If you’re looking for an affordable, practical daily driver, Honda is a good brand to start with. The company is known worldwide for its incredible build quality and longevity. It’s no surprise that the Accord and the Civic have become household names in the car community, for better or worse. However, it’s not just cheap and practical cars that come out of Honda. The brand has a history of producing performance cars as well. The Civic Type R has long been a stunning hot hatch, the S2000 is a sports car that humiliates the Miata, and the NSX has proven to be a capable and relatively affordable supercar. Honda is a brand that can do almost everything, as it has an entry in almost every automotive segment.
Updated April 2022: From compacts to SUVs and sports cars, Honda has a flawless track record of building popular and reliable models that compete with the very best in their respective segments. However, with the ever-changing market conditions, anyone considering buying one of these cars should be aware of their downsides. That's why we've updated this list with more pros and cons of buying a Honda.
However, while the brand has many great aspects, not everything it makes is a success. Even though the brand has proven to be popular over the years, there are still Hondas that aren’t worth buying. Not to mention, their popularity and success bring some baggage that consumers might not be able to avoid. And while their lesser models may be decent cars for those who don’t care about driving characteristics, they aren’t any fun for enthusiasts. Even when discussing performance models, they aren’t quite the same as they used to be.
21 Reason To Avoid: Interior Quality Issues
Virtually all manufacturers fill their new vehicles with plastic. This inclusion of the cheaper material keeps costs down, but they also signify poor build quality in Honda’s case. In fact, consumers often complain about the interior components.
It’s not astounding, considering that most manufacturers have filled their interiors with the stuff. However, for a few thousand more, an interior filled with leather or even carbon fiber will look better and last longer. To get these materials, though, you’ll have to look outside the Honda brand.
20 Reason To Avoid: Expensive Trucks
Honda has an excellent truck in the Ridgeline, but it comes at a premium. Starting at almost $38,000, you could buy two Ford Mavericks or an F-150 with some features.
The Ridgeline rates well among critics, but the cost can cause many to shy away, especially when the competition can tow more and have a heavy-duty option. Further, the V6 is the only engine option, leaving the competition better off with fuel-efficient four-cylinders and powerful V8s.
19 Reason To Avoid: Unnecessary Hate
Owning a Civic is a good idea, that is, until the hate starts. It seems like everyone in tuner culture has a Civic, which makes it unoriginal and contains a whirlwind of “no, my Civic is faster” comments.
All this unnecessary hate will come out as other drivers mock your ride, regardless of tuning or not. It’s best to do yourself a favor and just avoid Honda altogether.
18 Reason To Avoid: Styling
Honda once created only one type of car: practical, economic ones. Both the Accord and the Civic were tiny vehicles designed to be more affordable and better-made alternatives to the dreadful American economy cars of the time. These cars’ styling very much reflected this. However, as the brand grew, these cars, and other newer models, slowly saw increasingly ambitious styling.
While the late 2000s saw some fairly clean Honda designs, we’re now seeing the peak of overstyled cars from the brand. The current Civic is covered in fake vents trying to hide its newfound heft, necessitated by modern safety standards. Then there’s the Accord, where Honda decided that it apparently needed jagged tail lights and a huge chrome bar across its nose. While neither car is terrible to look at, Honda keeps over-styling their vehicles, leading to busy designs.
17 Reason To Avoid: Bland Base Cars
Many companies make regular, boring cars, and Honda built its company off such vehicles. While such cars don’t need to be fun to drive, a brand like Honda should be completely capable of creating more entertaining, cheap base model cars. They have built many unique sports cars over the years, plenty of which have been surprisingly affordable. However, cars like the base model Fit and the Civic aren’t attractive vehicles whatsoever.
While the Civic comes in multiple performance trims, it’s plenty dull otherwise. On top of this, the Fit doesn’t have a dedicated performance variant at all. Then, there’s the Accord being sold frequently in a ‘Sport’ trim that certainly doesn’t live up to its name. It’s a shame, as Honda is plenty capable of spicing up such cars, and it would be great to see the basic examples being more fun to drive.
16 Reason To Avoid: Turbo Engines
Turbocharging is an all-around improvement to a car. However, it’s not always a significant change, nor is it necessarily simple. While it can be an easy and emissions-friendly way to improve power, it’s not always a complete improvement.
The Accord recently saw its V6 motor replaced with a 2.0-liter turbo-four that produces fewer horsepower than the older motor. Not to mention, it only gained one MPG city over the six-cylinder. Then, the Civic Si traded its high-revving, naturally aspirated 2.4-liter VTEC for a lower revving turbocharged motor that produces the same amount of power. While this new Civic achieves considerably higher fuel economy over the old one, it does dilute the Si brand, as it starts to blend in with the other budget, turbocharged performance cars.
15 Reason To Avoid: Lacking Interior Technology
Whether you love them or hate them, infotainment systems are in cars, and they’re here to stay. The vast majority of brands have their own unique systems, and they can range from decent to unresponsive trash. Given how far technology has come, these in-car iPads have seen significant improvement over the years, and Honda is a perfect example of this. Their earlier systems were quite a pain to use and just generally made no sense.
Up until the most recent generations of Honda’s lineup, the company used an awkward double-screen layout that had no support for useful features like the Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in later years. These systems even lacked a volume knob in some applications, instead favoring a volume touchpad that was irritating to use while driving. Thankfully, Honda has made massive improvements in its new models.
14 Reason To Avoid: Boring Crossovers
With both the Si and Type R models, Honda has created a name in the budget performance division. If there’s a brand that could make crossovers enjoyable, it should be Honda. While the larger, more practical Pilot wouldn’t need an exciting version to attract buyers, the HR-V and CR-V models could benefit from performance variations. Plus, the CR-V is already based on the Civic platform, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to make an Si or even a Type-R variant.
Not to mention, these cars are absurdly popular, and Honda could probably sell many of them quickly. However, nothing has come to light, and there’s no evidence that such a model ever will. As Honda has a real knack for transforming basic cars into incredible driving machines, it's a shame.
13 Reason To Avoid: Theft
It may be surprising to see, but some Hondas are the most stolen cars on the market today. While it’s not nearly as bad as it once was back in the ’90s, Hondas remain at the top of the list for stolen vehicles. The Civic and the Accord sit at the top, which can also mean that these cars may be expensive to insure as a result.
Given the popularity of these cars, it’s likely that many examples get stolen for their parts, according to Jalopnik. With that said, older Hondas are more at risk of being stolen than newer ones, given that they’re far more secure than older models. However, it’s worth remembering the potential risk of owning such a car.
12 Reason To Avoid: Acura
Honda doesn’t really have any luxury offerings on the market right now. There are examples of well-equipped Hondas available to consumers, but these aren’t real luxury cars. To address this hole in the market, Acura came about in 1986. However, Acura’s cars haven’t quite risen to the level of other luxury vehicles. Brands such as Lexus, Mercedes, and Cadillac all offer plenty of diverse models distinct from other, cheaper cars.
On the other hand, Acura sells cars that are very obviously upscaled Honda products. Even different brands that do this, such as Audi, make strong efforts to build more distance between the current product and the lesser models at the entry level. Beyond failing to give customers a proper luxury experience, Acura doesn’t really make a performance car either, given their largely front-wheel-drive lineup.
11 Reason To Avoid: Price Of Options
While Hondas usually start as affordable vehicles, these cars can quickly become expensive in some instances. The Honda Accord, for example, starts at a reasonable $23,570, but a loaded model can cost just over $40,000. While the Accord is a good car, that’s a lot of money for a Honda, let alone an Accord.
A fully loaded Civic Si can cost over $30,000, which is way too close to the considerably more powerful Type-R price. Similarly, the Honda Pilot can be equipped to the point where it’ll cost you over $50,000. While the Pilot is a good car, there’s no reason to spend that kind of money on one, especially when more exciting and more practical vehicles can be had for that kind of money.
10 Reason To Buy: High Reliability
There aren’t a lot of brands that have gained the reputation for incredible reliability that Honda has achieved over the years. Of course, not every car is capable of lasting forever, but Hondas can be far more reliable than many other average cars. Consumer Reports lists the brand in the top 10 most reliable brands for 2017, and it wasn’t scored much lower than higher-rated brands.
The Accord also received mid-size Top Pick of the year for 2014 in its four-cylinder configuration until the even-more-solid Chevrolet Impala surpassed it. The 2015 Honda Odyssey minivan was J.D. Power’s most dependable minivan this year. Honda can easily be a smart choice for a new car if you want it to last a long time.
9 Reason To Buy: Incredible Manual Transmissions
Car buffs have been talking about the death of the manual transmission for many years now. It’s not a senseless worry either, as many standard cars no longer come with a manual. This omission is likely due to many non-enthusiasts preferring automatic transmissions' ease of use. It’s not even just regular cars making the switch to automatic-only options, as many performance cars don’t offer a stick either.
However, there’s one brand that still offers a manual to all. The Honda Civic still comes with a manual transmission as an alternative to an annoying CVT. Honda even goes further than that, as the performance-oriented Si and Type-R models are offered exclusively with manual transmissions. Then, there’s the Accord, which can be had with a stick as well, regardless of engine. This transmission possibly makes it the last mid-size sedan with that option.
8 Reason To Buy: Practicality
Unsurprisingly, Hondas are practical cars. The Honda Civic is offered in three different body styles: a four-door sedan, a four-door hatchback, and a coupe. All of these cars provide plenty of space, despite their small stature. As a result, they’re incredibly usable vehicles for the price. Even the coupe has a large trunk and a spacious back seat. Of course, the Accord is a decently sizeable mid-size sedan with plenty of space inside and a large trunk. Honda’s crossovers have a lot of space, too.
The Pilot, for instance, offers nearly the same amount of space inside as the considerably larger and less efficient Chevy Tahoe; it even has more room behind the third row than the big Chevy. Finally, the Odyssey offers many practical features for a parent, such as modular seating and a rear-seat speaker system perfect for shouting at your kids.
7 Reason To Buy: Great Resale Value
We’ve already discussed how Hondas can be a little pricey on the used market for what they are. Of course, that can be perfect for those who buy their cars new. In 2017, the Honda Fit held nearly 29% of its resale value, which was best in class.
Cheap, small cars frequently lose a lot of their value, given that these cars aren’t worth much from the factory. The Honda Civic was rated best in class for highest resale value by Edmunds for four years, meaning your cheap commuter will return your money when trading it in for something else. Edmunds also found the CR-V to have the best resale value in the compact crossover segment, even beating out the Subaru and Toyota offerings. They even found Acura to have the highest resale value of every luxury brand, too.
6 Reason To Buy: Cheap Repairs
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Not only do Hondas frequently cover many miles between needing repairs, but when they do need repairs, they’re generally easy to perform. Many Hondas on the road mean plenty of parts available, making repairs more affordable. Not to mention, every mechanic has probably worked on a Honda by now.
According to Trusted Choice, the Honda brand was found to require fewer repairs than comparable cars and cost around $469 per repair. Forbes also reported that the CR-V needed the lowest frequency of “check engine” light-related repairs and cost an average of about $100 per repair on 2012 models. The Civic was also found to be cheap to fix, costing around $200 per “check engine” light problem.
5 Reason To Buy: Performance Models
Despite Honda’s general penchant for building practical family transporters, they’ve created plenty of excellent performance models. While the Miata often gets the credit for being the best affordable two-seater sports car, the S2000 was even quicker and more capable while being powered by a high-revving motor. Then there’s the legendary NSX, a mid-engine, reasonably priced supercar that’s already become a modern-day classic. And, of course, the new NSX is a high-tech supercar that can fight the hybrid stigma.
Honda also offers a couple of cheap performance cars to this day. The excellent Civic Si costs under $25,000 and returns 205 horsepower through a six-speed manual gearbox. And, of course, Honda finally sells the fabled Type-R in the U.S. Producing over 300 horsepower, the Type-R is an excellent performance hatchback for $35,000.
4 Reason To Buy: Awards
After being on the market for so many years and selling many different models, Honda has won plenty of notable awards over the years. The brand has been granted four awards from KBB since 2014, both for the brand itself and for its cars. Specifically, in 2016, KBB awarded four Honda models with their ‘Best Buy’ awards, including the Civic, the Odyssey, the CR-V, and the Pilot, which is quite a win for the brand.
Car and Driver included the new Honda Civic’s sports models in its 2018 10 Best awards list, which isn’t too bad for a cheap daily driver. However, that’s not quite Honda’s biggest claim to fame. Car and Driver have listed the Accord in their 10Best list for 32 years, making it easily the most awarded car in the magazine’s history.
3 Reason To Buy: Practical Pickup
Pickups are a gigantic market in the U.S., and it’s no surprise that foreign car manufacturers have been trying to make their way into this lucrative market. While Nissan and Toyota have created their own full-size pickups for the US, Honda went in a different direction. In its first generation, the Honda Ridgeline was an SUT based largely on the Pilot crossover. While competing with other SUTs from the late 2000s, the Ridgeline saw an update for the 2017 model year.
Unlike the previous design, the new Ridgeline has an independent bed from the rest of the body, and it’s the largest bed in its segment. While it may get criticism for being too much like a crossover, it’s perfect for the buyer who needs a pickup but doesn’t want the drawbacks of a pickup.
2 Reason To Buy: Forward Thinking
Honda has a strong knack for creating cars that are ahead of their time. While their hybrid models aren’t always the most successful, their first entry was actually very far ahead of its time. The original Insight was dedicated to getting the absolute best fuel economy possible. Rated to achieve over 60 MPG, it’s incredible for a car from the early 2000s, and it has an amazingly aerodynamic shape.
While the model had many shortcomings, the Insight was still considerably ahead of its time. Then there are the new Clarity models, which come as a plug-in hybrid rated at 110 MPGe average. However, the other two Clarity models are lease-only, which are offered in either full-electric power or, more interestingly, as hydrogen-powered ones.