Hi all,

I am new to this forum and to Accord( Never drove in a Honda before). Thinking about getting a 4 door sedan... a little tired of driving my Quest. After reading all of the reviews, it seems like Accord LX 4cyl is going to be my top choice.

Need some answers from you guys:

- A dealer around my area quoted me $19000 for 04 accord LX w/ side airbags. It that a good price?

- Does Accord 4 cyl LX have enough pickup( the latest ones of course)?

- Would you guys choose this car over a Camry LE or Passat Gls?

- Beside the brakes and other small issues, what else do I need to watch out?






Thank you so much in advance for your input!

Pick up the latest issue of Consumer Reports "Road Test" Special fall issue , magazine.. (should be at a news stand near you) It does a superb job of outlining the features/specs of various accord trim lines and the competition ie camary and passat.. And guess what? the accord beats both and is the number one pick. :D

The best value for your money is the accord lx trim, I think this mag will surely answer most of the questions you seek, more so then i can write down all the pros/cons in these few lines..

All accord model 4 bangers have the same engine, 2.4 L i-vtec 160 hp, it has enough pep IMHO:cool:

meaccord

thanks for the info!!! have a nice accord Weekend!

tsanyc,

First, welcome to this board! It's always nice to see new members posting! There is a wealth of information here, and it just keeps getting better and better. This is all due to the great group of friendly, knowledgeable people we have here. It's great to have you onboard.

As for your questions, as meaccord said, the Accord is a better value than those other two. I think for what you get, it's one of the best values in the mid-size market today.

The price you mentioned is not bad, but I bet you could do better with very little work. I got my '04 EX V6 about a month ago, and paid just a few hundred over invoice. And this was when they had just came out...it was the first one the dealer received.

My first advice would be to check Cars Direct (http://www.carsdirect.com/home) and Edmunds (http://www.edmunds.com) . These sites will give you an idea of what a fair price would be. A fair price for YOU...Not the dealer! :yes:

The 4 cyl LX sedan w/ side airbags comes up as $18,388 for me on CarsDirect. The MSRP is $20,040 and the Invoice, or what the dealer paid to Honda, is $18,088. But even at Invoice price, dealers still make money to to Holdbacks and other incentives they get from the factory.

So right off the bat, your saving ~$1k off of the MSRP. Not bad!
But try this, printout the CarsDirect price and take it to the dealer. Tell them "If you can match this, we have a deal" and watch them spring into action. If they do not want to match it, say thanks, and tell them you'll just get it from CarsDirect. Then start to walk out. I can almost guarantee you they will stop you before you leave the showroom! Dealers are so predictable it's funny! If they match the price, you've saved another $500-$600.

You could always use carsdirect to buy the car, if your dealers will not budge. All CarsDirect does is refer you to a local dealer anyway, but you know the price before you even get there.

I got the V6 EX sedan and could not be happier.
Make sure you drive the V6 as well, so you can make sure you know how much power you want. But as meaccord said, the 4 cyl has plenty of pick-up for the average driver.

Finally, don't be afraid to drive a bit to another dealer. We got our car from a dealer about 45 mins away, even though there were like 4-5 other dealers only 10-15 mins away. See who treats you the best and really wants your business, and buy there.

Good Luck!

Let us know how it turns out!

I purchased my '03 Accord LX 4-banger 7 months ago and have 8,700 miles on it so far.

I was originally looking at going all out and buying the EX 6-cyl w/Navi. But after I started comparing feature for feature between the LX and the EX, there wasn't a lot there that I really wanted especially for an addition $6,000!

I already had a Garmin StreetPilot III GPS that I move between motorcycle and cars as needed. I didn't really want a moon roof as it takes valuable headroom from me, (I'm 6' 5"). None of the other "EX" features really appealed to me (at least the ones that Honda listed) especially for the price difference.

One thing I found out later is the EX apparently has a lot more sound deadening material. For instance my LX trunk lid is bare metal while the EX I believe has a factory lining. I can take care of this with a Dynomat trunk liner, but it makes me wonder what else the EX has that doesn't show up in the "Sales" brochures??? Is there better sound proofing on the undercarriage and wheel wells also??

The trip computer in the Navi system was also not known to me at the time I made my decision to buy.

Honda needs to do a better job presenting to it’s customers why they charge the additional money they do between trim levels.

You are getting a better deal than they are letting you know about.

The LX 4-cyl has plenty of power but the biggest reason I bought the 4-cyl was for better fuel economy. If reports from various owners are accurate it seems the 4-cyl and 6-cyl get very similar gas mileage! I’m not unhappy at all with the LX, (I actually like it a lot!), but I will probably step my next purchase up a few notches.

Thank you Guys for all the positive inputs.

have a nice weekend

Just in case you plan to buy the Consumer Reports mag... and no i don't work for them :D I just think they do a good job in reporting and comparing models. They conduct their own tests and use extensive survey's of actual owners.

Allow they are not the be all and end all of opinions, they do provide good benchmarks.. here is a copy of the cover..

cheers