Sedan, plug-in hybrid, built in Japan. Owner complaints on file from Feb 18, 2018 to Sep 28, 2026.
Owner complaints about this model year, by the year they were filed with NHTSA.
Owner complaints by component. Hover or focus a bar for the crash, fire, injury or death count.
Check a specific vehicle by VIN on NHTSA's site: a campaign may cover only part of a model year's production.
| Campaign | Filed | Subject | Component | Vehicles | Remedy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23V-858 | Dec 18, 2023 | Fuel pump inside the fuel tank may fail | Fuel system | 2,490,460 | Part replacement |
The full text of every complaint filed with NHTSA about this model year, newest first. Complaints are filed by owners and are not verified by NHTSA; NHTSA removes personal details before publishing.
135 complaints on file, page 1 of 7.
Multi-Purpose Camera Unit failure, error code U3000-49
NHTSA complaint 11767419COMPONENT FAILURE: 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV Air Conditioning Evaporator Core. Complete refrigerant leak. Available for inspection/repair at Norm Reeves Honda Huntington Beach. Confirmed July 29, 2026, via borescope/UV dye. Repair estimate: $3,151-$3,217. SAFETY RISK: Vehicle is inoperable without A/C on Southern California freeways during extreme heat. Operating in 100+ degree heat causes heat exhaustion, reduced driver alertness, and high accident risk. DEALER/INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATION: Confirmed by Norm Reeves Honda Superstore Huntington Beach (July 29, 2026) using borescope camera and UV dye. Written estimate provided. No independent inspection. MANUFACTURER/POLICE/INSURANCE: No inspections by American Honda, police, or insurance. Component is inside the vehicle and available for manufacturer inspection. WARNING SIGNS & TIMELINE: Aug 9, 2025: A/C blowing warm (95,737 mi); pressure checked as "normal." Feb 16, 2026: Total failure; condenser replaced under TSB 21-017 (101,548 mi). Dealership missed concurrent evaporator evaluation. Apr 24, 2026: A/C failed again (103,562 mi). Dealership photographed active "AC leak," marked "Requires Immediate Attention," but abandoned repair for 3 months. Jul 29, 2026: Catastrophic evaporator failure confirmed (107,857 mi). PATTERN & REQUEST: This documents a pattern where 2018-2021 Clarity evaporator failures follow factory-defective condensers (TSB 21-017). Dealership missed multiple opportunities to diagnose/prevent this (August, February, and April). Vehicle is now unsafe for hot-weather commuting. Reporting to NHTSA to establish a record for potential warranty extension/recall regarding concurrent evaporator/condenser failures. Records and photos available. More details in the attached docs.
NHTSA complaint 11757198COMPONENT FAILURE: 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV Air Conditioning Evaporator Core. Complete refrigerant leak. Available for inspection/repair at Norm Reeves Honda Huntington Beach. Confirmed July 29, 2026, via borescope/UV dye. Repair estimate: $3,151-$3,217. SAFETY RISK: Vehicle is inoperable without A/C on Southern California freeways during extreme heat. Operating in 100+ degree heat causes heat exhaustion, reduced driver alertness, and high accident risk. DEALER/INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATION: Confirmed by Norm Reeves Honda Superstore Huntington Beach (July 29, 2026) using borescope camera and UV dye. Written estimate provided. No independent inspection. MANUFACTURER/POLICE/INSURANCE: No inspections by American Honda, police, or insurance. Component is inside the vehicle and available for manufacturer inspection. WARNING SIGNS & TIMELINE: Aug 9, 2025: A/C blowing warm (95,737 mi); pressure checked as "normal." Feb 16, 2026: Total failure; condenser replaced under TSB 21-017 (101,548 mi). Dealership missed concurrent evaporator evaluation. Apr 24, 2026: A/C failed again (103,562 mi). Dealership photographed active "AC leak," marked "Requires Immediate Attention," but abandoned repair for 3 months. Jul 29, 2026: Catastrophic evaporator failure confirmed (107,857 mi per the dealer). PATTERN & REQUEST: This documents a pattern where 2018-2021 Clarity evaporator failures follow factory-defective condensers (TSB 21-017). Dealership missed multiple opportunities to diagnose/prevent this (August, February, and April). Vehicle is now unsafe for hot-weather commuting. Reporting to NHTSA to establish a record for potential warranty extension/recall regarding concurrent evaporator/condenser failures. Records and photos available. * More details in attached docs.
NHTSA complaint 11757196The forward-facing Honda Sensing camera mounted behind the windshield (Nidec monocular camera, Honda part number 36160-TRW-A04) failed at approximately 85000 miles on XXX The failure produced simultaneous dashboard warnings and disabled multiple driver assistance systems at once, including Collision Mitigation Braking System (automatic emergency braking), Forward Collision Warning, Road Departure Mitigation, Lane Keeping Assist, and Adaptive Cruise Control. There was no impact, no windshield damage, and no obstruction of the camera lens. The failure appears to be internal to the camera assembly and occurred without warning during normal driving. Because all of these safety systems depend on this single camera, one component failure removed every forward collision protection on the vehicle simultaneously. The sudden appearance of multiple warning lights at once was also distracting while driving. The vehicle is out of warranty and Honda has offered no repair assistance. Dealer replacement is quoted at approximately $1,500 to $2,000 including required camera calibration. This same camera failure is widely reported by owners of Honda Sensing equipped vehicles, including Clarity, Odyssey, Pilot, Civic, and HR-V models, typically at [XXX] to [XXX] of age, which suggests a durability or thermal defect in the camera assembly rather than an isolated failure. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
NHTSA complaint 11755819It looks like this is possibly at this point a wide spread issue with most if not it will be all honda clarity models. The lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control, front camera honda sense electronics keep to go out and then will work for a little bit. sometimes just not work at all for months, then work for like a day or two. After reading many of many complaints about this it will seems to be pretty much widespread across all yearly models.
NHTSA complaint 11750678To Whom It May Concern, I am the owner of a 2018 Honda Clarity, and I am submitting this complaint to request that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigate what appears to be a widespread defect involving the front camera system used by Honda Sensing. My vehicle has experienced a failure of the front camera system, which has disabled numerous critical safety features, including: • Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) • Automatic Emergency Braking (Collision Mitigation Braking System) • Blind Spot Warning • Forward Collision Warning • Lane Departure Warning • Lane Keeping Assist System (LKAS) • Parking Collision Warning • Rear Cross Traffic Warning When the front camera fails, these safety systems become unavailable, significantly reducing the vehicle's ability to assist the driver in avoiding collisions and maintaining safe operation. After researching this issue online, I discovered that thousands of Honda owners have reported similar failures involving Honda Sensing cameras and related driver-assistance systems. Many owners have reported receiving warning messages, loss of safety functions, and repair estimates costing thousands of dollars. This appears to be a recurring problem rather than isolated incidents. I believe this defect presents a serious safety concern because drivers may unexpectedly lose access to critical collision avoidance and lane safety technologies that were included as standard safety equipment on the vehicle. The failure of a single camera component should not disable so many essential safety systems without a more robust fail-safe solution. I respectfully request that NHTSA investigate this issue and determine whether a safety recall or other corrective action is warranted for affected Honda vehicles, including the 2018 Honda Clarity. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I would be happy to provide additional information, repair records, photographs, diagnostic reports, or any other documentat
NHTSA complaint 11743727Here is an update to the issue I had raised with your office in March-April 2026: Honda Van Nuys performed the 35,000-mile routine maintenance on the Honda Clarity on February 24, 2026. At that time, Honda Van Nuys recommended (and I approved) that they clean the throttle. The odometer read 33,882 miles. I drove the car 337 miles when the unintended acceleration accident occurred on March 18, 2026 – 2.5 weeks after Honda Van Nuys cleaned the throttle. The airbags deployed. The throttle seems to be the part that failed based on the attached EDR report. The odometer read 34,219 at that time. The car is now considered totaled by GEICO. In addition, Honda Van Nuys has done all maintenance work on the Honda Clarity, including some major removal of the dashboard and back seats, since I purchased the car there in 2018, as outlined in the attachment. I have reached out to Honda Van Nuys and hope your office can encourage them to respond. This is a safety issue. The attachment elaborates further. [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
NHTSA complaint 11742767I will first start with our problems/concerns. We had experienced a complete lost power in freeway speed (65 mph) when the battery is depleted, that is when the battery bar goes to zero bar instead of 2 bars usually. I attached a photo from the video I took for your reference. This experience was the engine ramp up and not getting any power while driving on freeway, escpecially obvious during uphill slope. It is a safety hazard where we had to manuver in order avoid traffic since we could not maintain freeway speed. This originally happened around 2022, but we checked with Norm Reeves Honda Cerritos and they told us nothing is wrong and because there was no fault code, nothing they can do. When the Recall service canoaign 24-031 came, we were relieved because we think the problem is going to be fixed. We brought our Honda Clarity to the dealer on 2/3/2025 for the recall and everything was fine (meaning we can drive on HV after our battery is depleted). But around December 2025, my wife experienced the same situation where she couldn’t keep up with the freeway speed after exhausted the electric range of 34 miles. We took it to dealer again on 1/16/2026 and described the situation, dealer came back and said nothing has been found and there were no fault code. After that, the only way that we are trying to do is to avoid the battery to get down to zero miles, but since our battery is only getting 34 miles full charge instead of the 47 miles when it was new (dealer also said this is normal depreciation, I am not sure about that). Again, thank you for helping since losing engine power and speed on freeway is pretty scary and I hope this is enough information for my case. Here are answers to your questions. VIN: [XXX] Mileage: 85300 Dealership: Norm Reeves Honda Cerritos Details: Vehicle losing power on freeway speed after battery is depleted. As described above. First time it happened: Around 2022 First time dealer address my concern rather than told me th INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION A
NHTSA complaint 11738192Driver’s side sun visor increasingly hard to operate and finally broke internally due to high forces to adjust. Cannot use to shield driver’s eye from sun glare as intended thus reducing visibility. Passenger side also increasingly hard to operate but has not broken yet due to low use. Known problem for Hondas as indicated by TSB’s for other models and large number of videos on how to replace.
NHTSA complaint 11729216I was just driving normal and a message on my dashboard started to appear saying to clean my windshield or the collision mitigation system cannot work, We cleaned the windshield several times and it didn’t work the light still on, mow it got worst all of the lights turned on when I drive the car, adaptive cruise control light, road departure mitigation system problem light, lane keeping assistance problem light, collision mitigation system problem light and Brake system light, I checked online and there’s alot of people complaining from the same thing, they said it’s an issue with the front windshield camera but honda wants to charge thousands of dollars to fix it and there’s other honda models with the same problem too. I don’t know if it’s safe to drive it or if more lights are going to come up.
NHTSA complaint 11729066I had an unintended acceleration happen as I was easing into a parking spot of a covered parking garage. The car accelerated like a jet plane taking off. I jammed on the brake. The only thing that stopped the car was the concrete wall that was 4 feet away. My airbags activated. We had taken the car to the Honda dealer for its 35,000-mile check-up on February 24, 2026. The Honda dealer has prepared all maintenance, including Honda recalls, since we bought the car in 2018. I'm scared about what caused the unintended acceleration and concerned that others could be injured. Electronic throttle control? Cruise control? Sensors? Wiring problems? What activated it? I believe this is a Honda mechanical problem. I have researched online that others have had unintended acceleration problems with the Honda Clarity and CRV–another plug-in hybrid–but not enough claims to lead to a recall. I have gotten a runaround. Our insurance carrier has declared the car a total loss but refuses to have the computer assessed to determine the cause. The local Honda dealer says it’s not their problem, claiming that we would have to tow the car to them and pay them to replace all safety items. They would then reboot the computer and delete all data, so they could not assess the cause. They said the Clarity has no “black box.” I contacted American Honda Corporation's customer service. Their engineers would not look at the car either unless our insurance company asked and paid them to do it. I have that Case Number. You would think that American Honda Corporation would be concerned, particularly since this unintended acceleration could have killed pedestrians if it had happened on the street or killed me if the concrete wall had not stopped the car. We had the Honda Clarity towed to our house to see if we could find someone to check out the computer. The towing company has driven the car, even though the airbags were activated. After 30 days, our insurance company will take the car for salvage.
NHTSA complaint 11727031Rear camera and Side camera and infotainment system all do not work. Screen does work because we get the welcome message when starting the car. We brought the car to the dealership and they told us that the screen needs to be replaced (Which appears to be working) at a cost of $5400 which they stated may not fix this issue. In addition we tried to get the fuel recall repaired but they told us they could not do it because there is too much fuel in the tank. - The tank holds a total of 8 gallons
NHTSA complaint 11713849The Day Time Running light on the left side of the car just stopped working. The DRL is not damage. I checked for impact marks.
NHTSA complaint 11705113The Honda Clarity's evaporator core has proven to be a defective component requiring premature replacement, representing a significant design or manufacturing flaw. This evaporator failure appears to be a systemic issue affecting multiple Honda Clarity vehicles, as evidenced by [specific sources - owner forums, service bulletins, etc.]. The defect typically manifests as [specific symptoms you've experienced - loss of cooling, refrigerant leaks, etc.], often occurring well before the expected service life of the component. This premature failure not only creates an unreasonable financial burden on owners but also poses safety concerns when air conditioning systems fail during extreme weather conditions, potentially leading to driver distraction, reduced visibility from fogging, or heat-related health risks.
NHTSA complaint 11689955There is an issue with the front, right turn signal light flickering uncontrollably. This flickering is occurring during the vehicle’s operation, posing a significant safety risk as the amber light is incorrectly signaling to other vehicles on the road. The flickering also occurs while the vehicle is parked and off—draining the battery. It has been occurring intermittently with my vehicle for over two years. This issue is widely reported online, with dozens of posts on websites and forums.
NHTSA complaint 11664121The regenerative braking system left paddle (on the steering wheel) intermittently does not work. I press the paddle to slow the vehicle but nothing happens. If I press it multiple times, sometimes it will slow the vehicle, other times nothing happens. I use that method of braking frequently, so when it doesn't work, it jeopardizes the safety of myself and others on the road. This problem has been occurring for a few years; I don't recall the exact date that it began occurring. If needed, I can make the vehicle available for inspection. I've been unable to have it reproduced by a dealer because it usually resolves itself before I can get it in to a dealer to be serviced. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others.
NHTSA complaint 11662844Since fuel pump recall fix by dealership, “Emission System Problem” started appearing in my car due to the way fuel pump recall was fixed. They already attempted to fix the issue 5 times but unable to provide permanent fix. Honda corporate office also not willing to help. This is a safety issue as when I drive the car, I smell gas and my car is constantly with dealership without permanent fix.
NHTSA complaint 11644938I received a letter in October 2024 about an inoperable fuel pump and a recall for the vehicle. However, after 3 months, the dealership does not have the fuel pump replacement pump and does not know when they will receive the part. As a result, I am still driving the car with the fuel pump issue.
NHTSA complaint 11633158The contact owns a 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V858000 (Fuel System, Gasoline); however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The dealer was made aware of the issue and confirmed that due to a limited supply of parts, the manufacturer was prioritizing the repair of vehicles experiencing symptoms related to the recall first. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue and confirmed the prioritizing of the repair of vehicles experiencing symptoms related to the recall. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect.
NHTSA complaint 11631580The contact owns a 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-in-Hybrid. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V858000 (Fuel System, Gasoline); however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. Additionally, several dealers were contacted, and the contact was informed that the parts were unavailable. The contact was informed that a diagnostic test was needed to confirm a failure, due to the limited parts that were available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and a case was filed. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect.
NHTSA complaint 11629622Technical service bulletins and other notices the manufacturer sent to dealers. A bulletin is not a recall.