2012 Honda Accord
This year drew an ordinary 746 complaints for a Honda Accord — the model's median is 530. What they were about is the unusual part: 17.4% of them mention tires, against 6.2% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This Honda Accord ran from 2008 to 2012, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 746 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 530 |
| Involving a crash | 94 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 8 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 26 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- tires — 17.4% of this year's complaints, against 6.2% across the other years of this generation (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: tires, tire, vibration, balanced.
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
WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 60 MPH THE CONTACT NOTICED A SHIMMY IN THE STEERING WHEEL AND VIBRATION THROUGHOUT THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO THE DEALER FOR DIAGNOSTIC TESTING THREE DIFFERENT TIMES. THE TECHNICIANS WERE UNABLE TO DIAGNOSE THE FAILURE. T…
TAKATA RECALL MY 2012 HONDA ACCORD HAS A CONSISTENT VIBRATION/SHIMMING WHILE DRIVING IN THE HIGHWAY. I REPLACED ALL 4 TIRES WITH BRAND NEW TIRES, HAD THE TIRES BALANCE BUT THE PROBLEM PERSIST AT 60+MPH. I HAVE READ MANY TESTIMONIES ONLINE ABOUT THE SAME ISSUES…
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.
- 17V030000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V042000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 12V030000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Honda Accord 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 2012 Honda Accord? What happened to yours?
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