SwankCLS

I sold the CL-S last year since I wanted something with a manual transmission, but I got hit with some unexpected medical bills shortly after selling the car so I never got a new car -- the wife and I shared a '99 Blazer POS, er, LS until last week.

I was down to either the Altima, Camry, and Accord since the luxury brands were out of my price range. After much thought over engine size and test driving, I ended up with ... a silver 2004 Honda Accord Coupe 6MT w/ navigation.

I love it. The J30A4 engine is smooth and relatively powerful, the 6-speed is damn nice, and navigation is the icing on the cake. As for how it compares to my old silver CL-S....

Exterior: The CL-S wins. The Accord's looks are growing on me, but it sorta looks like the CL's younger and goofier brother. The Accord looks great from some angles but less than stellar from others. I also wanted the blue color, but the dealer could only find me a silver one that was coming fresh from the factory. Silver it is.

Interior: The CL has the better seats by far, but the Accord's interior is damn nice. The CL does have a more quiet cabin. Road noise is apparent in the Accord -- especially when it rains. The noise of the water kicking up on the wheel wells might drive me to dynamat parts of the interior. Nothing terrible, it just isn't as quiet as the CL. Navigation is too damn nice. The integrated trip computer is a nice addition as well.

Performance: The 6MT Accord is definitely faster than my old slushbox CL-S. No doubt about it. Less displacement, but a lighter car and gearing to make up for the smaller engine. All I got to say is that the 6MT puts one big ass grin on my face now.

Price: I paid invoice ($26,131) for the Accord, which was what sold me on the car. I would have considered the TSX, but Acura dealers just don't go much below MSRP which kept it out of my price range for what I wanted (6MT & navi).

Some pictures after the first three coats of Zaino on a semi-cloudy day:





Silver paint plus Zaino usually doesn't take pictures well, but I think it looks damn nice. Now I'll have to get another 3 coats on this weekend and another 3 next weekend. I'm gonna make Shawn S look tame when it comes to Zaino coats.

As for mods, I will probably only put the rear sway bar from the '04 TL on the Accord. I'm not a big mod person and could care less about the SUV wheel gap that annoys so many on here. Nor do I have the urge to drop a ton of cash on rims. The sway bar mod will put me out less than $100.

TypeSAddict

looking good man!

Chaptorial

Very nice car. Good choice to go with the Navi.

Congrats and best of luck with it.

Justin.CL

Nice car!

ChadT

Good choice. THe 6MT Accord is definitely a strong runner.

Black CL-S 4-Life

Nice ride. Enjoy it.

berny

good luck with the new car. great choice! you must be loving the navi and 6 speed tranny!!!

Chopsie

Congrats on the AV6 6MT Nav, nice ride. I'm not much of a silver fan (that blue would have been awesome), but overall, good choice

Joe5.0

The Honda bodykit and a drop and some rims makes them look pretty nice. Good luck with it.

Neech

Good choice.

dallison

looks good, keepin it in the honda family at least

SwankCLS

Thanks all... and yes, I am loving the navigation system. It will come in quite handy whenever I find a new job and relocate. It will be a lifesaver if I move to one of those damn cities that uses names instead of a numbered grid (NE, NW, SE, SW) for streets. Ugh, I hate cities like that. Maybe I was just spoiled growing up in Miami where it is nearly impossible to get lost if you can add or subtract and understand quadrants.

As for staying with Honda... I almost didn't, mostly due to the freaking transmission issues. Since I was getting a manual I figure I should be mostly trouble free. The fact that the Camry interior is about the most boring interior ever and that Nissan uses the cheapest plastics ever in their interiors also helped out in the decision.

I think the best part of the deal was walking into a Honda dealer, asking for $500 under invoice and then agreeing on invoice price after a total of 30 seconds of haggling. Also got 3.45% interest for 60 months... not a bad deal at all.

123456SPEED

I test drove that Accord coupe when it first came out. I loved the 6 sp/6 cylinder combo so much that within a few weeks I had bought my first 03 CLS 6 speed.
I'm a believer in buying used, which I did on both my 6 speeds. I probably saved over
$8-10k on my 6 speed/Navi I have now, it had 7500 miles. The Accord is nice but I prefer the CLS, even with Navi you can get them for low $20k.
that's just me.

DarkSithCL

iTrader: (1)

u got hooked up...enjoy...

pimpscls

good choice, especially if you owned a cl-s

patek007

SwankCLS... stupid question.. but why didn't you get the 6MT CLS.. you can still find a few... although you'll add <$300 for shipment... but still what law considers 'brand new'.. i.e. <250 miles ... The reason for my asking... I owned a 00accordv6... and that VTEC is way different from 3.2 CLS' vtec... i..e it had no low-end torque.. absolutely... while CLS is the sweetest low-end torque just like in the good old days of Integra at S3.. if anyone could remember ..
Regardless... a sweet ride... and wish you many good years of use out of the thingy ...

SwankCLS

As much as I liked the CL-S, I didn't want to buy a "new" car that had been sitting on a dealer lot for a year or more. (when were the last CL-S 6MTs produced?) Plus, my local Acura dealer thought their *cough* great deal on a 2003 CL-S 6MT (non-navi) was still more expensive than what I paid for my Accord w/ navi. I ended up getting an Accord that was built less than a month ago and had 3 miles on the ticker at delivery. I can't complain.

You can't compare the 6th gen Accord to the 7th gen as far as performance. The 7th gen 6MT is actually faster than the 5AT CL-S. It is probably pretty close to the 6MT CL-S. Folks on v6performance.net report 14.5s in the 1/4 quite common (stock) and someone got a 14.23 with a AEM V2 CAI. The J30A4 engine is pretty damn nice.

patek007

..I see, thanks for sharing with us... Sounds with this new 3.0 v6 they rather went down from 3.2L .... then in my case... up from 2.7L ...