Is the 2017 Honda Accord hybrid a good car?
Depends on what you mean by “good.” Depends on what you intend to use it for. Depends on how the previous owner treated the car.
As for reliability and problems, look here…
1 Like
I own 2019 Accord Hybrid, and overall, car is great, but I had some bad carma I described here: 2019 Honda Accord Hybrid: intermittent "brake system" warning light and on-dash warnings
Some people complaint it has “poor MPG”, which is often indicative to either short rides they take or lead foot.
This vehicle gets to the “proper” MPG only after 3-4 miles of driving, so if your commute is under 10 miles, you will never get to the EPA’s 47 MPG rating.
I get around 44-46 MPG on 12-miles commute and up to 50 on long (30+) runs.
Overall: nice, comfortable, a little bit too soft on steering.
Car is peppier than non-hybrid base Accord with 1.5 turbo, but gets behind 2.0 “sport” turbo.
Unfortunately, Honda’s reliability record has taken a pretty large hit over the past couple of years. Additionally, their hybrids have never been as reliable as those of Toyota.
Yes, Honda took quite a dip with their last generation (1.5 turbo in particular), which they seem to correct on the “refresh” update, but the “fame” will follow that for years now.
Their hybrids are quite different from the Toyota take, they are “sequential” type, not a “synergy” what Toyota was pushing, but their main weakness was in battery, which was deteriorating faster than Toyota.
From what I’ve checked in the quite shallow research, they use half the voltage of Toyota and similar (a little bit lesser) Amp-Hour capacity, so it is half Watt-Hours of Prius and it looks like their battery has to work twice as hard on charge/discharge as the comparable size/weight-wise Prius.
Last generation, they seem to recognize the issue and use higher Watt-Hour capacity battery, but they also transitioned to Li-Ion technology, so the long-term result is still to be determined.
On the same note, Toyota transitioned to Li-Ion in Prius and low-end Camry LE too, so I would not say they proved how it will wear long-term too, it is yet to be determined.
What does pretty large hit mean? I’m serious. Qualitative references like this aren’t helpful IMO. I’d appreciate it if you could provide quantitative information. @texases did that a couple of years ago, and it was interesting and useful data.
If you take a look at CR’s ratings of the various auto manufacturers in their April, 2019 issue, they list Honda as #13 out of 33. That rating was calculated according to an algorithm that included (in this order) their models’ ranking in terms of road performance, reliability, and owner satisfaction.
So, the ranking wasn’t purely on the basis of reliability, and while they rate Honda–overall–“average” in reliability, this is certainly a drop from their previous rankings. The makes that they rate better than Honda in terms of reliability are… Hyundai, Toyota, Mazda, Lexus, Audi, and Subaru.
1 Like
Thanks. I’ll look it up at my public library to see if I can understand it a little better. Not that it matters, we bought two new cars in the last three years. Being 13th doesn’t bother me at all. Even if the ratings were strictly reliability, I wouldn’t be concerned. CRs reliability ratings have compressed so much that I would not be concerned unless something is considerably below average, and then mostly because I can’t see how far below average.
… and, we have to remember that reliability ratings include things like wonky/badly-designed in-car electronics. A vehicle can be very good in terms of engine & transmission reliability, but when a huge number of owners report problems with the infotainment system, the overall reliability rating can take a big hit.
Their bottom-of-the-barrel reliability rankings are filled with the usual suspects:
Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Cadillac, Chrysler/Dodge, Volvo, Chevrolet/GMC, and… Tesla.