2018 Honda Accord Kills the V6, Adds Type R Engine

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

The 10th generation of Honda’s venerable Accord will debut for 2018 without a V6 engine option.

A few months later to the all-new midsize party than the next-generation 2018 Toyota Camry, the new Accord will not follow the Camry’s entrenched path of providing customers with a base four-cylinder and a V6 upgrade.

Instead, Honda will make do with the 1.5-liter turbocharged four already under the hood of the 10th-generation Civic and the fifth-generation Honda CR-V. As an upgrade, Honda will offer the 2.0-liter turbocharged unit from the 2018 Honda Civic Type R. In both cases, Honda has not yet revealed the power output. Honda will continue with an Accord Hybrid, as well.

But the V6 is a goner.

The outgoing Honda Accord’s optional V6 engine was a 278-horsepower 3.5-liter with 252 lb-ft of torque. Fuel economy, according to the EPA, measured 21 miles per gallon in the city; 33 highway with the six-speed automatic.

In the all-new Accord that Honda says will debut later this year, the basic 1.5T — a non-VTEC powerplant — will be linked to either the continuously variable transmission or a six-speed manual. The 2.0T, on the other hand, will be offered with both a 10-speed automatic or a six-speed manual.

Honda says only about 10 percent of Accord buyers were choosing the V6.

Honda began offering a V6 engine in the Accord for the 1995 model year. That 170-horsepower 2.7-liter unit was superseded by a 200-horsepower 3.0-liter V6 in 1998 and a 240-horsepower 3.0-liter in 2003. Displacement grew to 3.5 liters in 2008. In the CR-V, the current 1.5T produces 190 horsepower. The Civic Type R’s 2.0T is a 306-horsepower powerplant.

Honda says the new Accord will feature “a dramatically lower and wider appearance” after going through a new-from-the-ground-up redesign. Its engines are built in Anna, Ohio; the 10-speed automatic hails from Tallapoosa, Georgia. The Accord’s assembly plant is in Marysville, Ohio.

As for the Accord Coupe, there’s no word yet on timing. At a Civic Type R event in Montreal, Quebec, Honda spokesperson Sage Marie told TTAC’s Mark Stevenson, “Stay tuned.”

On a retail basis, Honda says, the Accord has been America’s best-selling midsize car in each of the last four years. The Camry has claimed overall sales leadership in 15 consecutive years.

With no V6 in the Accord, America’s midsize segment’s six-cylinder engine options will be limited to the Camry, Nissan Altima, Volkswagen Passat, and Subaru Legacy.

[Images: American Honda]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.

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  • SuperCarEnthusiast SuperCarEnthusiast on Jun 13, 2017

    I like see what the 2018 Honda sedan end looking like. I hoping a Tesla S and A7 combination.

  • Volvo Volvo on Jul 02, 2017

    Late to this comment section but I probably wouldn't buy a gasoline car unless it has a NA engine. For torque and driving range it seems we will be limited to hybrids or euro style diesels (when they are imported into the US in enough makes and models). Lots of comments about the reliability of modern turbos. Glowing reports about the engines making 150K miles. From my point of view I usually keep most of my cars until they break and with proper auto selection, maintenance and some luck I think 300K is not unreasonable to expect. My personal experience with turbochargers is that a factory turbocharger was the only way to turn a 300K Volvo redblock engine into a 150K engine.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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