Best & Worst Honda Car Years (11 Models)

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Accord
Civic
CR-V
Element
HR-V
Insight
Odyssey
Passport
Pilot
Prelude
Ridgeline

If you’re thinking about buying a Honda, it’s important to know which years are reliable and which ones might give you trouble. To help you out, we’ve analyzed a bunch of data. Here’s how we’ve done our research.

We started by checking out information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They keep records on recalls for all car models.

Lots of recalls for a particular year? That’s a warning sign. NHTSA also collects consumer complaints. This info lets you know what kind of issues people are running into while driving these cars day-to-day.

You can read more about our method for gathering the data at the bottom of the article.

Next, we used reliability ratings from J.D. Power. They take into account various factors like build quality, long-term performance, and owner satisfaction to score each car. This info is great because it gives you an idea of how a specific year and model are likely to perform as they age.

We also read up on reviews from reputable car sites like Edmunds. The people writing these reviews drive a ton of different cars and have a good sense of what makes a car good or bad. They cover things like how a car drives, how comfortable it is, and what kind of tech it comes with.

This info can give you a good overall picture of what you might be getting into.

Lastly, we dived into specialist forums where Honda owners talk about their cars. These places are gold mines for insights into real-world issues that you might not find in official reviews. If a bunch of people are complaining about the same problem, it’s worth knowing about.

So, by pulling all this data together, we can give you a clear idea of which Honda model years are reliable and which ones might be problematic.

For example, if J.D. Power and Edmunds both give high marks to a certain year but NHTSA has a long list of complaints, that’s something to think about.

The aim here is to make your decision-making process easier. By doing a bit of homework now, you can avoid headaches later. We’ve gone through the data to help you make an informed choice. This way, you can pick a Honda that you’ll be satisfied with for years to come. So go ahead, use this guide as a starting point to make a smart purchase.

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