2014 Honda Civic
This year drew an ordinary 290 complaints for a Honda Civic — the model's median is 440. What they were about is the unusual part: 25.9% of them mention transmission, against 3.5% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Honda Civic, which began in 2012 and ran to 2015. 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 | 290 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 440 |
| Involving a crash | 30 |
| Involving a fire | 4 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 31.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 25.9% of this year's complaints, against 3.5% across the other years of this generation (7.4×).
- cvt — 9% of this year's complaints, against 0.9% across the other years of this generation (9.4×). Owners wrote it as: cvt, cvt transmission, maintenance.
- train — 10.7% of this year's complaints, against 2.4% across the other years of this generation (4.4×). Owners wrote it as: train, power train, vin included, residence.
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
notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 15V574000 (Power Train). The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle lost motive power. The vehicle was towed to the dealer and diagnosed with continuously variable transmission (CVT) pulley…
while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle lost motive power. The vehicle failed to restart. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, where it was diagnosed that the transmission needed to be replaced. The V…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 15V574000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 14V109000 TIRES 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 2014 Honda Civic? What happened to yours?
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