2010 Honda Civic
This year drew an ordinary 396 complaints for a Honda Civic — the model's median is 440. What they were about is the unusual part: 18.4% of them mention brakes, against 5.1% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 1 of the Honda Civic, which began in 2006 and ran to 2011. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 396 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 440 |
| Involving a crash | 31 |
| Involving a fire | 5 |
| Recalls | 8 |
| EPA combined | 29 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- brakes — 18.4% of this year's complaints, against 5.1% across the other years of this generation (3.6×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
I WENT FOR MY REGULAR MAINTENANCE SERVICE AND I WAS TOLD THAT MY BRAKES NEED [VIN]. BRAKES WORN OUT AT VERY LOW MILEAGE AND IT IS NOT COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE BRAKE SYSTEM.
WHILE PARKING, THERE WAS SUDDEN ACCELERATION. AS HE DEPRESSED THE BRAKES THE VEHICLE SLOWED DOWN. THE VEHICLE WAS NEVER TAKEN TO THE DEALER AND THE [VIN] WAS NOT NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 1,000.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V661000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V268000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 19V502000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 19V378000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 17V545000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V042000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 17V030000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 16V346000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Honda Civic was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2010 Honda Civic? What happened to yours?
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