Honda Odyssey

Which Honda Odyssey years should you avoid?

Going by 12,893 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Honda Odyssey years to avoid are 2000, 2018, 2019, 2002 and 2003.

• 2000675 complaints, 2.5× a typical Odyssey year, most often about the transmission; and 2.0× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (3 fires, 23 crashes, 9 deaths).
• 20181,011 complaints, 3.7× a typical Odyssey year, most often about the electrical system.
• 2019997 complaints, 3.7× a typical Odyssey year, most often about the electrical system.
• 2002960 complaints, 3.5× a typical Odyssey year, most often about the transmission.
• 2003914 complaints, 3.4× a typical Odyssey year, most often about the transmission.

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 2017 and 2021 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

Too new to judge: 2025, 2026 and 2027. 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 →