2010 Honda Accord Crosstour 1st Drive – A Quality CUV

Styling is subjective, but we assume the tall, extensive-hipped Crosstour is moderately interesting – help you save for its substantial, considerably clunky horizontal-bar grille, which gives it a encounter in contrast to any other Honda’s. Within, the glance and feel are roomy, plush and user-pleasant, with these types of touches as plush carpeting, rear-air flow outlets in the console and double stitching on the out there leather-based trim.

Honda’s new-for-2010 Accord-based crossover, unabashedly named Accord Crosstour. It is fundamentally an Accord wagon, apart from its rear roofline is aerodynamically sloped in its place of squared off, which sacrifices some cargo area but preserves respectable backseat headroom even for six-footers. But make sure you really don’t phone it that.

Is this kind of a fifty percent-breed a car, or is it a truck? Whilst some crossovers, particularly the more substantial ones with three rows of seats, are additional SUV-like, this just one seems closer to a car or truck. As significantly as government classification goes, the signals are mixed: for emissions and gas economic system tests, the EPA sees it as a passenger car or truck. For safety certification, NHTSA calls it a truck.

Honda phone calls it a “five-doorway, 5-passenger premium CUV” and delivers it in two styles: a properly-geared up EX (just about $30,000, together with destination) and an upscale EX-L (about $33K). “Real-time” four-wheel generate adds $1,450 and voice-activated navigation with a rear-look at camera, one more $2,200, but the two are made available on the EX-L only.

Standard on the EX are dual-zone automatic air conditioning 360-watt, 7-speaker audio with a 6-disc CD participant easy fold-down 60/40 split rear seats 225/65 R17 all-year tires on alloy wheels a energy moonroof steering-wheel audio controls auto-off projector beam headlights fog lights rear privacy glass and a concealed detachable utility box.

The EX-L provides leather-based-trimmed seats (heated in front), steering wheel and shift knob memory mirrors and driver-facet seat 225/60 R18 all-time tires auto-on/off headlights a cargo privateness cover a HomeLink transmitter quality speakers and a USB audio interface.

How a lot of this Crosstour is Accord beneath its pores and skin? Honda states about 60 % of its pieces are shared with the sedan, which includes the chassis and powertrain, the instrument panel and most of the inside. That chassis incorporates absolutely unbiased double-wishbone front and rear-multilink rear suspensions, both equally a bit upgraded for the taller, heavier Crosstour. Noteworthy between those people upgrades are rebound springs within the front shocks to increase handling and reduce system roll, two-piston entrance brake calipers and bigger rear rotors.

The only available powertrain is the Accord’s 271-hp 3.5-liter i-VTEC SOHC V-6 coupled to a 5-speed automatic transmission. This award-successful motor makes use of Honda’s unique Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) cylinder deactivation process to enrich gas economic system by shutting down two, or at occasions even 3, cylinders when it is really frivolously loaded. The electronically controlled 5-velocity computerized is clean but a little bit fewer gas-successful than the most current 6-speeds made available by GM, Ford and other people. The 2WD Crosstour is EPA-rated at a respectable 18 town/27 highway mpg and the 4WD EX-L at 17/25.

The two interior color choices are charcoal black with a black instrument panel or ivory with a two-tone (black upper, tan decreased) instrument panel, the two with tasteful faux wood accents. To quiet the cabin, a new Lively Sound Handle (ASC) technologies makes use of the audio procedure to acoustically lessen engine sounds. There is 25.7 cu. ft. of cargo place behind the 60/40 rear seats and, folding them down increases the place to 54 cu. ft. Obtain to it is simple many thanks to a substantial tailgate opening and a low lift-above height. Three other handy capabilities are twin levers that speedily fold these seats flat into the floor, carpeted lids that flip more than to produce effortless-to-clean up plastic surfaces and a concealed 1.9-liter storage box with handles for quick removing.

If you’ve got driven an Accord sedan, you’ll come to feel cozy in a Crosstour. Honda engineers have compensated perfectly via certain spring fees, shocks and stabilizer bars for its modestly greater size and the probable of additional cargo fat. Unladen, it rides and handles about as properly as the reasonably agile still compliant sedan. Its brakes are suitably strong and fade-free of charge, but its frequent-ratio steering is to some degree slower at small speeds in comparison to the sedan’s variable-ratio procedure.

With six inches of ground clearance, this is no off-road crawler, but the obtainable thoroughly computerized Authentic Time 4WD process improves its lousy-climate and off-pavement capabilities by sending electricity to the rear wheels when the fronts start to slip. The 5-speed automated can be manually shifted, and its new downshift rev-match aspect smooths handbook downshifts.

Normal security characteristics incorporate Car Security Aid (VSA) electronic steadiness handle and anti-lock brakes with digital brake distribution and brake guide. The extensive restraint technique involves twin-phase, many threshold front airbags driver’s and entrance passenger’s aspect airbags with a passenger-aspect Occupant Posture Detection Program (OPDS) side curtain airbags with a rollover sensor and energetic entrance seat head restraints.

This new 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour slides neatly in between Honda’s Civic-centered CR-V compact crossover and its much larger, additional truck-like (Accord-based) Pilot CUV and competes directly with Toyota’s identical Camry based Venza and Nissan’s Altima-based mostly Murano. Phone it what you want but contemplate it a really attention-grabbing new entry in the significantly crowded crossover discipline.