Not surprising, I always end up in little internet squabbles whenever I say the Elantra N's 2.0 is a better power unit than the 1.5t in the Civic Si. People simply cannot fathom that is the case because it is a Hyundai, it must be bad, and vice versa for the Honda unit
These also had oil dilution issues particularly w/ short trips in cold climates, but rectified it via software by... slightly limiting the operation of the AC and heater the first little while following a cold startup
Honda has had their fair share of spectacular engines, the 1.5t hasn't been great
The problem with Hyundai is that they're kind of all over the map. Some engines they make are fucking excellent (2.0 *Beta*, 3.8 *Lambda*, 5.0 *Tau*) and some are just absolute garbage.
Honda's 1.5T is not exactly hot garbage, but it has enough problems that I'd have a hard time saying that it's more reliable than a GM LYX or even a 3rd gen EA888.
Hyundai's inconsistency makes them difficult to recommend over a Honda. They might make some good stuff now but just a decade ago they were pumping out straight junk.
Honda has their misses (and the 1.5T clearly falls into that category), but one can generally trust a Honda more than a Hyundai.
Also an engine is only one part of the car. As of recent Honda has done a fantastic job putting together the rest of their vehicles, and Hyundai isn't quite there yet.
Modern Honda interiors are garbage, too. My 2018 Civic had worn through the bolsters, worn out armrest, delaminated rear view, all before 40k miles. By then it looked worse than the 230k mile '09 Civic I had traded it for (still had my for sale photos). Sold it last year with like 60k and the whole car just felt TIRED
The 10th gen Civic was trash. IMO one of the worst Civics of the 21st century. The cars aged badly and the design aged even worse. They look and feel cheap; I feel like I dodged a bullet not buying one new in 2018.
The current 11th gen though? It's absolutely gorgeous and well-built for the price. Along with the Jetta, it feels like one of the best cars you can buy for \~25k.
I've had my 18 since 20 and i think it looks great and has been very reliable. The k series in my EX is where its as that sfi does not suffer from any of the 1.5l issues. The issue i have with the 11th gens is that it seems on ly trudeau indians drive them for uber eats. When i see one i figure it was given to a third world immigrant to deliver food by the previous government.
The 11th gen Civic looks clean, unlike the stupid boi racr design of the 10th gen. But the interior materials still kinda suck. Like they're probably a bit worse than my wife's "one up from base" Kia Soul, which is already a very cheap feeling car.
Why not just recommend good models instead of brands then? Recommending a brand generally doesn't make sense, recommend the right car for the user needs.
This can be good wisdom, but generally a brand is a signifier of various traits due to marketing and company practices/philosophies that carry across a number of vehicles - not to mention the fact that many parts and engines are shared between models.
For instance, Chevrolet might have some vehicles that are better than others, but in general most Chevys share a lot of the same characteristics: cheaper than their competitors, fairly low in quality, and pretty inexpensive to get worked on.
Brands are used in large part to signify similarities between models. While most commonly used to denote mass market and luxury lines, it's also a good way to differentiate various models. Definitely not a catch-all (Nissan makes the wonderful Frontier among a sea of garbage), but a great place to start.
Ok but we know which models have which powertrains, have been on sale for a while now, etc.? We know which characteristics apply to which vehicles so there is no need to make generalizations
Most consumers don't know and don't care. Maybe they liked their friend's CR-V, and the strength of the Honda brand gives them confidence to buy a Civic or something.
Almost every non-enthusiast I know has opinions on many brands. Consumers are comfortable buying from brands because a product with a strong brand name shows to the buyer that the manufacturer considered the product worthy of wearing that badge. This extends to most consumer products. Companies have a reputation to uphold, and in many cases try to adhere to it.
Yeah exactly I'm going to avoid recommend a brand new Hyundai model line exactly for that reason, even if the drivetrain is carried over
But I would have no qualms recommending an Elantra N 10 times over
I wouldnt really say Honda's fit and finish is all that good, the Accord I've driven around occasionally is a 2024 and I think the interior is cheap flimsy shit, it's just as bad as any Hyundai.
The Fit I can excuse since that was a sub-$20k car. I've had good luck with the current Accord.
Definitely not a catch-all, but in general I find Honda to put their cars together nicely. After all, there are far more 15-20 year old Civics than Elantras rolling around out there.
I mean I think it's just an overall problem with budget cars now, the fit and finish is just super plastic-y and unpleasant. I've always felt Hyundai's and Kias are largely crap cars, just that Honda and Toyota are definitely taking hits to material quality as well.
My Charger's interior feels borderline luxury by comparison lol.
> They might make some good stuff now but just a decade ago they were pumping out straight junk.
The problem is, this is the exact same thing that people were saying about hyundai and kia a decade ago.
This is exactly my concern with the brand: their stuff looks shiny and new and might have some saving graces, but the cars depreciate faster and are sold at a lower price for a reason.
Hyundai and Kia have absolutely nailed the disposable car: their vehicles are utterly flawless for the first 80-100k miles. They're great through the first lease and the second owner, but beyond that become quite a bit dodgier. They aren't designed to be easily serviced, and they're not built to last beyond that point. This is why you see so few older Kias and Hyundais but 15 year old Camrys can still fetch $10k.
The actual internal components are very robust, but the EA888 has some issues.
If they fixed the water pump design, fixed the coil grounding issues + stupid triangular bolts, and added port injection to the US models, it would be a god tier engine.
They are, especially with the current iteration of the EA 4 cylinder family. Timing chains were most definitely an issue for the 1st iteration of the enigne. However, the Gen 3 update was what sorted most of the engine's initial faults. Then the current gen update builds on that version and further refines it for the utmost optimal use. It's also one of VW's bread and butter motors (as in they put that engine in a lot of models) so they'll have to have gotten it tight and right.
Yeah I know the EA888 kinda sucks. I'm trying to illustrate that the "reliable" Honda L15B also kinda sucks and isn't really much better than the "troublesome" VW engine.
I don’t think it sucks, it’s a great motor, I’ve driven owned 2 of them! Overall they’re very well built. I just meant that they have known failure points, but not many, nor are they typically that catastrophic if treated as expected when they come up.
The problem seemed to have been fixed but of course Honda is not admitting anything given that there’s multiple class action suits against them on this Engin for of course head gasket failures. Having said that lots of people still get 100+ thousand miles out of there Engin without problems , of course and the old days they would’ve got 250+ thousand miles
I’ve got a 2.0 Beta II, and that thing makes like 140hp maybe. It ain’t fast, but so far that thing just keeps fucking running. I think I’m gonna see how high mileage I can get it. We’ll be at 200k soon, so we’ll see. That always seems to be the magical “time to rebuild or scrap” limit historically for my cars, but I don’t want to give it up yet :/
There was a dude in Quebec who got 1 million kilometers out of his 2008 Elantra. Beta II engine.
Hyundai is busy showcasing the car at every auto show in Canada. So much so that Toyota dug up a Yaris with 987,000 km just to make sure Hyundai weren't the only ones flexing.
Had one in 03 Elantra. Replaced a thermostat as far the engine was concerned. The exhaust manifold cracked and had some other deferred maintenance like shocks that needed to be done. Ended up trading for the genesis coupe. The beta2 Elantra was fine for what it was and from what I gathered on the forums at the time, could handle boost too.
Ooh I wouldn’t be surprised if it could. Then again, I’m in a first-gen Tucson, so I don’t think anything good would come from boosting it, and I think the manual transmission is already close to the limit of what torque it can take lol
Isn't it also how much the repairs are?
How much would the repairs be to replace gasket + labor?
I know Hyundais aren't expensive for most repairs, but some of their engines had fire issues no?
My Honda products have all been reliable for me, and they’ve all been models known for liquefying head gaskets over time.
I don’t think I’ll ever be surprised to hear about a Honda head gasket or transmission issue. It’s like being surprised a BMW or VW has a cooling issue.
Unless they changed the block design that, from my understanding is the main cause of the head gasket failures, my assumption's been that the 11th gens are susceptible as well.
Anecdotally I’ve seen a nontrivial number of 1.5T failures, and also at least a few 2.0 failures. Then we have the issues with the DI J-Series.
We knew from the best objective metrics that we have that quality has fallen for Honda in the last few years.
Something bad happened to Honda in the last couple decades. The Honda I remember from the 90s/00s was innovating with every model it felt like. That doesn’t sound like today’s Honda at all.
The update didn't do a thing to help oil dilution, other than hurting your fuel economy, either. Only vehicle I've ever owned where you'd have an extra quart at oil change time
This could be a big issue for Honda. The 1.5t is used in the CRV, Accord, and the Civic. That's a lot of cars that were sold starting from 2016 up til now. I talk to the service manager at my local Honda when I had to do the fuel pump replacement and he says he sees a lot of head gaskets for these cars. Wondering how far this will go and if it will come to US.
Had same issue on my 2019 Accord. Head Gasket failure! However car was driven 252k but these cars are meant to last long.
Got it checked from multiple mechanics including Honda and everyone mentioned the same issue.
Had to sell it rather than spending 7k to get it fixed.
Sold it for 13k and got a new 2025 Lyriq!
About to buy a 2017 CRV Touring with the 1.5L turbo. Called the dealerships I saw the vehicle went to and gave them the vin. Apparently the only recall it’s had was for the oil dilution which had the software update done to it in 2019.
I have a great mechanic who I’ll be bringing the car to, hopefully everything checks out. 🙏
Hoping most owners of this year/engine have great experiences they don’t go posting about on forums, because right now I’m only reading negative reviews. If anyone has had a good experience with the 1.5L Turbo please, write about it!
Own a 2017 Honda Civic Sport Touring Hatchback purchased new 2017 with 1.5T engine. Only have 97,000 km on it. Started having problems with the engine over the past year or so. Warning lights cycle through all errors when I start the car but only sometimes. Car runs rough on startup sometimes and goes in to limp mode (won't accelerate beyond a crawl) some days as I start driving. A power cycle makes that go away. I've taken it to the local Honda dealership to get diagnosed. Had the plugs changed. Had the error codes read 3 times. Misfires for cylinders 2, 3 and sometimes 4. Dealership "suspect" that is "due to faulty fuel injectors". I just got off the phone with Honda Canada customer support. They know about the class action suit but are unable to do anything. Looks like I'll have to pay $2k for the fuel injectors and see if that fixes it and then move on to the head gasket replacement for another $2k (I'm guessing/suspecting). Customer Support told me to contact the class action suit lawyer. Nothing else they can do. Oh ... and Rep recommended I keep all my service records if the class action suit succeeds!
Always respected Honda, but no brand is perfect. Most have some good and some bad. Bottom line is that most cars today, if maintained properly, are pretty solid and reliable.
This is one of the reasons I skipped the Civic Si, which I otherwise really enjoyed driving, and got a VW GLI instead. Plus the GLI was $4k cheaper with more power + adaptive suspension.
The EA888's issues have been well documented and I felt like I knew what I was getting into with the VW vs. Honda's 1.5T. Never in my life would I have thought I'd be buying a VW for prospective reliability over a Honda but that's what my back-of-napkin value and risk assessment led me to. Even with its issues, I had a little bit more confidence in VW and am confident I can replace the water pump myself if/when it comes time. As far as the wastegate, if its just the actuator that's not a difficult repair. A full turbo replacement would obviously be a different story.
Just got my wife’s out of the shop. 2018 sport 1.5t, 80k miles.
She purchased an extended warranty and the misfire issue popped up with less than 1000 miles left. I wish I would have gotten the arp studs so they could have used those instead. Oh well.
To be fair the invoice was like $2500-$3k for the work. Still way too much for a 7 year old Honda repair. People buy this car brand because it’s known for quality and reliability but it’s getting hard to trust. Many other engines go 250k without major work. I don’t think anyone who purchased one of these cars can be faulted for believing similar.
We had a 2017 1.5t and it had not only the head gasket fail, but two turbos which we believed also failed because of the same issue. Honda Canada also covered replacing the short block under our extended warranty.
The 1.5T is used in the 11th gen Civic Si, but the article only mentions 2016-2022 Civics, so I’m hoping Honda made some improvements after the 10th gen.
I do wonder what the most reliable modern sport compact engine is. IIRC the Type R still has a version of the K20, VW’s EA888 has gone through 4 generations and seems to be quite stout by now. There’s also the FA24 in the WRX, and B48 in the Cooper S to consider.
I can confirm the fa24 from subaru was one of there better engines, i worked in a subaru dealer and the only issues those engines had were oil leaks but thats nothing major. There were even ascents with over 100k miles that would come in
We've been making combustion engines for pretty much 150 years. How the fuck do basic faults like this still happen in such an abundantly produced product as an engine?
There really has been no excuse for this shit in at least 50 of those 150 years.
I've always thought Hondas were known for their terrible AT transmission issues than engine problems. But, it looks like they're gonna be known for both soon!
I'll be honest, I think anyone who genuinely thinks any automaker is going to have insanely reliable tiny turbo 4cyl engines when they're carrying massive 3,500+ pound cars, regardless of who manufactured the engine, is in for a rude awakening.
These things are stressed the fuck out 24/7. I hate that it's come to this for fuel efficiency and "sportier feel", Id much rather have an NA engine for heavier vehicles.
There are lots of turbo engines that don't have issues. Engines like the EA888 and B48 are fundamentally reliable. It's only the accessory parts that fail. That's obviously still a cost and annoyance to the owners, but a coolant manifold or water pump is much cheaper than a new head gasket.
Accessory parts to the engine failing is still an issue you didn't have nearly as much with well made NA V6 engines for heavier vehicles.
Most well made GM or Honda and Toyota V6s are damn near indestructible even in their heavier SUVs and trucks. I wouldn't say the same at all about their turbo 4 cylinders.
Not surprised by this, it's been an issue for years and is widely talked about in the Accord and Civic communities. The head gasket issues are the primary reason I sprung for the hybrid in my 11th gen Accord, the 2.0 doesn't seem to have near as many instances of problems as the 1.5.
Decided to do the timing chain on my k20a2 rsx type s just because it was at 365k kms, pulled it all apart and the timing chain guides literally look brand new still.
K-series are such robust motors. I put 225k on mine with no issues, not even a water pump, before handing it to my brother-in-law who put another untold amount of miles on it with no issues besides it really needing a clutch replacement.
It's a crap shoot, like everything else, probably a combination of luck and maintenance. If you stay on top of maintenance and get lucky, you'll never have to do it. If you're unlucky regardless, you'll have to.
No way the lawsuit wins though. A head gasket is just not that hard of a job on a Honda.
Not thrilled to read this while sitting in my 2021 1.5L CRV. 120k miles and only had a crankshaft position sensor shit the bed but between this and the oil dilution I'm always a little worried about this thing
My 2017 Civic had this happen last year. All of a sudden, felt a misfire and all these warnings kicked in. Limped it to the shop to get checked. Head gasket went and engine block had coolant inside of it. Cost around $7500 to fix.
Its unfortunate because they fail for the same reason the 2.0/2.3 ecoboost from 16-20 failed, too much power with an open deck and kerf cuts between cylinders leaving too little surface area which lets the head gasket scrub until it fails. At least Ford fixed that sometime in 2020, Honda needs to follow suit.
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