New 2009 Honda Odyssey Unveiled! - Detailed Preview

Following our first hand report on the teaser of the New 2009 Honda Odyssey and a showcase of it's groundbreaking safety technologies, and yesterday's preliminary report, and today, we have the full report on the New Honda Odyssey, staying true to Wheels Weekly standards, we go down in depth and detail in our reports. To start, we'd have to say that we've never seen a better looking 7 seater than the previous Honda Odyssey (For Americans, its not the 'mini bus' you had.); now we have. Gladly, it bears the same name, and looks are not just the best things about Hondas, as that little 'H' would suggest, it always comes with innovation, and with their recent form, it would definitely come with class leading ergonomics, build quality, handling and best of all, unbeatable interiors that sets them apart from competition as the Audis of Japan.

Based off the Honda Accord, the Odyssey is a lengthened platform that not only seats seven, but eight or nine (For countries without rear seat belt regulations - But not recommended anyway), for it comes with Accord's class leading wheelbase and width, with a second row that's wonderfully capacious, and a third row that weren't so much of a compromise either. Far different from the likes of Estima, the Odyssey's main selling point, is the doing-without of a high riding height apparent of most MPVs (to avoid wheel well intrusion), thus giving passengers a comfortable seating position likewise of a large saloon (mid size for you Americans), of which its excellent handling (for an MPV) makes it the best proposition out there for buyers of this segment. The front, clearly inspired by the FCX Clarity with the chrome like surfacing of the lower part of the center bumper fascia, the grill that's reminiscent of the New Honda City which was launched earlier in Thailand and Turkey subsequently.

Variants


The 4th Gen Odyssey comes with 4 different specifications, starting from the M Spec that starts with a low $25,610 USD which comes with no leather seats, no steering mounted controls etc to the top spec Li Spec which goes all the way up till $35,700 USD, with the L Spec and Absolute Spec housed in between at the same price. All variants comes with a cheaper FWD, CVT Transmission configuration and 4WD 5-Speed Automatic Transmission that costs more. As for engine options, there's only the 2.4ltr 4 cylinder engine that generates 172hp, and a highly tuned 206hp only available in the Absolute Spec variant. Many might have thought the Absolute being the top end model with 206hp and larger rims, but its proposition here is mainly to attract younger buyers, with the darker interior trimming and thirstier engine in exchange for the higher specced interiors and amenities of the L and Li spec.
Of course with more power and sporty intentions, the Absolute also comes with steering mounted paddle shifts for some Schumacher moments, whereas the M,L and Li comes with a little green button with the legend 'ECON' which optimizes the engine and transmission to deliver higher levels of efficiency, up shifting earlier in the power band and does a marvelous 13.4km per liter which translates to about 32mpg, nothing shocking for European diesel figures, but good enough for 7 seater people carriers and Americans.

Interior
Frankly speaking not much changes was apparent on the interior, even thou this is a complete model change, the basic DNA of the interior is still there, the dash mounted gearlever, the two tier dash is more apparent now, the center infotainment control knob, the center console box, and the foldable middle section of the second row. No point of eradicating something so perfectly perfect at the first place we reckoned. But minor tweaks had improve the lots tremendously.
Compared to the previous Odyssey (3rd Gen) the new dash looks evidently more dynamic, modern, sophisticated. The front dash is dominated by the center mounted infotainment display, with a large integrated meter cluster that housed all crucial information to the driver, the gear lever is very close to the steering, mounted right beneath the 'right' center aircon vent, and in the middle, is the infotainment controller (a la iDrive). With the center stack freed from the handbrake lever (down at the footrest now) and the gear lever, it makes for a rather spacious area for tucking handbags to laptop bags, which is much safer to leaving them at passenger seats in full glory of passing by motorists that would have rather bad intentions.
One thing we can notice, is also the visibility enabled by using high strength, thin A-pillars, and a separator splitting the window, aided also by Honda's now across-the-board mounting of the side mirrors on the doors instead of the base of the A-pillar, which again is a function over form decision to help give excellent visibility for drivers, as the constant pursue of better interior space over limited exterior dimensions had resulted in the A-pillar being designed to get stretched far ahead, thus at times, badly designed vehicles would have A-pillars that could hide a few motorists 10-15 meters ahead at the 1 o'clock position of the driver.
Moving on to the meter clusters, Honda designers use what they call a 4-Tier design that houses information in a sequence of importance/most frequent read, such as fuel consumption average figures (Something increasingly important in times like these, and crucial for drivers who caught on the cult of Hypermiling), then followed by the speedometer that also houses information such as battery warning lights, foglamp, high beam and indicator signals, the next tier would then show seatbelt warning lights, various driver assistance electronic stuffs (we'll cover on those later) that comes alive when the driver looses his patience or wit, and lastly, followed by the revometer, fuel gauges and water temperature. Thou I'm not really sure if the center LCD display could be configured to display other information (which i doubt), it's sad to still not see engine oil temperature gauge, battery voltage meter and the all familiar, Honda 'Special' individual indicator of any opened doors - which was replaced by a simple indicator that only tells 'one of the doors' are opened, and the usual embarrassing trying of door by door (which had not happened on Hondas for the last 20 years) might just repeat itself here. One good addition to the driver is the telescopic steering wheel, which not only adjusts tilt, but reach as well. This greatly aids in providing the best seating position for the driver. As for the central stack, the M, L, Li all comes with a two-way opening console box, which allows for better storage and arrangement of items made possible by armrests that attached to the seats rather than the center console (A not nice to look at but more comfortable design), whereas the Absolute comes with a smaller, pre-partitioned one way opening center console box with large, armrests fixed to the center console. As for the rear, the seat layouts can be greatly altered to allow for flexible usage of hauling different items, or simple folding out a flatbed for certains moments that you might want to customize curtains and a dark 'not-able-to-see-thru' tint. Same as the previous Odyssey, the third row of seats can dissapear flat into the floorbed with a touch of a button, whereas the second row could fold flat or 60:40. Garnishing the side of the folded flat bed, are an array of nicely designed cubby holes, compartments and holders for all sorts of lugging needs.

Entertainment
Moving on to the infotainment system, a 7" high res LCD screen housed in the center dash serves as both a DVD/MP3/WMA player with a 40GB HDD providing massive storage space for entertainment stuffs and of course maps for the SatNav. Bluetooth connection also comes standard saving you couple of tickets for traffic violation. All controlled via the 8-way infotainment knob housed at the center of the dash, but mind you, these are Japan specifications, we wouldn't know for sure if it would end up as a gigantic volume controller as seen in the spec-cut Accord that reached our shores - Which was actually a big shame for Honda.
As this is a 7 seater MPV, rear passengers are of course in for a treat for a long haul journey, thus another 9" LCD housed on the ceiling provides entertainment access to the second and third row passengers, interestingly, the seemingly far-fetched multimedia controller that's housed together on the ceiling can be detached and hand-held, for convenient access to all the multimedia capabilities of the rear entertainment system (RES). Another innovative feature, is that the RES can simultaneously play whatever that's from the front 7" LCD, with all four surround sound speakers, or it can be separated, and for this, Honda decides to add in two sets of wireless headphones that allows the kids (presumably) to watch their favourite cartoons using the headphones and muting the rear speakers, with the adults watching 'Eyes Wide Shut' up front using only the front mounted speakers. Which all in all, is a truly innovative solution for a problem we hadn't figured we have.

Safety
The next best thing that goes with the 7" LCD screen, is that its coupled with a reverse camera with predictive guidelines whilst reversing, side cameras mounted underneath of both side mirrors that offers a combined view while maneuvering through tight openings, and another wide angle camera mounted far upfront that displays a 180 degree view of oncoming vehicles whilst exiting a junction, reducing chances of accidents dramatically. Not only that the frontal camera also works with a radar sensor mounted up front for the Odyssey's ACC (Active Cruise Control). As the name suggests, it not only manages you at a constant speed, it also monitors vehicles up front, keeping your car from a safe distance with the car upfront by automatically reducing your speed to follow the car at front - Automatically. Addition to that, it also houses lane detection (LKAS) capabilities, warning the driver when he/she was drifting dangerously out of her own lane, perhaps through fatigue or talking on the phone, polishing their nails etc.
The inclusion of these systems, thou not entirely new, but its a very encouraging effort from Honda, as prevention, or Active Safety (warning systems), are always a thousand times more effective than Passive Safety (Airbags, crumple zone etc). However, the new Odyssey did not just came with four extra cameras and call the day off, it's also equipped with VSA, which is a motion adaptive system that detects emergency maneuverings from drivers such as panic swerves and lost controls where the driver could be fighting against the steering to stabilize the car, the system would kick in and offsets 'over' maneuverings from the driver with plenty of brain power coupled with all the systems working hand in hand to feed in the best input to the front wheels to steer the car out of the driver's misery. This is a very complicated system that couples the use of ABS, Traction control, sensors of all kind that not only needs to get the driver to stay out of trouble, but efficient enough to let Honda stay out of lawsuits if the 'assistance' given did not result in a worsened situation.

Last but not least, we'll again talk about airbags, (what? Are airbags new?) Well, Honda decides to take a second look on traditional airbags, and found they could better it. As we've reported it earlier on, we'll quote from our previous article and continue from here.

As we know, thou saves lives in an accident by absorbing the impact caused by the inertia load on the passenger's body hitting on any surface of the car, be it the steering wheel, the windows etc. Hence airbags would have to be deployed in split seconds, in fact they deploy in split milliseconds. Now, there's no way any air pump could provide such an instant charge of air to cushion the blow in time, therefore, airbags are fitted with explosives (yes, explosives literally) that with an electric charge, solid matter combust into air could provide the most immediate expansion that's required to fill up the airbag, hence all traditional airbags are single directional, by expanding the airbag towards the direction of the occupant where they should be protection. This sudden charge of energy could deliver upwards of 200lbs of force, almost as if a punch on the face from a boxer, albeit with the forces dissipated from a larger area compared to a boxing glove - hence, never believe an airbag deployment is a comfortable thing, airbags have been known to kill young babies and children that weren't fastened on a child seat.



Moreover, traditional airbags with their almost single direction charge of expansion, would only have the 'feasible protection surface' come to shape around the 0.030 second from charging, to the full deployment at 0.040 seconds where the airbag begins to release pressure. Honda's i-SRS system, applies a spiral form of expansion where the airbag's 'feasible protection surface' comes of shape within the 0.015 mark, and then keeps its pressure all the way till the 0.060 mark, giving occupants a wider, more stable area of protection within half the time of conventional SRS air bags, and with a pressure holding time of up to 0.045 seconds compared to the 0.010 second time of conventional airbags. Saving lives, safer.

Drooling yet? We can't wait for the new Odyssey to reach out of Japan, as for time being, check out the remaining picture galleria.