The year to buy, for 24 cars people actually buy
Every one of these models has a first year flagged for unusual complaints, and a later year with none. Same car, same showroom, different risk.
The previous post established that a first model year is about five times as likely to be flagged for unusual complaints as a last one. That is a fact about populations, which is interesting and not directly useful.
This is the useful version: the specific years, for the cars most people are actually shopping for.
Of the 24 popular models below, ten have a flagged year in their current generation. In all ten, the flagged year is the first one. Not most of them. All of them.
The table
A year is flagged when its complaint count runs unusually high against that model’s own history. “Current generation” means the redesign the car is on now.
| Model | Current generation | Flagged years in it | A cleaner late year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Honda Pilot | 2016– | 2016, 2017, 2019 | 2022 |
| Honda CR-V | 2017–2022 | 2017, 2018 | 2022 |
| Honda Odyssey | 2018– | 2018, 2019 | 2024 |
| Subaru Forester | 2019– | 2019, 2020 | 2024 |
| Honda Accord | 2018–2022 | 2018 | 2022 |
| Jeep Wrangler | 2018– | 2018, 2024 | 2023 |
| Chevrolet Silverado 1500 | 2019– | 2019 | 2024 |
| Toyota RAV4 | 2019– | 2019 | 2024 |
| Subaru Outback | 2020– | 2020 | 2024 |
| Honda Civic | 2022– | 2022 | 2024 |
| Toyota Camry | 2018– | none | 2024 |
| Toyota Corolla | 2020– | none | 2024 |
| Toyota Highlander | 2020– | none | 2024 |
| Ford F-150 | 2021– | none | 2024 |
| Ford Escape | 2020– | none | 2024 |
| Ford Explorer | 2020– | none | 2024 |
| Chevrolet Equinox | 2018– | none | 2024 |
| Nissan Rogue | 2021– | none | 2024 |
| Nissan Altima | 2019– | none | 2024 |
| Jeep Grand Cherokee | 2022– | none | 2024 |
| Hyundai Sonata | 2020– | none | 2024 |
| Hyundai Elantra | 2021– | none | 2024 |
| Kia Sorento | 2021– | none | 2024 |
| Mazda CX-5 | 2017– | none | 2024 |
Ten of twenty-four have a flagged year. Every single one of those ten is the generation’s opening year, and six of them have the second year flagged too.
Nothing in the method looks for this. A year is flagged by comparing its complaint volume against the model’s own median — the calculation has no idea when a redesign happened. The pattern is in the cars.
What the flag actually means
It means owners of that year filed complaints at an unusual rate for that model. It does not mean the car is dangerous, and it does not mean yours will break.
The 2016 Pilot is a good example of both the signal and its limits. It is flagged, and what its owners wrote about most is the connecting rod bearings — a real and expensive failure. It is also a Honda Pilot, and most of them are fine. The flag says the odds moved, not that the outcome is settled.
The half nobody mentions
Every discussion of this stops at “avoid the first year”. The other half is worth more money.
The last year of a generation is the version that has had the full run to find its problems and fix them — and it is also, right at that moment, the cheapest one on the lot, because a shiny redesign has just made it look old. The market prices the styling. It does not price the sorted-out engineering.
A 2022 CR-V and a 2017 CR-V are the same generation of the same car. One of them is flagged and one is not.
Caveats, plainly
Only models with hand-curated generation boundaries appear here, which is why you get 24 and not 627. Cars whose generations we have not curated are absent rather than guessed at.
“Cleaner late year” means the latest year in that generation not flagged, using model years through 2024 so that a year still gathering its record is not judged against one that has finished. It is not a recommendation of a specific car, and it says nothing about the one in front of you with 60,000 miles and a service history you have not read.
And there are no sales figures anywhere in this. Every comparison is a model against itself, which is the only way to sidestep the fact that popular cars draw more complaints at equal reliability.
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