There's a more economical alternative as Honda's Accord gets a new turbodiesel engine.

The 2.2-litre i-DTEC powerplant is a further development of Honda's i-CTDi turbodiesel unit, already employed in its CR-V and Civic five-door model ranges.

The all-aluminium engine employs direct fuel injection, exhaust gas recirculation and a particulate filter to increase power output to 110 kW at 4000rpm. The accompanying torque peak is 350Nm at 2000rpm.

Those figures translate into a 9.6 second 0-100km/h sprint time for the six-speed manual incarnation which has a top speed of 212km/h. The five-speed automatic version is slightly slower, with a 9.8 second 0-100km/h acceleration time, and a 207km/h top speed.

The Accord 2.2 i-DTEC Tourer is available with the five-speed automatic gearbox only, and despatches the 0-100 km/h sprint test in 9.8 seconds, and achieves a top speed of 202km/h.

Combined-cycle fuel consumption for the manual Accord i-DTEC sedan is 5.9litres/100km, while CO2 exhaust gas emissions are 155g/km. By comparison, the combined-cycle fuel consumption and CO2 emissions figures for the automatic-gearbox version are 6.6litres/100km and 175g/km respectively. The turbodiesel-powered Accord Tourer boasts a fuel consumption figure of 6.7litres/100km, and an emissions rating of 178g/km.

Both the Accord 2.2 i-DTEC sedan and Tourer models maintain the "Executive" specification levels already offered on the 2.4-litre petrol versions.

Pricing:
Accord Sedan 2.2 i-DTEC Executive: R346 900
Accord Sedan 2.2 i-DTEC Executive Auto: R364 900
Accord Tourer 2.2 i-DTEC Executive: R383 400

A big fat zero It's not often you hear of a company that wants a zero score - but Renault's plans depend on it.

Ronaldo makes it slick Tired of dumbed-down ads for car products? Try this one by footballer Ronaldo for size.

Old tricks, new name A new craze among US drivers to employ fanatical fuel-saving methods is coming to a road near you.