I’ve test driven Accord EX-L, Camry XLE, Elantra N-line and Sonata SEL and all of them but the Camry had no passenger seat height adjustability even with power seats!
It’s quite surprising given I’ve seen this in the past even in trims with manual seats. Yet it’s unavailable in upper trims. I had it in a Ford Fusion SE too.
If I want a decent passenger’s seat are my options only the “luxury” brands?
Figured instead of test driving too many cars I’d check if folks here find it normal these days? only high-end SUVs seem to have that feature but not in sedans. We do like road tripping for days and miles and still prefer doing it in a sedan.
Thanks for the link. It does look like for Sonata it’s only available on the Limited trim and it’s not available even in the Accord EX-L or Elantra’s top trim.
Shouldn’t 6 way be sufficient though? what’s the extra in 7 way?
I dont think this is a shortage issue. I recall the same situation when I got my Accord in 2018. Passenger seat height was wife’s biggest hang up on car although she decided in the end it wasn’t a deal breaker. Multiple other non-luxury sedans we test drove had the same issue.
OP - Another option is finding a car where the passenger seats default height works for your primary road trip passenger. I now have a Jetta has a second car and that passenger seat is just has a better default height for my wife than the Accord’s, which was a little too low.
Exactly the same for us. Very unfortunate as it seems that the Accord holds its value pretty well but the seats were just horribly firm in addition to the lack of height adjustability. We had a 2018 Civic before with base trim seats and the experience was horrible so I scrutinized the Accord a bit more than usual.
And at the $35k price point (this dealer had a negotiable $3k dealer installed accessories, so $38k), a used 1-year BMW/MB C-Class/2-series comes even with 4-way lumbar support for both seats and a hypothetically slight worse depreciation (for 2 years of ownership, hypothetical in the non-predictable sense that it can be more than a “slight worse”, Honda will hold more value 100%).
My only issue with the Jetta (we didn’t test drive it) is that it got 4 stars in NHTSA front crash score so I am a bit reluctant to check the brand.
I am not certain. According to Honda’s website, the Civic doesn’t even offer a 2-way lumbar support in Touring trim for driver’s seat. This is offered both in the Elantra and Corolla (at least the last time I checked).
I wouldn’t buy an Accord at the prices they are going for today. I got my 1.5 Touring in October of 18 for $29k out the door. Price versus features was great. Not nearly the same value paying say $32k before TT&L for an EX-L. I regret trading the Accord in. Plan was to go electric and than shortages happened and Jetta was the only decent deal I could find.
Interesting on the Jetta’s safety. IIHS does not reflect that same weakness in front crash safety. That said IMO more important than front crash scores are headlights and the Jetta’s headlights are bad in the SE trim. I wouldn’t buy the Jetta is it was gonna be a car the family drove a lot. I got it since we had to have a second car for our arriving au pair to drop kid off at appointments a few days a week all of which are during daylight hours. Jetta ended up being by far the best value I found after months of fruitless searching.
(which is as base as it gets).