Complaint volume
908 consumer-submitted complaints are matched to this model year. Treat the count as a research signal, then read the actual summaries for repeated symptoms.
Complaint records
2018 Honda Odyssey Complaints
908 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2018 Honda Odyssey, grouped by component category.
908 Total complaints
13 Crash reports
3 Fire reports
16 Injury reports
Complaint data reflects consumer-submitted reports. A complaint is not proof
of a defect, recall, or manufacturer fault. Enriched severity fields come
from official bulk records when the complaint can be matched by ODI number.
Buyer interpretation
How to use these complaints before buying
Complaint records are most useful when they turn into inspection points, seller questions, and comparison checks against nearby model years.
Pattern to inspect
The most common categories are engine, electrical system, power train. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 13 crash reports, 3 fire reports, 16 injury reports, and 1 fatality report. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 243 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 37,613 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to engine, electrical system, power train?
- Can I see recent maintenance and repair records?
- Has the vehicle ever been towed, involved in a crash, or repaired for the same issue twice?
- Can we also check the recall record for this 2018 Honda Odyssey?
Used-car checklist
Use these complaints before the test drive.
Build a buyer checklist to turn these issues into questions and inspection points.
2018 Honda Odyssey
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2018 Honda Odyssey complaints?
13 Crash
3 Fire
16 Injury
1 Fatality
20 Towed
7 Medical attention
What are the most common 2018 Honda Odyssey complaint categories?
ENGINE 87
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 84
POWER TRAIN 80
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 60
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 59
STRUCTURE 56
FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM 32
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 30
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,STRUCTURE 22
FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE 21
908 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2022 | POWER TRAIN,ENGINE | The vehicle has a very significant delay in accelerating from a stop or slow roll. Often the delay is up to 2 or 3 seconds and has caused several near misses when attempting to cross traffic. It's inconvenient and more important, a safety problem. Upon research I have discovered it is a wide spread issue among Odysseys in this generation. It seems to be an issue with cars equipped with either the 9 speed or the 10 speed transmission. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | Our van regularly hesitates when to accelerate from a stop. Example, when turning left across traffic, depressing the accelerator will provide some speed to get into the intersection, then it becomes unresponsive. Letting up and pushing the accelerator will cause the van to move again after about .5 to 1 seconds. Often the accelerator has to be pushed all the way to the floor, which causes the van to move aggressively once it does start to respond causing the tires to spin out. This has been happening since the vehicle was under warranty, however, the dealer wasn’t able to find an issue. While the performance issue is annoying, this becomes a safety issue when stranded out in traffic. There are no service lights on before, during or after the incidents. It seems to happen more in winter, but we have experienced it throughout the seasons. It also occurs whether eco mode is on or off. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | STRUCTURE | Power rear sliding door will not close properly. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN | The transmission does not accelerate properly from a rolling stop. When at a stop and slightly depressing of the accelerator to get the vehicle moving prior to making a turn (for example), if you take slight pressure off the accelerator pedal the vehicle will not accelerate until the engine RPM's fall below 1,000RPM. This causes a slight delay in acceleration as the vehicle is rolling but unable to accelerate. This poses a collision risk from oncoming traffic. I reported this issue multiple times with my local Honda dealership and was told each time that there was no issue, this is normal for a Honda and "this is a known issue with no fix". Three times with three different excuses. This has been occurring from around 30K miles and continues today with 72K miles. There are no warnings or lights. The dealer has reprogrammed the transmission computer and I have paid for a transmission fluid change hoping for improvement but nothing has worked. I have sent a message to Honda Motors about 4-6 months ago and has not heard a response from corporate or the dealership. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2018 Honda Odyssey. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds, a collision mitigation system message would flash on the instrument panel without incident. Recently, the contact stated that while his wife was driving the vehicle, the warning message repeatedly flashed on the screen before the entire instrument panel went blank. The contact called multiple dealers about the failure but had not yet schedule an appointment for the vehicle to be diagnosed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 80,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 80,000 |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle suddenly shifts to Nuetral when driving forward at approximately 30mph to 55mph. The Collision warning system and the Emergency Braking system then shows falt/inoperative on the information display. This is an extremely dangerous situation that causes the vehicle to suddenly lose forward power. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Both the dashboard and the computer shut down randomly, different warning signs pop up intermittently and the wheel locks up for a short time. It happens while driving at unpredictable times. It happened on the highway at the speed of 65 mph. and the vehicle is temporarily is not under driver’s control. Yes, I took the vehicle for repair 3 times. Yes, the certified car dealership had identified different issues but none of them had fixed the problem. No, not by insurance or the manufacturer. No, no warning signs prior. First it happened in July, 2022 | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN | The transmission has intermittent harsh or jerky upshifts with steady acceleration, or the MIL comes on with DTC P0716. Abnormal TCM adaptation values or a miscalculation in the TCM software causes the MIL to come on with DTC P0716. The harsh upshifts cause a momentary driver distraction which may cause an accident. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN,SERVICE BRAKES,LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES | The contact owns a 2018 Honda Odyssey. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed and depressing the accelerator pedal, the transmission failed to operate as needed and was shifting hard. Additionally, the vehicle would hesitate to respond and there was an abnormal loud mechanical sound coming from the engine compartment. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer who performed a Transmission Control Module (TCM) software update. However, the failures persisted. The contact also stated that the vehicle would jerk and would shudder when depressing the brake pedal. The contact stated that the rear driver's side and passenger's side sliding doors would reopen independently after being closed. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failures. The failure mileage was 50,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 50,000 |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN,LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While attempting to cross a road the vehicle suddenly stopped accelerating. This happened after entering the roadway with heavy traffic and my family in the vehicle, I pressed the accelerator pedal all the way down nothing. Then after a brief 5sec of fear the vehicle jerks into gear making everyone slam back into their seats. This has been reported by many owners on various forums, some of which were in accidents. This will not end well for a few drivers and their families. Honda technicians try and diagnosing this with no luck, said” I’ve never seen this issue, 64K miles great condition no damages to the transmission core unfortunately we are 4K miles over warranty!? At here is a recall for very similar issues same VF 9 speed transmission but my vin didn’t fall under the recall, American Honda said they weren’t going to help because I didn’t have “customer loyalty” I’m asking the technician to dissemble the transmission and take a bunch of pictures to try and help explain how this happened and how to avoid this from happening again because next time we may not be so luck. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,LANE DEPARTURE,BACK OVER PREVENTION | The rear view camera on this car is defective. Honda and the dealership appear to be playing games with customers stating that they will get this dealt with but no ETA has been forthcoming the whole of 2022. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | STRUCTURE | After having the odyssey repaired for the recall rear passenger door latches, the rear passenger door still continues to open randomly, it has happened on multiple occasions while the vehicle is parked (at a park) with no one near the vehicle, at least twice since the repair while the vehicle is going between the speeds of 35-45 mph the rear passenger door on the driver side slides open. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | When the pedal is pressed, there is a delay in acceleration. This has happened several times over the past couple of months. It seems to happen mostly when trying to make a left-hand turn, typically at low speeds or from a stop. I will have time to make a safe left turn, but the unexpected delay in acceleration has created dangerous situations and has almost caused accidents. I'm not sure what's causing it because I can't re-create on-demand. The car has been well maintained and no error codes or warning lights are on. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2022 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | Auto idle system engaged when the car was stopped waiting for a train to pass last night. When I took my foot off the brake to move forward, the car completely went dead. No engine start up after auto idle, no electrical system available for emergency flasher lights. No response from the van at all. This put us at considerable safety risk when we could not process through traffic, at night, on a dark country road. A kind passerby attempted to jump start the car for us and while the electrical system came back on momentarily, the engine would not turn over. After five attempts to jump start the van, we stopped trying. There was zero response from the van after that. We purchased this vehicle brand new in December of 2017. It has had electrical issues ever since the day we bought it. We have reported this to our Honda dealer several times over the course of the past 4+ years. Initially, the auto idle never worked. Then the sliding doors wouldn't shut all the way, reliably. They continue to cause issues and won't close all the way, without popping back open, about 60% of the time. The radio and entertainment center has malfunctioned. The collision warning has malfunctioned and alerts at times when there is nothing in the way of the vehicle. It has been several electrical issues after another. We have had multiple new batteries installed over the past 4+ years. Last night was the absolute greatest risk to our family's safety. The vehicle has experienced this "black out"/stall another time in the past year, but was temporary and came back on after a full restart of the engine. Last night, however, there was no hope to restart. The van was completely seized up and a tow truck had to drag it onto its flatbed truck, assuredly damaging our tires and transmission, potentially. We will have to have the van towed to the Honda dealer Monday morning (this incident happened last night, Saturday Oct 1, 2022.). Now we are without our primary family vehicle. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER,ENGINE | I have an 2018 Odyssey Touring that apparently has a problem with the auto-idle stop while driving at slow speeds, many times (2 to 6 times a day) for a few weeks now. It starts with a weird noise (like a loud record scratch) through the speakers, then engine turns off, dash and radio shuts off too and immediately everything turns on again. Car don’t go to park, it stays on drive mode. Sometimes I was able to read different messages on the dashboard or radio about “Collition mitigation system” “anti theft system” and sometimes “loading” appears on the radio screen. This messages disappear quickly. Before this problems happened, the DVD rear screen stopped working (it’s completely black) while the DVD can be heard playing on the speakers. Don’t know if the two issues are related. I'm worried this can cause the car to stop at higher speeds and cause an accident, my wife usually drives this car with the kids with her. I took the car to a Honda dealership, they run diagnostic tests and it doesn't show anything. I left the car at the dealership, they will try to replicate the problem to understand what is happening. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | ENGINE,FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | On at least 3 occasions, the "Auto Engine Idle Stop" has caused my vehicle to completely die while stopped at a stop light. When the car shuts off/dies, the system prompts you to shift the car in park and restart the car, but on these occasions, the car did not start, leaving me stalled in active traffic. I felt very unsafe to be stalled with no way to operate the vehicle. The dealership checked the battery to ensure it wasn't a battery issue and found it to be completely fine. At the time we did not realize that it could be a problem with the Auto Engine Idle Stop feature, otherwise we would've had them check that system specifically. Further research from other customer forums online prompted us to turn this feature off, but we have to do that every time we start the car. There is no way for us to turn it off permanently. The car gives you no warning that this will happen. When you remove your foot from the break to resume driving, the car shuts off without immediately restarting, leaving you stranded. I am hoping that Honda will issue a recall on affected models. At this point they aren't offering any help other than to tell us to turn it off, but you have to remember to do that every time you start your vehicle. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | ENGINE | engine reves , no forward movement. Happened the first time on 80/94 east bound (traffic slowed @ 34-36 mph). 4 times now in the last two years. Seems that the speed is always the same when it happens. , into Community Honda, Orland Park, IL . They say no problem . No warning signals. Husband with me the last time it happened Sept. 2, 2022 definately something dangerously wrong. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The automatic emergency braking system has failed multiple times. The vehicle is available for inspection. My safety and the safety of others are put at risk when my vehicle executes unexpected emergency braking. The problem has been reproduced and confirmed by the dealer on two different occasions. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives of other, except the Honda dealer. No other warning lamps, messages of other symptoms. Around Feb 1, 2019 the car started applying the brakes when crossing slightly raised railroad tracks. The braking action was hard enough to engage the antilock brake feature. On 2/11/19 the vehicle was taken to AutoWest Honda for warranty repairs at 22,853 miles. The millimeter radar was mis-aimed. This corrected the problem. See attached repair order. On 9/21/20 while driving on the freeway at approximately 65 miles per hour the automatic emergency braking system activated as I passed a vehicle on the right. There were no vehicles in front of me. Braking was again hard enough to activate the anti lock brake system. The vehicle behind me just taped my car. Only a tiny nick was put in my bumper. On 9/22/20 i returned the vehicle to AutoWest Honda. The car had 47,655 miles on the odometer. It was found that the millimeter radar was mis-aligned again. It was realigned free of charge and all was well for the next 22,000 or so miles. On or about 8/25/22, with approximately 66,000 miles on the odometer the automatic emergency braking system activated at about 65 miles per hour as I was passing a vehicle on the right. Again the anti lock braking system activated. The vehicle behind me did not hit my vehicle, but was apparently hit from behind as I saw at least one vehicle run off into the ditch as I looked in my rearview mirror. I believe this to be a design defect in the vehicle The mis-alignment of the millimeter radar appears to be an ongoing problem about every 22,000 miles | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | My 2018 Honda Odyssey elite regularly hesitates from the stopped position. This often causes a safety hazard when turning right into traffic or making a left turn because I am not able to accelerate for several seconds and the vehicle feels as if it is stalling out. It is a known mechanical defect with Honda and they do not currently have a resolution. When reported, I was told the mechanical system defects to switching through all the gears before accelerating, causing the delay. I have brought the car into the dealership regarding the issue and have been dealing with Honda headquarters with no resolution. There have been several close calls when I have made a left turn/ right turn into traffic and the vehicle hesitates for a few seconds. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,AIR BAGS,STRUCTURE | It is very common for the vehicle model to experience water intrusion toward the back lift gate because of rain. This can cause electric problems with the vehicle that can result in property damage or death. Airbags may not deploy due to water damage as well. Theses vehicles should be recalled as soon as possible. Most owner are not aware of this issue because they park vans in a garage. Please investigate this matter and issue a recall | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jul 2022 | POWER TRAIN | The contact owns a 2018 Honda Odyssey. The contact stated while attempting to accelerate, there was a delay in response from the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing. The mechanic was unable to determine the cause of the failure however, the TCM module software was updated and the vehicle operated normally. The contact stated the dealer informed him that the failure could reoccur. The manufacturer was contacted and suggested that the vehicle be diagnosed by the dealer. The failure mileage was 17,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 17,000 |
| Jul 2022 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2018 Honda Odyssey. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle hesitated during acceleration with the transmission message displayed. The vehicle was towed to the dealer where it was diagnosed with transmission failure. The dealer informed the contact that the transmission needed to be replaced. The vehicle was then towed to a transmission specialist who related the failure to NHTSA Campaign Number: 19V299000 (Power Train, Electrical System) however, the VIN was not included in the recall. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and informed the contact that there was no recall associated with the VIN. The failure mileage was approximately 153,000. | Crash: No Fire: No Towed | 153,000 |
| Jul 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | Vehicle keeps turning on accessory mode uncommanded. Resulting in draining battery. Battery is then recharged and process starts over again. Took vehicle to Honda dealership for diagnosis. Dealership diagnosed tailgate control module. Disconnected all connections to that module and problem persists. Constant discharge and recharge of battery presents a fire hazard. A automotive/mechanical engineer evaluated the problem, suggested it was the body control module and highly recommended I not park my vehicle in my attached garage until the problem is resolved. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jul 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | The automatic tail gate hatch closes when its fully open. It will close while under it and bumps your head if you're not careful. I have bumped my head a few times. Nothing serious enough to see a doctor but it happens 95% of the time the gate is opened. I reported this to Honda dealer where I purchased the vehicle over two years ago before COVID but it doesn't seem to concern them. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jul 2022 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,ENGINE | My wife was waiting outside in our vehicle with our kids while I was running an errand. She stated that she went to move the car and as she put it in reverse, the car rolled forward and automatically engaged itself into park. Then she stated that the van also started sputtering and shaking. She shut it off and got our kids out of the car. When I got back to the car, she was explaining it to me. I then started to troubleshoot by checking for blown fuses, bad battery connections and etc. Everything appeared as it should be. I turned the car on to the accessory mode, and it was throwing almost every code possible if not all of them. It showed emissions system, abs systems, hill start and several others. With the car still in accessory mode, I noticed the radiator fans were not coming on as they should have. Also the engine bay was hot, as in the air filter housing was hot enough that you could not keep your hand on it. After letting it cool down, I inspected the battery terminals again for any loose connections and could not find anything. We ended up having to get a tow truck to tow it to a shop to get it worked on. The van has 73k miles on it. The vehicle would not go into gear for us. It was also sputtering when running. It sounds like an electrical issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |