The Honda Civic isn’t anything new. It’s been around for years now. During that time, Honda, a Japanese automaker, spent time making changes to improve upon the Civic. These changes have helped it maintain its success over the years.

However, some issues have come up here and there, which have people rethinking what they’ve always known about the Civic. Is it still reliable, or did it fall from that grace they’ve always had before? Consumer Reports share their input on how the Honda Civic has held up over the years.

Consumer Reports reliability rating for the Honda Civic

Consumer Reports consider the consumer’s input when determining their reliability score. Based on the data they collected, their overall rating for the 2020 Honda Civic is 73 out of 100 possible points.

The notes given for the previous models begin after the year 2000. For the years 2001 to 2005, the Civic hybrid version struggled with battery issues, which continued into the next generation. From 2006 to 2011, the Civic not only continued to struggle with battery problems, but it also created new ones with the body’s paint and the air conditioning and heating system.

The next generation of this compact car starts in 2012 and goes to 2015. In this generation, the major issue they had was with the brake system. The 2016 to 2019 models saw improvements with the body paint, but the climate system issues didn’t find relief until 2017.

A new problem arose with the in-car electronic systems that same year. Consumer Reports likes the new model so far and recommend the Honda Civic as a good candidate for compact cars.

Repair Pal’s reliability scores for the Honda Civic

Another site adding their input on the subject is RepairPal.com. Repair Pal rated the Honda Civic based on repair invoice information they pulled from their database to determine how reliable it was. The three main areas they looked at were the cost of repairs, how often they were done, and how severe the repair was. When it came to the cost, the Civic had an annual average cost of $368. The overall average with all compact cars was $562.

The number of times the Civic came in for repair work turned out to be .2 times a year. This is lower than the overall average of .3 times a year for all compact cars put together. When it came to the severity of the work done on this vehicle, only 10% were major repairs. The overall average with all compact cars was 11%. Based on these figures, Repair Pal ranked the Honda Civic #3 out of the 36 compact cars they looked at in their database.

Overall thoughts on reliability

As with almost every vehicle model out there, some generations tend to bring headaches, especially when redesign years come up. New concepts can easily be implemented, but when put to use, they can sometimes fail and it comes time to go back to the drawing board to address the issue. Honda had to do that a few times over the many years that the Civic has been in production. In most of those cases, the problems were fixed and later improved upon.

As for whether or not you can consider the Civic reliable, it isn’t too hard to determine. The track record with this compact vehicle has been pretty good, despite the complaints that came up with various model years.

In the end, this Honda has always been known for its durability and reliability and it’s not likely to change much in the future. For sure, problems will arise, but Honda has shown it will handle those issues well.