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2018 Honda Accord is on display at the 110th Annual Chicago Auto Show at McCormick Place

Honda Accord: The Worst Problems You Could Have Around 100,000 Miles

When customers buy a Honda, they know that they’re buying a safe and reliable car above all else. However, nothing is ever perfect, and the same is true for Honda. Here are some of the worst problems that the Honda Accord may get at around 100,000 miles. The 2008 Honda Accord’s brake and engine issues …

When customers buy a Honda, they know that they’re buying a safe and reliable car above all else. However, nothing is ever perfect, and the same is true for Honda. Here are some of the worst problems that the Honda Accord may get at around 100,000 miles.

The 2008 Honda Accord’s brake and engine issues

While buying a roughly decade-old Honda Accord may seem like a good bargain, the 2008 Accord is actually one of the worst model years for the Accord in general. In fact, Car Complaints says that the 2008 Accord has by far the most reported issues of all the model years of the Accord. That said, it wasn’t the worst model year for the Accord. Regardless, Car Complaints still gave the 2008 Accord the “Avoid Like The Plague” badge.

The 2008 Honda Accord had a lot of issues, but the two most common issues had to do with its brakes and its engines. Despite Honda’s reputation for reliability, the 2008 Accord’s brakes would wear out way sooner than expected. In fact, the average mileage for owners that experienced premature brake wear was at just 26,000 miles. That said, it was a relatively cheap repair as it only cost an average of $260 to fix.

The other common issue with the 2008 Accord was the fact that its engine ate up more oil than it should. Not only was this an annoying issue, but it was also a costly issue as owners had to buy more oil than usual on top of paying for a permanent repair. The average mileage for this issue was about 67,000 miles, and the average cost for a permanent repair was $1,300.

The 2003 and 2004 Honda Accord’s transmission issues

2018 Honda Accord is on display at the 110th Annual Chicago Auto Show at McCormick Place
The Honda Accord | Raymond Boyd/Getty Images

The worst model year for the Honda Accord, according to Car Complaints, was 2003. And the worst issues for the 2003 Accord all had to do with its transmission. This is the same story for the 2004 Accord, which wasn’t too different than the 2003 Accord. 

At or around 100,000 miles, the 2003 and 2004 Accord models both suffered from a large number of transmission problems. Users on Car Complaints reported various transmission issues, ranging from the Accord not shifting to gear, to the Accord slipping out of gear, all the way to the Accord’s transmission simply failing. 

By far, the most common way to fix these transmission issues was to simply replace the transmission. However, that’s a costly job, as the average price for that, according to Car Complaints, is about $2,700. 

While the 2003 and 2004 Accord had far more issues than that, transmission problems plagued both model years. As a result, both the 2003 and the 2004 Accord have the “Avoid Like The Plague” badge. 

Multiple years of uncomfortable seats

Transmission issues are unsafe and very costly, but most of those issues were occurring near the 100,000-mile marker. However, the Honda Accord has one issue that’s been happening across multiple model years and it’s also been happening with very new cars. That issue is that the Accord has some uncomfortable seats.

The 2013 Accord, for example, had many complaints about its seats, according to Car Complaints. The average mileage of those Accords was just 16,000 miles, and one of the most common solutions was to just replace the seats. That cost, on average, about $270. 

Another model year that suffered from this same issue was the 2017 Accord. Once again, its most common complaint was that it had uncomfortable seats. However, the average mileage of those complaints was very low at just under 1,000 miles. Once again, one of the most common solutions was to just replace those uncomfortable seats.