Video: 2008 Honda Accord

It competes with cars like the Toyota Camry, and the Nissan Altima, and both competitors were just recently redesigned. The new Accord is bigger in most dimensions than its predecessor. It's got more aggressive front styling with headlights that stick out a little bit, and a bolder front grill. On the side, you can clearly see a big character line that runs from one wheel all the way to the tail. And in back, the styling reminds us a little bit of the BMW 5 series. Inside, you see a lot of elements from other Honda's like the gear shifter, and the emergency brake handle which look like they came out of the Civic. Navigation system is pretty similar to a lot of ones used in a few Acura models. It's got this central knob that you can select things with, and it no longer employs a touchscreen, which we wish it did, but otherwise it's pretty intuitive and easy to use. The center controls have a lot of buttons, but they're pretty easy to use once you get the feel of them and overall fit and finish is great. The base car has manual climate control. All the controls are kind of next to each other. You've got fan speed, you've got fan direction, you've got air conditioning. It can be a little bit hard to sort through on the highway. Now Honda says the gauges have the same back lighting technologies as before, but still we don't find them as distinctive as the fully backlit gauges in the previous generation Accord. There's a lot of storage in the center area. You have a tray in the center console here that sits above the shelf for the auxiliary power outlets. Center shelf also comes forward a little bit. If you need to rest your arm there, there's also a couple storage areas out of the gearshift right here. A lot of the size increases outside, pay big dividends in the rear seat. It's pretty enormous. I'm about six feet tall, and that's about where I'd have the front seat position to drive. As you can see, I've got tons of leg room. And pretty good headroom. The trunk is reasonably sized for a family car. One thing you'll notice is that there's a lot of ridges in the trunk floor, which can kind of hamper luggage. If you're trying to stack stuff, there's also arm style hinges, which if you shut the trunk lid, they can intrude a little bit on cargo room. If you need more cargo room, you can fold down the rear seat back with a handy little pull latch right there. Unfortunately it only folds down in one section instead of a 60/40 split, like a lot of cars do so you can't have big cargo and keep a passenger back there at the same time. (Car hood opening) A new 3.5 liter V6 delivers more than adequate power in our test car. And thanks to Honda's new cylinder deactivation technology. It gets gas mileage in the low twenties. There's also 2 four-cylinders, which get overall gas mileage in the mid twenties. The new Accord is certainly bigger and faster than its predecessor, but does it have enough appeal to steal some sales from the Camry? And the Altima only time will tell. For additional information on this car or any other go to cars.com and our blog Kicking Tires.