Honda Accord

Which Honda Accord years should you avoid?

Going by 24,232 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Honda Accord years to avoid are 2003, 2018, 2008, 2006 and 2013.

• 20031,987 complaints, 3.7× a typical Accord year, most often about the transmission.
• 20181,897 complaints, 3.5× a typical Accord year, most often about the engine.
• 20081,521 complaints, 2.8× a typical Accord year, most often about the brakes.
• 20062.7× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (8 fires, 52 crashes, 4 deaths).
• 20131,427 complaints, 2.6× a typical Accord year, most often about the steering.

6 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2021 and 2022 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

Too new to judge: 2025 and 2026. Complaints take a few years to arrive, so a new model year looks better than it is.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →