family sedans have taken a beating lately as shoppers have moved instead to
SUVs but among the more venerable name plates there still is undeniable
popularity and that couldn't be more true than for the Toyota Camry and the
Honda Accord two cars that have been duking it out for family shoppers
attention since seemingly the beginning of time well both of them have been
fully redesigned now for the 2018 model year we have with us here a 2018 Toyota
Camry XLE v6 next to a 2018 Honda Accord 2.0 teetering so very well equipped
versions of both we've had a chance to get behind the wheel so let's stack them
up we'll start with styling now both of these cars are fairly dramatic in terms
of their redesign they're both roughly the same length and height but the
profiles are very different on the Accord it there's a very coupe like kind
of cab rearward design going on here Honda says the eight pillars were pulled
about four inches back from the prior generation definitely less of us then
kind of profile than the Camrys which is more of a traditional three-box design
but you get up front the Camry has a very very dramatic lower portion of the
grille here this lower bumper opening really spreads out almost all the way
out to where the front fenders begin versus the Accords which has a plunging
grill here it really comes down and kind of dives almost all the way to the
ground now both of these cars are gonna seem
really boring looking in a year two simply because there's so many of them
on the road but I don't think Toyota or Honda is to blame for that both
automakers really swung for the fences with design I think that's a good thing
I like the exterior the interiors of both cars are very dramatically
different khana keeps it simple here it's a very low dashboard here the
multimedia system here sits like sort of a tablet mounted above the air
conditioning vents there's three knobs here for climate there's knobs up here
for volume and tuning nice to see how to return shortcut-keys physical shortcut
keys here along the multimedia system instead of a touch sensitive buttons
Honda used to have very simple easy to use multimedia system itself you can
kind of throw in different apps here like on a smart phone onto your
homescreen the Camry has a much more tall dashboard it kind of swoops down
interestingly here toward the center there's a lot of layering going on a
fairly attractive overall a little bit scattershot though
in terms of the orientation of all these controls in the center stack and once
you get the hang of it the knobs kind of fall into place pretty easily in terms
of what you need to grab on to but this screen you're also an 8 inch
screen like in the Accord doesn't seem quite as responsive to swiping motions
it also doesn't offer apple carplay and android auto you can't get that in any
Camry versus the Accord which readily offers it Toyota does have something
Honda doesn't though and it's a physical gearshift
you go from parking to drive it's a lovely feeling its mechanical it is not
what is in the Accord the transmission in the Accords 2 liter turbo engine by
contrast has this push-button gearshift which we've pretty much hated in every
other Honda product that has it it's not intuitive
you kind of configure it out over time it just you have to look down and kind
of always see what you're doing we really just want a mechanical gear shift
back fortunately if you get the base engine a 1.5 liter turbo you do get that
in the Accord so that's definitely better than what we have here in terms
of cabin materials a little bit mixed year quality wise in the Accord this is
a touring again as good as it gets you get nice stuff like padding here along
the sides of the center console with some attractive stitching but have a lot
of kind of cheap shiny plastic you a mid-level along the dash where these
might kind of bang into it here same thing goes here along the doors on the
sides yeah I think Toyota has an edge the camera seems to have a little bit
more width and a slightly higher seating position than the Accord and Toyota
seems to have more consistent interior quality at least in this XLE v6 model
check out this kind of section here this is all low gloss it's stitched it's
padded as you come down here there's no kind of cheap-looking harsh textures
that are very obvious same goes for the doors here when you go all the way up to
kind of the middle and down here to the armrest it all seems very handsome very
high quality now I will say this we've gotten into lower trim levels of both
the 2018 Accord and the 2018 Camry and Honda seems to do a better job of
maintaining consistent materials in those versions Toyota by contrast really
kind of cheeps out on some of the cheaper versions of the Camry it seems
like you got much more of a nickel and dimed car then now our test car here has
a panoramic moonroof with typically reduces Headroom all around it's a
little bit tight back here but if you didn't have it maybe there'd be more
room and Toyota could use that to raise the seating position because it is kind
of low to the ground here which might leave
some adults these uncomfortably elevated that said actual knee room in terms of
longitudinal space is pretty good I'm six feet tall that's where I'd sit to
drive and as you can see I have quite a few inches left over the cameras back
seat is just fine but the cords is just downright generous I mean tons and tons
of legroom right here that's where I would sit to drive just lots and lots of
it left over like the Camry though a little bit of a low seating position
which it's at maybe an inch or so highest that adults needs weren't so
uncomfortably elevated Headroom is okay materials take a step down here unlike
in the Toyota which kind of keeps things consistent you'll notice a lot of just
kind of hard cheap plastics back here in the backseat of the Accord previous
generation didn't do that so badly seems like Honda's done a little bit of
cost-cutting here with this redesign now our camera here as Toyota's optional v6
it's a big 3.5 liter engine more than 300 horsepower certainly plenty of get
up and go but the 8-speed automatic transmission hesitates a little bit to
kick down get you into the right gear at the right time there's also a little bit
of accelerator lag and its most prominent at speed when you really kind
of dig in for more power all told this camera probably a little bit quicker
than the Accord just if you stand on it and kind of let it rip but the Accord
feels more viscerally exciting in terms of just immediate power off the line
from all that torques and it's to either turbo four-cylinder now in terms of ride
and handling the Accords steering reminds us a lot of the Civic the
redesigned Civic which has very very quick steering same kind of goes here
you turn the wheel just even a few degrees and immediately the nose repoint
s-- in a new direction just very crisp very quick turn in now this Honda rides
a little bit on the firm side however our test car here has 19 inch wheels
with low-profile tires and it has an adaptive suspension actually that that
shock absorbers but still somewhat of a firm ride now it's very clean it doesn't
have a lot of reverberation or bounciness over bumps it doesn't feel
really choppy but it doesn't isolate that well either you just feel a lot of
kind of what's going on underneath the car handling in the camry by contrast
actually pretty good for a camry not quite as crisp in terms of steering
turning as the court but the car still rotates nicely on its axis you get a
real sense as you're carving corners that the rear in the front are kind of
working in tandem with each other it doesn't seem to nose heavy these are big
big improvements for the camry a car that's
never typically handled that well steering feedback once you get through a
little bit of initial numbness is actually really really good makes the
car a lot of fun to drive more fun to drive than any camera but maybe not
quite as fun to drive still as that Accord now on the flip side ride quality
we talked about ride quality in the car being very very good comfort in the
Accord a little bit on the busy side and that's where the camera really comes
through this xle car has a normal suspension tuning out the sport-tuned
suspension that is optional in the camry and as such it really isolates the car
well you just don't get a lot of undulations in the road and anything
that's coming up through it really gets filtered out a very very comfortable
experience if that's all you're looking for hands down the Camry is a degree
better than the Accord at the end of the day it's a very very close phrase
between which cars actually better all together if you like quality and comfort
Toyota has a little bit of an edge here over Honda if you like drivability and
interior and exterior design the Accord probably has an edge over the Camry so
at the end of the day the more things change the more they stay the same
because that's been kind of the situation with the Accord in the camry
for so many generations now if it was my money toyota still doesn't have apple
carplay and android auto that's kind of a deal-breaker
it's 2017 folks probably that gives pawn to the edge for me