I am driving Accord v6 and love everything about it, except I drive with my cello which doesn’t fit in the trunk so takes up all rear seat space. With the same price range, fun to drive, excellent handling and response like Accord, what do you recommend?
Living in east coast, where has heavy snow 3 - 4 times a year, so AWD is a plus but FW is ok too. No kids but a husband and a dog.
Subaru Outback/Forester, Hyundai Santa Fe/Tuscon.
Twotone
Honda has a new “Accord” based model called the “Cross Tour”. Perhaps it is just what you are looking for.
Hi Twotone,
Thank you for your response. Have been looking for subaru, Honda and Toyota, but not tried Hyundai yet. Great suggestion! Will go for test ride tomorrow…
Hichan
Hi UncleTurbo,
Thank you for your response. I did try Cross Tour, and I almost bought it, but rearview was very limited and I was worried about backing up as I am not good at it. Perhaps I will get used to it once I start driving everyday… What do you think about CRV?
Crv is great car, but you’ll give away enough to cruising quiet and handling, I might consider an Acura equivalent which is a Honda product. If you like the Cross Tour, a back up camera is an easy fix plus learning to trust and properly adjust your mirrors. If you’re doing the mirror thing correctly already, the camera would be the cure.
Acura has a TSX wagon coming out later this year. That may be an option.
I second the TSX, it’s sold as an Accord elsewhere (smaller for other markets).
Thanks!
I wanted it but it won’t come until Jan. 2011 according to a dealer here. I wish it were sooner. Thanks for your posting.
Thank you!
The Crosstour is about $30k for the base model. For that money you could get a Mazda CX-7 GT that comes with navigation, backup camera, bose stereo, AWD, fog lights, blind spot monitoring, heated power seats, turbo charged 4cyl engine, keyless entry and start(not a push button start) and HIDs. If you wanted to forgo the HIDs, you could drop down to the Touring model, but you’d also lose the Bose and navigation(available as an option package though). Mazda is known for making fun to drive vehicles at a fairly affordable price
Just looking at Mazda website for this car. Looks really nice. Will rest ride tomorrow. Thank you!
I have only seen ads for the “Cross Tour” but it does have a high belt line for the back and rear windows. Mfg’s seem to assume you’ll buy the “back up” camera option so the sleek designs disregard the practical notion that you should be able to see when backing up. The Cross Tour is overpriced, and loaded with options to include the back up camera might just make a Cadillac or BMW seem reasonable for the same price.
Most of the SUV’s, vans, and crossover vehicles have the same issue with poor visability when backing up. You just have to try them out and see for yourself.
There’s another direction from which to approach your problem:
Switch to the piccolo.
I used to play the violin which is a lot easier to carry. This cell case is giant!
The Acura version of the Crosstour (ZDX) with the technology package has a backup camera built in.
But it also costs 50 grand.
You can get an Accord Crosstour EX-L with backup sensors for 38 thousand.
Thank you!
Does the Honda have a split-rear seat? Where only 1/2 goes down? The new Hyundai Sonata has a HUGE trunk (as did the last gen) and split seats, so if you still had to use rear seat space, you would only use 1/2 (well, 40% or 60%)
And you can smile knowingly that you paid half half the price of the Lexus you get asked about. Majority of the owners have said they often get asked if it’s a Lexus.
Know you’ll have to use 91+ octane if you go with the turbo, if you go with the 2.5L engine, you can get away with 87. And enjoy your test drive, but make sure you take your cello with you, that’ll help you decide if you should go with the 7 or bump up to a CX-9