This is a subject that comes up a few times from prospective owners and the petrol diesel debate so I thought I would post my real life experiences to help anyone considering the diesel 7th gen.
As a bit of a background I have previously owned a pre facelift 7th gen diesel tourer which I bought cheap with a noisy timing chain and a slipping clutch. The clutch fixed itself and the timing chain still rattled but a bit louder when it was written off in an accident 20k miles later.
My current car is a facelift 7th gen tourer exec with sat nav, hft etc and was bought just over a year ago when a change in my job meant I would be doing quite a few miles. It had decent service history including a clutch and flywheel change and was bought privately with 128k on the clock.
In the past 12 months the car has covered over 25k reliable miles and is now showing 154k. I have serviced it myself using parts from HH and a few bits from eurocarparts and oil from lubetech. When first bought it was in need of a service so I did oil, air, fuel and pollen filters along with a gearbox oil change to the correct MTF 3 which made a big difference to the feel of the gear change. I have done two more oil changes the last of which I also changed the air filter again and will probably change the oil again soon. I changed the front drop links for the last mot and I have fitted new rear pads and cleaned up the rear callipers.
I'm not including tyres because I bought some Pentas part way through the year and fitted new winter tyres to my 16' wheels.
The car averages 50mpg and expensive fuel makes no difference to it. Faults have consisted of the rattling drop links which were changed. The sat nav started playing up with the copied disk that came with the car but changing back to the original fixed that. The aircon condenser has failed, I have a new one but not fitted yet. The only other thing it needs is the rear anti rollbar bushes are starting to rattle.
So in conclusion yes the diesel Accord can be reliable even with a few miles on it. Servicing is cheap and pretty easy if you are willing to give it a go yourself. It's a great long distance motorway car. Having owned both, get a facelift if you can but don't be put off by the known faults, there are a lot of happy owners out there.
As a bit of a background I have previously owned a pre facelift 7th gen diesel tourer which I bought cheap with a noisy timing chain and a slipping clutch. The clutch fixed itself and the timing chain still rattled but a bit louder when it was written off in an accident 20k miles later.
My current car is a facelift 7th gen tourer exec with sat nav, hft etc and was bought just over a year ago when a change in my job meant I would be doing quite a few miles. It had decent service history including a clutch and flywheel change and was bought privately with 128k on the clock.
In the past 12 months the car has covered over 25k reliable miles and is now showing 154k. I have serviced it myself using parts from HH and a few bits from eurocarparts and oil from lubetech. When first bought it was in need of a service so I did oil, air, fuel and pollen filters along with a gearbox oil change to the correct MTF 3 which made a big difference to the feel of the gear change. I have done two more oil changes the last of which I also changed the air filter again and will probably change the oil again soon. I changed the front drop links for the last mot and I have fitted new rear pads and cleaned up the rear callipers.
I'm not including tyres because I bought some Pentas part way through the year and fitted new winter tyres to my 16' wheels.
The car averages 50mpg and expensive fuel makes no difference to it. Faults have consisted of the rattling drop links which were changed. The sat nav started playing up with the copied disk that came with the car but changing back to the original fixed that. The aircon condenser has failed, I have a new one but not fitted yet. The only other thing it needs is the rear anti rollbar bushes are starting to rattle.
So in conclusion yes the diesel Accord can be reliable even with a few miles on it. Servicing is cheap and pretty easy if you are willing to give it a go yourself. It's a great long distance motorway car. Having owned both, get a facelift if you can but don't be put off by the known faults, there are a lot of happy owners out there.
