Jack of all trades, master of one...

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Honda Accord 2.2 Type-R
★★★★★
4.7
91.0% of users recommend this
  • Performance

  • Practicality

  • Reliability

  • Value For Money

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Jaidyn4's review of Honda Accord 2.2 Type-R

“Jack of all trades, master of one...”

★★★★★

written by Jaidyn4 on 13/03/2017

18 years and 163,000 miles....That is how long I have owned this beauty of a car, and I cannot see that time coming to an end anytime soon.

These really are fantastic cars. From the very first day that I purchased this car brand new and drove it off the forecourt, I fell in love. The main attraction for me is first of all, the looks....The car gives off a real BTCC racing car vibe, something that is lost nowadays what with the fascination in superminis and hatchbacks.

Next up is the interior. It's very "90's Honda", or in other words, bland. However, it's very driver focused and the full Recaro and Momo interior more than make up for it. The controls are heavy but nicely weighted, and the car requires high focus but very little effort to fling down a country road. Talking of country roads, that is where this car surpasses almost every other saloon out there. Now for a little background, I have owned a multitude of performance cars, ranging from BMW M cars, to Mitsubishi Evolutions and Ford Cosworths, and yet nothing this side of reality can match the Accord for the way it can get around bends.

These cars are very picky over tyre choice, so a good set of tyres is a necessity. Do that, and you will find a chassis that is responsive and lively. Throw it into a bend and the car instantly responds with very little understeer, and if it does understeer, you simply plant the throttle and the LSD box will instantly lock and pull the car harder into the bend. The engine gives a glorious VTEC howl all through to over 8k RPM and pulls like an absolute train, with the gearbox giving a direct throw slotting straight into gear.

Once you're done driving like a newly qualified 17 year old in his Renault clio, you simply slot the car back into 5th gear and straight away the cars personality changes. Like a bi-polar nutcase, the car then settles down into a comfortable family cruiser and will happily turn into a school run machine.

Overall, you really cannot find a better car for the money if it's a fast saloon you are after. They are reliable, return satisfactory MPG on a run and can carry you and 4 mates to the pub in good comfort.

Issues....All cars have them and these are the same.

1. Rust. Unfortunately, these cars at now at an age where this is becoming a concern. The main areas are the subframe mounts and bulkhead, so when checking out a potential buy, get your hear under the footwells and look around the pedal area.

2. Gearbox, crunching 5th and reverse. Common issue with the synhro rings. You will hear a lot of people saying this was fixed when they facelifted the car, which is false. When testdriving the car, go high in 4th gear then go for 5th. If there is any sort of crunching, it will need a rebuild.

That's pretty much it! Other than that, just check it over thoroughly especially over the suspension, and make sure it's on good tyres and brake pads.

Highly recommended car!

  • 1999

    Year Manufactured

  • 18 years

    Length of ownership

  • 4

    Doors

  • Performance

  • Practicality

  • Reliability

  • Value For Money

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