Honda Accord Euro News

Honda Australia has issued a recall notice to replace faulty Takata airbag inflators in a batch of 25,282 of its vehicles, which had already been recalled to rectify the same issue.

The last call is about to go out for Honda Accord Euro orders. The car has just been killed off, despite its popularity here.The Accord Euro succumbed because of global demand for the wide-body Accord that's more like a Toyota Camry and a winner in the US heartland.Nearly 75,000 Accord Euros have been delivered in Australia over the past 12 years, a result that handily trumps the sibling locally. Fans expected its popularity would mean a new-generation car in 2015 but it's not enough to save the car.The bad news has just arrived from Japan after a worldwide tally of the third-generation Accord Euro.Honda Australia director Stephen Collins says: "It was a global decision to discontinue the model. The car is not sold in the US, not sold in Japan. The lead market was Europe but sales have been declining there." "There is no doubt it's been a success for us. For three years in a row we sold more than 10,000. We were a reasonable market, but not big enough. We're disappointed, obviously. But the global decision was based on the decline in Europe." Honda Australia has locked its final production slot for the start of next year, which means its dealers are taking orders for cars that will be delivered until the middle of 2015.The Euro arrived in 2003 as part of a new wave of Japanese cars, including the Subaru Liberty, which were much more European in the way they looked and drove.The idea was to launch a full-scale attack in the soft underbelly of European prestige brands including Audi and BMW, but the global financial crisis hit and the Japanese makers retreated, and now the Europeans have their own generation of price-competitive compacts."We introduced it in 2003. During the same period we've sold 52,000 wide-body Accords. The best year was 2005, when we sold 10,500 cars," Collins says. He is not expecting a surge in the car's final months, says there no special run-out edition plan, and expects the price to stay at $30,340.The loss of the Euro is another blow for Honda Australia, whose sales have been in retreat this year. "We re going to end up around 33,000 this year. That's clearly down on last year but we're having a much stronger second half to the year," Collins says."Next year, we're hoping for close to 40,000. That will be led by HR-V and we want to be one of the main players in that small SUV segment."

The Chinese market has grown in importance over the past few years, and growing with it has been the significance of the Beijing motor show. Where once it was the province only of debuts for the Chinese showrooms, it's now more common to see concepts unveiled that later feed into global vehicles.So there's a reason for Honda Accord Euro fans to keep an eye on the car news around April 20, when the wraps will come off a new concept car that could feed design and styling into a future model we'll see here.Developed under the joint-venture partnership of Dongfeng Honda, the show car will be a design concept for the Spirior, the name given to the Accord Euro sedan in China.However, it's not clear if the single drawing teased so far hints at the Euro sporting the sleek streamlined shape -- which echoes the trend for coupe-styled four-doors -- or is a sketch for Honda's second Beijing concept, described in the official statement only as "a new model exclusively developed for the Chinese market".We'll be keeping an eye on the Honda stand among the rest at the Beijing show, and bring you more details when they emerge.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

But the Japanese brand is getting through 2012 with some better news. Honda's Thailand plant - responsible for building about 80 per cent of the cars sold here - was inundated in the 2011 flood disaster, causing severe supply problems for the brand.However the site will officially re-open at the end of March and will be sending cars our way again the following month. Honda Australia principal adviser to the board of directors Lindsay Smalley says the company will also get its UK-sourced Civic five-door nine months earlier and at a sharper price."Our intent is to reposition that car as a volume player, we'll have to do something pretty spectacular with the price and we intend to use the currency situation to do that - we're saying a mid-$20,000s motor car," he says."By the time that's in the market we expect to be selling around 3500 a month rate by mid-year," he says.The Japanese brand has also been without proper supply of its CR-V SUV since October last year but will be launching an all-new model in the last quarter of this year. "It's a full model change in 2WD and 4WD, we believe that will lift our sales rate back to around 4000 a month, if not more," he says. With the return of the wide-bodiedAccord and the new Civic four and five-door models, the Honda beancounters are aiming for 40,000 sales this year, which is similar to its 2010 tally, and a longer-term aim of returning to its 2007 sales figures around 60,000."We repositioned our pricing in June last year on the majority of our models, back to value-for-money to get volume back, just after we did that, we had a fantastic reaction in June and July, we ordered up big and then the floods hit," he says.The private sales columns for the Accord Euro and Odyssey show Honda is heading in the right direction -  in February, the Accord Euro led private sales in its medium sub-$60,000 segment for the third consecutive month, it says.The brand's long-serving Odyssey peoplemover has also started 2012 - Honda says it is leading the private sales in the sub-$60,000 peoplemover segment.The sales bump could also be coming as a result of the family-machine being re-priced to start from $37,100, a $2000 drop, with Honda also spruiking a features upgrade to the tune of more than $2500.Honda's starts to the year was nearly 30 per cent down but February was an improvement on 2011 - 18 cars up - but the year-to-date tally is 13 per cent down.Honda Australia director and sales & marketing general manager Stephen Collins, says the sales figures are a positive start to a year of rebuilding and growth."The Accord Euro has been leading private sales in its segment since late last year and continues to gain market share. "In overall sales for its segment, it ran a close second, along with the Honda Odyssey.""Honda is firmly focused on delivering what Australian customers want in their cars value

He is - or was - Hirotaka Ono - a visionary who re-invented the Japanese brand and changed everything, from boosting the quality of its cars to creating the can-do attitude among senior managers that's essential for the success of any car company. Ono had a giant advantage because he was married to the daughter of company founder, Osama Suzuki.He was able to use his family connection to ramrod a range of changes which would have been impossible for anyone else, especially a 40-something revolutionary in a country which usually puts age and experience ahead of youth and enthusiasm. Even so, he still had to walk the walk on everything from design and driving enjoyment to bottom-line financial deals.The award winning Suzuki Swift is an Ono car, so too is the current Grand Vitara, as well as the Kizashi. His track record also includes the less-successful second-generation XL7, thankfully only sold in the USA, but everyone makes an occasional mistake. Ono died too early at the end of 2007, but not before he inspired the cars coming through Suzuki today and forecast the global financial crisis - as well as planning the way his company would react to the challenge."Thanks to Mr Ono we have learned what we can do. He inspired us," says Tak Hayasaki, managing director of Suzuki Australia. Hayasaki has his own challenges in trying to lift Suzuki's share of Australia's annual car sales from its current 2.4 per cent to around six per cent, but he knows he has the strongest lineup in the company's history.The Alto is too small for a lot of people, but a $12,990 driveway bottom line makes plenty of sense with six airbags, ABS and ESP, as well as alloy wheels. The Swift is getting very old but is still a good car, the Grand Vitara is a safe choice and the SX4 does a good enough job.Kizashi is the game-changer for Suzuki, the same as the first Mazda6 and Accord Euro were for Mazda and Honda, combining Euro-type driving enjoyment with Japanese quality.This week the company is adding an all-wheel drive car to the Kizashi line, the Sports, and believes it can boost its sales by 100 cars a month. That's 50 per cent of the current volume. It's a big call for a car which already goes head-to-head with Mazda6 and Euro and now faces up to the might of the Subaru Liberty, the car that convinced Australians about all-wheel drive.As he looks forward, with a new Swift before the end of the year - not   that you would pick it as all-new from pictures - Hayasaki knows where the credit goes. "I have to thankyou to Mr Ono for what he has given us. He proved that we can do it."

After leading the world on so many fronts - from quality to comfort and reliability - they have been hit badly by the global financial crisis.  Toyota and Honda and many of the others wound back dramatically at the onset of the GFC, not just on their production lines but also in their motorsport programs - F1 was the first casualty - and new-product development.We are now seeing the results in Australian showrooms, where the Corolla and Civic are now mid-pack in the small-car class and former pacesetters including the Mazda6, Honda Accord Euro and even the locally-made Camry are struggling against newer and better rivals.  They are fine for everyday transport, but not as impressive as they were just five years ago.Subaru has also cut costs and its latest styling work - particularly on the Liberty and Outback - reflects a desperate desire to win sales in the USA.  Contrast all of them against the Suzuki Kizashi, which comes from one of the few Japanese brands that held its nerve through the GFT. Suzuki has cut its production targets, and admits that extra Kizashi models are on the back-burner, but is going to do brilliantly well with the car.Toyota and Honda, in contrast, are relying on value-added deals to keep customers coming in Australia. They are recovering from the economic downturn but nowhere near as rapidly as some of their rivals  - particularly Hyundai.In Australia, many of our Japanese cars are now also actually built in Thailand. It's not a major drama, because the quality is much the same, but it shows how the battle to cut costs is influencing the Japanese makers. The Thai drive also shows that Japan Incorporated is now happy to produce bland transport modules instead of appealing cars, going for numbers first - in showrooms and on the balance sheet. It's a reasonable response to the GFC but is going to cause problems in coming years.Why? Because Australia is seeing so many classy European cars at more affordable prices - look at the Volkswagen Polo - and because Korean is coming up fast.  Hyundai is now doing a better job than Toyota at building Toyota-style cars, with adventurous styling, classy quality and great prices. It's latest, the i45 replacement for the dowdy Sonata, is really good on every front except its awful steering and lacklustre front suspension.The i45 is a Camry done better and, like the Kizashi, one of the stars of 2010. And it's not the end for Hyundai, which has all sorts of new models coming from the baby i20 to an overdue sporty car sometime in 2012.And that's whan the Japanese really could be in trouble. It's not because Hyundai has something new but because the Japanese wound their development programs back during the GFT and the results of that conservative risk management will not really be known until we see - or don't see - the work which should have been done over the past two years.Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!

Mazda was the first to move, cutting prices by $930 to $2000 in October, and now Honda has joined the push with savings of $1500 to $3000.  Cars to take a cut include the go-fast Civic Type R, Accord Euro and Odyssey.The bad news for Honda buyers is that models built in Thailand - the CR-V, Accord, Civic and Jazz - hold the price line because of a free- trade agreement.  Even so, Honda has found space to trim the sticker of the Thai-built City four-door, which now has a starting price of $19,490.The new Honda pricelist comes into effect on today.

Taste is entirely subjective. But some things transcend subjectivity and become absolute.There cannot, for example, be any argument that Alfa Romeos are a blessing to the eye. Nor can there be any doubt that Saabs are the preserve of the clueless. These are givens.So it is with faux woodgrain. It’s ghastly. Vile. It always looks exactly what it is, never what it’s supposed to.A pretend tree around the dashboard doesn’t make you look like a wannabe enviro-vandal who delights in nothing so much as denuding virgin rainforest. If only it did. No, it makes you look someone who can’t afford a car with the real thing.Wood is of the essence in the glorious land yachts of Rolls-Royce, the next best thing devices of Bentley and the better models from that up and coming Indian marque, Jaguar. For a start it’s wood. It belongs.Faux wood belongs nowhere. It doesn’t confer the aspired to sense of opulence and affluence. Trimming up an interior with the fake stuff is like wearing a red bowtie with a dinner suit.I’m looking at an example right now. It’s in an ad for a used BMW 320d, a car that is – pound for pound, buck for buck – the best 3 Series. I’m a big fan. One day, the GFC and other man-made disasters notwithstanding, I’d like one.But not this one. Not even at the just north of obtainable price of this low-kilometre 2006 example. Not even as a gift.It’s not because the MY2008 has the upgraded engine, it’s mainly because a near perfect sporty diesel sedan has been vandalised with bloody hideous faux woodgrain trim.In the Bimmer’s greyly sombre, somewhat spartan cabin (which I happen to like) this stuff sticks out like a dunny in the desert. Possibly someone will find it in themselves to ignore this grave defect, though this would require all the discernment of a Kath or a Kim.Audi has applied restraint with the natural finish of the ash inserts in the Q5 – a miracle: wood that looks and feels like wood.But usually the application of dead tree is a criminal misjudgement. On that charge sheet you can include the orange-lacquered kitchen laminate that abominates the Toyota Tarago.In the first generation Euro Accord Luxury, Honda perpetrated the worst example of recent times, with a sick-making blue (yes, blue) faux woodgrain. For a mercy, they soon deleted this option.Now, how to make all carmakers follow suit?

It would have been so easy for the Blue Oval team to drop the bundle as they worked towards producing a new car for a segment that was shrinking daily before their eyes.

Honda's clean-sheet approach created a bigger, brighter and more refined prestige family sedan that is strong on safety, comfort and quality.