

"pedal on the right?" more like...

 

I have owned an XK-140 Jaguar and an E-Type (technically there was no
XKE, but everyone called it that, so it became the de facto name.)
There certainly was a 12 cylinder E-Type, and it was a very long
engine, because of the double overhead camshaft design. As an aside
the first Ferrari V-12 was made up of two V-6s, one behind the other.
I've also owned a Prelude, a generation ahead of its time, and, I
thought, could really give my E-Type a run for the money. But what do
I know. I'm old. Really old. I raced the XK-140 at Laguna Seca, in
1959, when they had pro-am races, and I was the amateur, and had to
retire, after one lap, when I realized that I was probably the only
one paying for my fenders. Passed by two Ferraris, within the first
quarter-mile. Now I have a new Honda Pilot Touring (because we have
two grandsons) so that is what happens to you. Nice to hear something
about Jaguars. They were totally great (when they ran) and I wish I
had them both today.

I had a 64 E type back in the mid 60s -- bought it used in 65 or 66. I was
USAF Lt at the time. It was a maroon (red) roadster. Have driven 120s and
140s. Traded the Jag off on a Sunbeam Tiger which I modified and autocrossed
when I was in Japan. Loved the Jag, but it was a real maintenance headache.
I guess at age 68 I'm old but I still work -- have a grandson and drive an
06 Accord I4 coupe...we also have Pilot and a CRV.

 

auto

what it delivers is sort of a linear response, same acceleration frm
about 3k to about 6k, which is as high as I've taken it. hard to find
space to rev it higher, since really, even that linear acceleration is
pretty good. it just *feels* boring.

J.

 

The 2010 (and I assume the 2009) seem tuned differently.

this is the first I recall you commenting on.

What are you babbling about?

I'm commenting on how the Accord is engineered from front to back to
deliver great performance at such lower revs, which is pretty amazing
in a i4 2.4l package. It's an observation, not a criticism.

Nope, never drove either, but I can read a spec sheet and compare them
to what I have driven. Redlines from vague memory, is it 10k on the
S2000? Checking ... SI is 8k. Hey, S2000 is out of production?
Didn't even know. Redlines ... seem to have been up to 9000 then
reduced to, y'know, around 8000. So once again, what are you babbling
about?

OK it's 7K on mine. I'll have to make a point of getting the revs up
there at least once, it doesn't seem to really want to go there, what
with the ratios and the 65mph speed limit, have to do it in some lower
gear. Really, not what the car was built for, but anything for you.

*Some* of the S2000 were *slightly* longer in stroke than bore, but
nothing like the Accords. You checked the I4 Accord recently, like
the last ten years? God bless balance shafts.

Outside of that my own strokey Accord has an official (but not really
useful) redline of 7k not 6k, all your complaints have been
unjustified.

Hope tomorrow finds you in a better mood.

J.

 

We may be twins. My E-type was 62, drove what you drove, and even
thought about the Sunbeam, in Germany. I'm 71, and with grandsons,
have to have the Pilot. And right you say about Jaguar maintenance
headaches. Stuck fuel pump? (Hit it with a rubber hammer.) Blown
fuzes? Well, they did not call Lucas (the electrical system) the
"Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Starter motor whining? Get a big
screwdriver and insert into the opening in the transmission and move
the gears until the starter motor catches a gear. I could go on
forever. drive a Jaguar across the Mohave and it will overheat, but
you can put the heater on and use that small radiator to disperse
heat. With all windows open and your feet blistering, but it works.
The mod is to replace the radiator with a small block Chevy radiator,
which hangs below, but it works. Air conditioning? Forget it. Ah,
the good old days. They never worked quite right, but when they
worked, they were heaven on wheels. I wish I had them back. Of
course I would be broke trying to maintain them.

 

i'm not complaining about the car, i'm complaining about "shoot from the
hip" b.s. being presented as fact. "definitive" statements like "it's
got nothing" are just plain wrong. as opposed to "i think it's got
nothing relative to..." of course. and ignoring of course the
ridiculousness of this statement when looking at motors that develop
peak power within only a few hundred rpm of red line.
http://automobiles.honda.com/accord-sedan/specifications.aspx

i hope tomorrow finds people prepared to do some freakin' homework
and/or learn not to present underinformed inexperienced speculative b.s.
as fact. homework behind the wheel should be where they learn to look
at the gauges /and/ operate that funny looking lever with "PRND" etc
written on it.

 

You want to add something to the conversation, show me some power and
torque curves for the Accord versus the Civic SI, and you will see
what I mean.

(Road and Track used to publish those in reviews, I never see them
anymore ... but it's true I haven't looked very hard)

And try the decaf.

J.

 

And if you over-revved them, they threw - was it rods, pistons, or
valves?

J.

 

My biggest peeve about Honda these days is the high gross weight of
pretty much the entire line. Sure it makes the driving comfortable,
and given the high weight the performance and mileage are amazing, but
it still costs performance and/or mileage to drag around 3300 pounds
for an Accord I4 sedan and the Civic ... hey, have they got a
reduction on them this year, down to 2700 for the EX sedan? I had it
in memory that they were even closer to Accord weights.

1980's Accords and Civics were smaller, yes, but weighed much less,
too. How about adding something like updated versions of *those* to
the Honda line?

Glancing over at Acura ... a new ZDX?

But the Crosstour is still just a TL with a Honda badge, right? Still
smells to me like Honda is blurring the boundaries between the two
lines. Not that they've ever been all that separate. Come on, add
some mileage-maker technology to the Honda line, and drop a V8 into
the top of the Acura line.

J.

 

You could say the Accord is just a stripper TL with a Honda badge.

Well, what do you expect when two brands come off a single production
line?

Imagine all the money Honda would have for cars if it gave up on
trucklets.

 

Well I never had that occur, but I did have to have the valves
replaced, which involved removing the headers, the camshafts, the
steel shims, the valves, then reassembling doing a micrometer check on
all the shims, and grinding them down (if needed) to each individual
valve stem. I had to have an actual Jaguar shop do that as few would
even look at it and that took my army lieutenant paycheck for many
months. Even the gasket is tricky because the top part of the engine
is aluminium, and the bottom part is chrome steel, which is why the
old ones leaked a lot of oil. I've never known of one coming apart
for passing the redline - which was pretty high - as they could take a
lot of abuse. The Type-D racing cars used the old Castrol, which was
castor oil, and high temps would leave an impervious film on the
piston walls, gradually increasing the compression, making for a more
competitive engine as the race went on - and sealing up all the "loose
parts." And they smelled. I noted that to one of the team members,
and he sniffed, and said, "That is how you tell it is a *Genuine
Jaguar!* Then they had to rebuild the engine after each race or so -
or it would seize up, but I've never seen one do that. Now I just get
in my Honda and drive, and nothing is going to happen. Takes all the
suspense out of the driving experience.

 

Nah, the other way around - TL is a loaded-up Accord.

Just saying they need to do what they can to differentiate.

Maybe they could get into motorcycles or jet planes or something.

J.

 

We may be twins. My E-type was 62, drove what you drove, and even
thought about the Sunbeam, in Germany. I'm 71, and with grandsons,
have to have the Pilot. And right you say about Jaguar maintenance
headaches. Stuck fuel pump? (Hit it with a rubber hammer.) Blown
fuzes? Well, they did not call Lucas (the electrical system) the
"Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Starter motor whining? Get a big
screwdriver and insert into the opening in the transmission and move
the gears until the starter motor catches a gear. I could go on
forever. drive a Jaguar across the Mohave and it will overheat, but
you can put the heater on and use that small radiator to disperse
heat. With all windows open and your feet blistering, but it works.
The mod is to replace the radiator with a small block Chevy radiator,
which hangs below, but it works. Air conditioning? Forget it. Ah,
the good old days. They never worked quite right, but when they
worked, they were heaven on wheels. I wish I had them back. Of
course I would be broke trying to maintain them.

After all these years--- the solution to the stuck starter. I used to take
it off and clean the bendix. But, until then, push the car and start in 2nd
gear. Of course, don't forget the baggie on the distributor to keep it dry
when going through a deep puddle. Radiator -- I was stationed in Laredo Tx
at the time -- overheat was the norm in traffic in the hot summers. Then,
there were the leaking freeze plugs. Ah the memories. The Tiger was a
delight after that -- it would'nt break.

 

Rod bearings -- I know from bitter experience.

 

Gosh, all my 1971 Fiat 124 would do is break lose the gas line to the
carb and spray gasoline all over the hot engine. No problem, just
rough up the brass connector with a file and shove it back in the
hole, good for months more reliable driving!

J.

 

Not quite.

There's the Accord. Then there's the TL, which is an Accord with an
Acura badge and upmarket equipment not available under the Honda label.

Then there's the Crosstour, which is an Accord wagon--except in this day
and age they're deathly afraid to use the phrase "station wagon," hence
the entirely different name.

And of course, the ZDX is--ta daaaa--a Crosstour with an Acura badge and
upmarket equipment htat's not available under the Honda label. Also
known as a TL station wagon.

 

What great memories. I also owned a 1970s Fiat 124 with the MC heads
and it's trick was to short out in the coil, and come to a dead stop.
The solution was to open up the cap and extend the spring, the end of
which was burnt off, and good to go for another thousand miles. But
it was fun, fun, fun to drive. It sounded like it was turning 7000
RPM at all times, the tires made a screech around every turn. Going
to the grocery store was like driving Monza, but the thing was that I
loved that. Now, all I do, is sit in my Honda and have a quiet
time.