2018 Honda Accord10th gen (2018–2022), first year

Updated 2026-09-02NHTSA counts read on this date — 1848 complaints. They rise over time.

352 Filings on the 2018 Accord Name the Head Gasket. Nearly All Are the 1.5-Liter.

352 filings on this model year name the head gasket. That is 19.0 percent of everything filed on the car.

349 of them decode to an engine, and 327 of those are the 1.5-liter turbo. That is 94 percent, against 78 percent of the filings that decode. Sixteen points is a wide gap for a record this size.

113 mention coolant. 43 describe the car overheating. 51 describe it stalling. 76 give a dollar figure and 44 of those reach $5,000 or more.

No recall covers it, and 83 of the 352 ask for one.

This one is not over. 51 of the 352 arrived in 2024, 140 in 2025 and 145 in the first nine months of 2026. Nine months of 2026 has already passed all of 2025.

Owners have filed 1,848 complaints with NHTSA about the gasoline 2018 model year, more than any other year here and more than the 2015, 2016 and 2017 cars put together. Honda sold 322,655 Accords in calendar year 2017 and 291,071 in 2018 — that figure covers the whole Accord line including the hybrid — and 2018 cars were sold across both of those years. 1,848 complaints against a few hundred thousand cars is not a failure rate, and 1,848 filings are not 1,848 owners.

One note on scope: the hybrids are out. NHTSA files this car under four model names and the names don’t split cleanly. Every filing here was matched to a gasoline car by its VIN. On this model year that removed 125.

The basics

The first year of the tenth generation, and a clean break from the ninth. New platform, new body, no V6 and no coupe. Two turbocharged four-cylinders: a 1.5-liter with a CVT or a six-speed manual, and a 2.0-liter with a ten-speed automatic or the same manual. Honda Sensing is standard on every trim, which it was not on the 2017.

The 1.5 is the volume engine, and it is the one this page is mostly about.

Specs

Displacement and cylinder count are from NHTSA’s vPIC catalog, which holds what the manufacturer submitted. Fuel economy is EPA, city / highway / combined, in mpg. EPA lists two automatic ratings for the 1.5 and doesn’t say which version gets which, so both are here.

What owners filed

Sections below are sorted by count. Each complaint is counted once, under a two-step rule. Step one: if a filing names a specific failure — the power steering, a head gasket, a fuel pump, the collision mitigation system, the daytime running lights — it goes to that section. Step two: everything left over gets sorted by NHTSA’s own component labels, in a fixed order — driver assistance, steering, brakes, fuel, engine, transmission, electrical, lighting, air bags, body.

The same rule applies to every year in this series. The cross-year table on the model page uses NHTSA’s labels alone, so a section here can come out bigger or smaller than the matching row on that page.

The sections below add up to 1,682. The remaining 166 are spread across the smaller categories, and the last section below breaks them out.

Three sections hold two thirds of this record. Driver assistance is 447, engine is 394 and fuel is 386. On the 2017 car the three largest are 104, 65 and 49.

The head gasket does not sit inside one of them. 302 of the 352 land in engine, 36 in fuel, 9 in driver assistance and 5 in steering. The 352 is counted across the whole record, so it does not add onto anything below it.

Engine type comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing. 1,805 of the 1,848 decode to one of the two engines — 1,412 are the 1.5 and 393 are the 2.0, so the 1.5 is 78.2 percent of the filings that decode. That is the baseline every engine share on this page is measured against.

This is not a failure rate by engine. Nothing here divides failures by how many of each engine Honda built, because the complaint record doesn’t contain that. What it can do is show that one failure sits sixteen points above that baseline.

Driver assistance — 447

Counted as filings that name the collision mitigation system, lane keeping or adaptive cruise, plus those NHTSA tagged forward collision avoidance or lane departure.

The largest section on the page, and bigger than the head gasket one — for a different reason. Honda Sensing is standard on every 2018 trim. On the 2017 car it was an option and this section is 23. More cars have the system, which is not the same as more of them failing.

165 name the collision mitigation system, 105 the adaptive cruise, 25 lane keeping.

58 describe the car braking with nothing in front of it.

ODI 11454368:

“Vehicle safety collision system has tried to stop my vehicle on at least 3 occasions when nothing was in front of it. Happened on highway. Vehicle sensed a ghost and slammed on the brakes. The cmbs system gives errors often and tries to shut systems down and brake the car while traveling. Happens often and has happened since the car was new. Dealer has no idea about issues.”

121 of the 447 mention something in front of the sensor — snow, ice, rain, road spray, sun, dirt. That is a different complaint from the one above: the system announcing it cannot see, rather than reacting to something that is not there. The section holds both and the record does not separate them for you.

Engine — 394

Counted as filings that name a head gasket or overheating, plus those NHTSA tagged engine or engine and cooling.

302 name the head gasket. 102 name coolant, 72 name the turbo, 49 describe overheating, 48 describe a stall.

ODI 11731653:

“Apparently, my car has a leaking head gasket. It was confirmed by the Honda Dealership. While driving it will go in limp mode and will no longer accelerate. I have to pull off to the side of the road, turn the car off, and back on just to get to where I’m going. It is causing my car to stutter really bad and we’re constantly having to put coolant in it. This is a safety issue and will cost about $7000 to get fixed. The most recent time it did it, I was at a stop sign and starting to go to turn and my car just would no longer accelerate.”

Of the 76 head gasket filings that give a dollar figure, 44 reach $5,000 or more. Not all of those are repair quotes — one owner writes that the dealer wants $10,000 and the car is worth about $13,000, and the second figure is what the car is worth.

16 say they asked Honda for goodwill coverage. 10 say they were turned down.

Fuel system — 386

Counted as filings that name a fuel pump or fuel in the oil, plus those NHTSA tagged fuel system or fuel and propulsion.

149 name the fuel pump and 83 describe a stall. Two campaigns cover the pump on this car, three years apart, and they are below.

36 of the head gasket filings land here rather than in engine, because the owner wrote about the coolant or the smell before writing about the part.

Brakes — 131

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged service brakes or parking brake.

24 are about the pedal and 11 about the parking brake. Only four describe the car braking on its own — the rest went to driver assistance, where the owner named the system.

Electrical — 113

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged electrical system.

20 are about the screen freezing or going blank, 16 name the battery, 8 the backup camera. The static that dominates the 2016 car is not here, and this is a different generation.

Steering — 54

Counted as filings that name the power steering or the EPS, plus those NHTSA tagged steering.

21 name the power steering or the EPS. On the 2013 car this section is 514 filings.

Transmission — 54

Counted as filings that name the CVT, the transmission or a driveshaft, plus those NHTSA tagged power train.

Six describe a harsh, slipping or hesitating shift. Three name the CVT.

Air bags and belts — 44

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged air bags or seat belts.

One of the six campaigns is here — the front seat belt buckle, from 2023.

Body and structure — 44

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged structure.

24 are paint or rust and 14 are about a door or the trunk.

Exterior lighting — 15

Counted as filings that name the daytime running lights, plus those NHTSA tagged exterior lighting.

13 name a headlight. On the 2016 car this section is 116.

The rest is thin

166 filings. NHTSA tagged 102 of them unknown or other, 16 visibility/wiper, 10 back over prevention, 5 wheels and 5 vehicle speed control. Six more carry NHTSA’s plain visibility label, which is a different one. Nothing else reaches four.

Recalls

Six campaigns reach a gasoline 2018 Accord, more than any earlier year in this series. None of them is the head gasket.

The two fuel pumps

20V314000 — May 2020, and 23V858000 — December 2023. Both are the fuel pump inside the tank, and both name the same consequence.

“Fuel pump failure can cause an engine stall while driving, increasing the risk of a crash.”

Dealers replace the pump module. The 2023 campaign covers 2013–2023 Accords and most of the Honda and Acura line; owner letters went out September 6, 2024.

When two campaigns three years apart cover the same part, ask about both by number rather than assuming the first one settled it.

The seat belt buckle

23V158000 — March 2023. A manufacturing problem in the front seat belt buckle assembly. It covers 2017–2020 CR-Vs, 2018–2019 Accords and Accord Hybrids, 2018–2020 Odysseys, 2019 Insights and 2019–2020 Acura RDXs.

The backup camera

18V629000 — September 2018. The backup camera center display may not work properly, and Honda filed it as a compliance recall rather than a defect recall. Dealers reprogram the display audio unit software.

This is the campaign the 2017 car does not get, and 51 filings on that page describe the same failure.

The body control module

20V771000 — December 2020, covering 2018–2020 Accord Sedans, Accord Hybrids and 2019–2020 Insights. A software error can disrupt communication inside the car.

The seat weight sensor

26V332000 — May 2026, the newest thing here. The front passenger seat weight sensor can crack and short circuit.

“Air bags that deploy unintentionally during a crash increase the risk of injury.”

Owner letters were mailed July 7, 2026. It is recent enough that a car on a lot today may not have had it done.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

NHTSA gives the 2018 Accord five stars overall, five in the frontal test, five on side impact and four on rollover.

Nothing in the complaint record argues with that. Owners do not file about crash ratings.

The 1.5 with the CVT returns 33 mpg combined, three better than the 2017 car’s 2.4.

What the complaint curve says

2017    3     2021  127     2025  334
2018  123     2022  192     2026  258
2019  159     2023  181
2020  122     2024  349

Half of this record arrived in the last three years. It runs between 122 and 192 for six years, then jumps. 2024, 2025 and 2026 hold 941 of the 1,848, and the 2026 figure covers nine months.

The head gasket is what changed. 336 of the 352 head gasket filings came in 2024 or later. The whole-record count has been easing since the 2024 spike; the head gasket count has not — it went 51, then 140, then 145 in nine months.

A complaint count going up can mean owners got a recall notice, not that the cars got worse. The two campaigns that could have done that here are the fuel pump in December 2023 and the seat sensor in May 2026. Neither covers the head gasket, and the head gasket is what the new filings are about.

What this record does line up with is mileage and age. These cars are eight years old. But a head gasket is not a wear item.

Complaint databases collect complaints. Nobody files to say the engine held. You can’t compare these numbers across models unless both sets were counted the same way.

If you’re looking at one

Ordered by how much it hurts if it goes wrong, not by how many people filed.

Find out which engine it has, and if it is the 1.5, treat the head gasket as the thing you are checking for. 94 percent of the head gasket filings that decode are the 1.5. The badge on the trunk says the trim, not the engine, so check the listing or have the dealer read it off the VIN.

Open the coolant reservoir cold and look at the level and the color. 113 of the 352 head gasket filings mention coolant, and the pattern owners describe is topping it up repeatedly before anything else shows. Then look for a service record of a coolant top-off with no leak found.

Ask what it cost and who paid. 44 of the 76 head gasket filings that name a price reach $5,000 or more. 16 filings say the owner asked Honda for goodwill coverage and 10 say Honda declined, so a repair on this car is likely to sit in the records as a customer-pay job.

Drive it on a highway with the adaptive cruise on. 58 filings describe the car braking with nothing in front of it, and 105 name the adaptive cruise. Owners describe it as occasional rather than constant, so one clean drive settles less than it looks like. Honda Sensing is standard on every 2018, so there is no version of this car without the system.

Check 26V332000 and both fuel pump campaigns by number. Run the VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls — it only lists recalls that are still open, so a clean result means either the work was done or the car was never covered. Any Honda dealer’s service department can pull the completion record by VIN, and it’s free.

Numbers worth writing down

The 2019 car is next. Its fuel pump was recalled three times, and Honda’s own text says each campaign expands the one before it.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 1,973 complaints across the four model names NHTSA files this car under, of which 125 are hybrids and are excluded; quoted above by ODI number
• NHTSA recall API — six campaigns; quoted from the campaign summaries and consequence text
• NHTSA vPIC — engine and electrification, decoded from the VIN attached to each filing
• NHTSA safety ratings — 2018 Honda Accord
• EPA fuel economy — city / highway / combined
• GoodCarBadCar Honda Accord sales figures

Complaint counts and quotes come from NHTSA’s public database, retrieved September 2, 2026; each quote lists its ODI number so you can look it up. Engine type comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing — 1,805 of the 1,848 decode to a 1.5 or a 2.0, 34 filings carry no VIN at all, and the remaining 9 either come back with an engine this car never had or don’t decode. Recall applicability depends on the VIN — check yours at nhtsa.gov/recalls. This summarizes what owners reported. It isn’t buying or repair advice.