Video: 2018 Honda Accord Vs 2018 Toyota Camry: Cars.com Video Comparison

da Accord, two cars who have been duking it out for family shopper's 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 2.0T Touring, so very well-equipped versions of both, we had a chance to get behind the wheel, so let's stack them up. Let's 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, there's a very coupe like cab rearward design going on here. Honda says the eight pillars were pulled about four inches back from the prior generation. Definitely less of a sedan profile than the Camry's, which is more of a traditional three box design. But you got the front of the Camry has a very, very dramatic lower portion of the grill here, this lower bumper opening really spreads out almost all the way out to where the front fenders begin, versus the Accord's, which has a plunging grill here, it's really comes down and kinda dives almost all the way to the ground. Now, both of these cars are gonna seem really boring looking in a year or 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 auto makers really swung for the fences with design, I think that's a good thing. Now, like the exteriors, the interiors of both cars are very dramatically different. Honda keeps it simple here, it's a very low dashboard here, the multimedia system here sits like a tablet mounted above the air conditioning vents. There's three knobs here for climate, there is knobs up here for volume and tuning. Nice to see Honda return shortcut keys, physical shortcut keys here, along the multimedia system, instead of the touch sensitive buttons Honda used to have. Very simple, easy to use multimedia system itself, you can kinda throw in different apps here, like on a smartphone, onto your home screen. The Camry has a much more tall dashboard, it kinda of swoops down interestingly, here toward the center. There's a lot of layering going on, fairly attractive overall, a little bit scattershot though, in terms of the orientation of all these controls in the center stack. Once you get the hang of it, the knobs kinda fall into place pretty easily in terms of what you need to grab onto. But this screen, you're also getting a screen like in the Accord, it 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 gear shift. You go from parking to drive, it's a lovely feeling, it's mechanical, it is not what is in the Accord. The transmission in the Accord's two 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 kinda can figure it out over time, it's just you have to look down and kinda 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 here, 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 lot of cheap, shiny plastic here, mid-level along the dash, my knees might bang into it here, same thing goes here along the doors on the sides. Yeah, I think Toyota has an edge. The Camry 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 section here, this is all low gloss, it's stitched, it's padded, as you come down here, there's no 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 cheaps 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 which 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, 'cause it is kind of low to the ground here, which might leave some adults' knees uncomfortably elevated. That said, actual knee room, in terms of longitudinal space, is pretty good. I'm six feet tall, that's where I sit to drive, and as you can see, I have quite a few inches left over. The Camry's backseat is just fine, but the Accords is just downright generous, I mean, tons and tons of leg room right here. That's where I would sit to drive, just lots and lots of it leftover. Like the Camry though, a little bit of a low seating position, I wish it sat maybe an inch or so higher, so that adults' knees 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 hard cheap plastics back here in the backseat of the Accord. Previous generation didn't do that so badly, it seems like Honda's done a lot cost cutting here with this redesign. Now, our Camry here has 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, getting into the right gear at the right time, which also a little bit of accelerator lag, and becomes prominent at speed when you really dig in for more power. All told, this Camry, probably a little bit quicker than the Accord, just if you stand on it and kinda let her rip, but the Accord feels more viscerally exciting in terms of just immediate power off the line from all that torque from it's two liter turbo four-cylinder. Now, in terms of ride and handling, the Accord's steering, reminds us a lot of the Civic, the redesigned Civic, which has very, very quick steering, same kinda goes here, you turn the wheel just even a few degrees, and immediately, the nose re-points in a new direction, just very crisp, very quick turn in. Now, this Honda rides a little bit on the firm's side however, our test car here has 19 inch wheels with low-profile tires and it has an adaptive suspension actually, adaptive 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, so it doesn't feel really choppy, but it doesn't isolate that well either, you just feel a lot of what's going on underneath the car. Handling in the Camry by contrast, actually is pretty good for a Camry, not quite as crisp in terms of steering turn in as in the Accord, but that the car still rotates nicely on its axis. You get a real sense as you're carving corners that the rear and the front are working in tandem with each other, it doesn't seem too 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 Camry, 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 Accord being very, very good, comfort in the Accord a little bit on the busy side, and that's where the Camry really comes through. This XLE car has a normal suspension tuning up, it's forward tuning 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, 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 race between which car is actually better altogether. 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. At the end of the day, the more things change, the more they stay the same, 'cause that's been the situation with the Accord and 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 Honda the edge for me.