This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
On several occasions (roughly 5 separate and unique incidents), the vehicle put itself into neutral (N) while driving. There are instances when the vehicle was in motion and others when it is at a stop. The screens in the dashboard cluster and in the center of the front dashboard go blank momentarily and the transmission changes from drive (D) to neutral (N) without any apparent cause or any warning whatsoever. The power steering is also resetting, causing the steering to momentarily become much more stiff and harder to turn. It-??s currently at the dealer undergoing inspection and repair, but the fact that this is causing a safety issue that makes the vehicle undriveable while at any speed without warning is a serious safety issue.
This vehicle has had numerous electrical issues, culminating in the need for three batteries in a six year. Period. From day one there were electrical issues with the auto stop start and the car in one occasion the battery completely died. Honda was unable to identify the issue and electrical issues. Continue to happen. in the last 18 months I-??ve had numerous occasions where this auto stop start would engage at a stoplight stop sign in the middle of busy traffic, but would not start back up. I took it in for service and they cannot re-create or identify the issue. This is very scary when it happens as I have been on start and go traffic on the interstate on busy intersections and the car will not move nor can it be restarted for 5 to 10 minutes. Honda offers no solution to this dangerous problem. After months of not being able to fix this. Identify a problem the car no longer moves into reverse consistently Honda recommends new transmission. After becoming frustrated with Honda and feeling unsafe with my family in this vehicle, I had to trade it in for a new vehicle as no solutions were offered to make me feel safe driving it or to get it repaired effectively or identify why it keeps needing new batteries and has electrical dysfunction since purchase
Honda Odyssy 2018- While slowing down and then trying to accelerate does not accelerate and stalls in the lane and requires pumping of accelerator pedal before gear is changed. some time when this happens you can heard grinding noise of gear change. Last time it happened it showed 'Transmission system Problem' and 'Blind Spot Info system Problem' on screen. This is after dealer has looked at the problem and I was told it happened when tech test drove also. Dealer had updated software but it did not fix the issue. This is a safety concern, as if you can not accelerate to maintain the speed of other cars in your lane, cars behind you can get into accident.
I had the MOST recall repair a couple weeks ago, but my backup camera still cuts out and says CHECK TUNER. This does cause a temporary visibility issue when switching to mirrors.
The contact owns a 2018 Honda Odyssey. The contact stated that upon opening the electronic tailgate and entering the trunk of the vehicle, an alert sounded, indicating that the tailgate was closing. After closing the tailgate, the tailgate suddenly jerked open, striking the contact. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who was unable to duplicate the failure. The vehicle was then taken to an independent mechanic, who was also unable to duplicate the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure but was unable to assist. The failure mileage was 172,000.
- Henderson, NV, USA
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The power tailgate on my 2018 Honda Odyssey EX-L started opening and closing on its own, seemingly at random. The latch would not cinch and the gauge cluster reported an opening attempt while driving on the highway. This failure cascaded and ended up bringing every device on the B-CAN network down, including the instrument cluster, heated seats, power sliding doors, ADAS systems including FCW/LDW/LKA and various telltales and buttons on the dash. Upon disassembly of the interior to expose the affected controllers, I discovered that the power tailgate controller was full of water. There was enough water in it to cause arcing of the power and CAN terminals. I traced the ingress path upwards and discovered a crack in the seam sealer on the roof, underneath the left roof rack rail at the very rear of the vehicle. Water enters under the roof rail, drips down the door hinge, then drips down the body to the cup holder and directly into the controller. To remediate I had to replace the damaged controller and apply seam sealer underneath the roof rail at a cost of approximately $200. I called the local dealer to attempt to report this to Honda but was unable to find the appropriate person. Over a dozen people have reported this issue online and there are pictures of the issue. I posted pictures to one of the links referenced below and have additional pictures. I believe this is a manufacturing defect and not caused by age or use of the vehicle and there is strong evidence it affects a lot of people. The issue will be particularly prevalent when the vehicle is parked outside on a downward incline. I work in a related industry on embedded devices that must meet functional safety standards, and I believe an issue like this would lead to a mandatory safety recall. https://www.odyclub.com/threads/2018-power-tailgate-failure-dead-battery-from-body-leak.371746/ https://www.odyclub.com/threads/2018-odyssey-power-tailgate-control-module-replacement.366102/
When idle stop is activated, car will often stall on attempt to restart. Car can then not be started for 5-10 seconds. If the car does not stall, it will often hesitate 2-3 seconds before the engine restarts, leading to multiple near-miss accidents on turns. Electrical warnings will often flash after idle stop, such as "sliding door problem, " "collision mitigation malfuction, " "anti-theft system malfunction, " etc. Battery has been replaced twice with no other remedy offered while in or out of warranty.
When the vehicle-??s auto start-stop feature is active, the feature will malfunction causing the engine to not start properly. Instead, the vehicle stalls and must be restarted manually. However, there are many occasions when the vehicle does not start manually either. In these cases, it takes many attempts to restart the vehicle. While these events are happening, the vehicle displays an error message for the auto start-stop feature on the instrument cluster, and the instrument cluster will flicker on and off. The events often occur during the middle of an intersection and attempting to turn in front of oncoming traffic. It creates a very dangerous situation. the vehicle or component has not been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others because the issue occurs regularly, and the dealership has asked us to come back when the problem is occurring. The problem has not been reproduced or confirmed by a dealer or independent service center. However, there are other Honda vehicles (e.g., Honda Pilot) which have the exact same issue, and a recall has been issued for those vehicles but not the Honda Odyssey.
While the van was in motion, the power tailgate unlocked and opened on its own. The dashboard displayed tailgate open warning message. I slowed down and the lock re-engaged to to close the tailgate. It happened again later that evening. Fortunately, I was within city limits, driving about 40 mph.
After rainfall water is leaking into the rear fuse box compartment located behind the 3rd row seats and causing the tailgate control module and other parts to fail. The tailgate does not have any power and cannot be opened or closed with the fob or the push buttons located in the tailgate or in the dashboard area. The tailgate cannot be locked as the latch does not engage and it can be very risky to drive the vehicle as the tailgate might come open while driving. There might be some opening on the roof of the vehicle from where water is leaking into the fuse compartment and causing this hazardous situation.
My car has stalled on multiple occasions when the auto-idle feature is engaged. A message on the dashboard flashes stating -??collision mitigation system-?? and then the car just stalls and the battery light comes on. Typically this requires turning the car off and turning back on to begin driving. Very scary and dangerous when in the middle of a busy road/traffic light/stop.
Water leaking in from roof or driver side windows into rear electronics at the fuse box and the tailgate control module. When control module was removed there was gross evidence of water saturation in the control module and multiple areas of corrosion, rust and fouling of electrical components causing battery to drain dead.
Vehicle was taken into Honda dealer due to trunk not opening and closing properly & receiving -??Power Tailgate Failure-?? warning and rear entertainment system not working. After many hours, I was told the power tailgate control unit and floor wire harness would need replaced due to corosion from water damage "?" This was at 42,653 miles!! They couldn-??t explain how the damage could have happened and Honda refused to do anything about fixing it.
Our 2018 Honda Odyssey has randomly failed to start three times. No warning no advance warning messages or alerts. These appeared once after being parked overnight and twice immediately after being driven a short distance. First time was in June of 2021, second time in May of 2023 and third time in June of 2023. When trying to start the vehicle either the dash would flash with unknown information before going blank or was blank and wouldn-??t crank the starter motor. We replaced the battery after the third failure.
Rear hatch on our Odyssey EX-L started giving a "Power Tailgate Problem", and it would not open at all except by mechanically releasing the hatch from the emergency access panel. I replaced the rear hatch control module and the hatch could now again be opened from the outside as normal, but the power tailgate still did not function up and down, and requires manual lifting open and pushing closed. Upon inspection, the removed/malfunctioning control module appears to have failed due to water infiltration, meaning water has entered the inside of the vehicle and then shorted electrical components, potentially creating a fire hazard.
I have 2018 Odyssey EXL. on instrument display got message "Power Tailgate Issue". The tailgate can not open either by control button or manually. I have already had this issue 2 times. I sent it to dealer and been told the power tailgate control module was intruded by water. I replaced the control module, and after several months, the issue recovered. The power tailgate can not open and close will cause my trip in danger. I hope the honda can fix this issue for the customers free.
several times when stopped at a light, the vehicle's auto idle engine engages and shuts the car off. When the brake has been released, the vehicle has failed to start. Most recently, this occurred while waiting in a car line of traffic and it took many different attempts to get the car engine back on - about 10 minutes before the engine could be started, resulting in myself and my children stuck on the road while we opened doors, the hood of the car, tried to start the car and turn it completely off. It was in a stuck position until it wasn't. that was the first time the vehicle wouldn't start after numerous attempts to start the engine. We have been told there is no way to fix this - only to manually turn the function off every time the car is started.
Vehicle has roughly 32,000 miles. KEY SAFETY ISSUES [with vehicle parked, engine off and doors closed] (1) vehicle randomly and without warning locks driver out (cannot open car with key fob by pressing unlock button, cannot open car manually by entering key into door). Had to call AAA on 4 different occasions to pry open door with specialty tools. After that, had to leave window fully open in order to ensure we would not get locked out. (2) when vehicle locks driver out it also sets off the alarm, turns the car on to idle, and turns on the radio (even if its off) thus draining the battery until its dead. Why this is a major safety issue? -- Scenarios I though of (1) child/toddler getting accidently locked into car with no way to open and AAA not readily available (2) getting locked out of your car in a remote location with no cell service (mountains, desert, etc) When this issue happened the dash screen would show an error of "Auto Engine Idle Stop System Problem". I took the van to Honda and they diagnosed the problem to be a faulty keyless access control unit. Fees to replace were +/- $1,100. Honda decline to provide any cost reduction or assistance stating that warranty for the part had expired.
Just bought the car used with 60240 mi at the end of March on a Friday. 30 minutes after leaving the dealership the Auto Idle Stop warning notice appeared on the dash stating this feature was unavailable. It would not engage when idle at a light and as a result, when the gas was pressed to accelerate the car would hesitate and jerk into gear. This happened the entire 1.5-hour ride home, whether for a short pause or longer pause. It was a bit scary because the car would hesitate to move and clearly there were cars behind me. At any point and time, someone could've rear-ended me thinking I was able to accelerate properly. About 1 hour into the ride the brake lights came on flashing red at the bottom of the dash the entire time and would not go out. I immediately called the dealership once I reached my destination to announce the problem. The following Monday I took it back for a look over. In their investigation, they found a tracker attached under the dash and assumed this was interfering with the transmission of messages for the Auto Idle stop to engage. The dealer claimed there were codes, but after removing this attachment the auto idle stop feature engaged and they cleared all the codes. To my surprise, after 4-5 hours of being there, I drove home to find as I neared by destination all error codes returned including the brake lights flashing. I immediately called the dealer again and complained. This time to not further inconvenience me with the back and forth, they came and picked up the car on a Thursday with the intent of troubleshooting it over the course of some days. They had the car from a Thursday to the next Friday for me to arrive after them saying it was good, to find it was still doing it. This time the codes were reviewed with me in the car and the issue was "it was unlearned". After the reset, it started working again. Four days later it's still happening. Engages when it feels like it which causes a rough drive and acceleration. Honda help!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Decatur, GA, USA