2012-2015 Civic Hybrid Question: Are they reliable?

The problems with earlier Civic hybrid batteries was that Honda was abusing the NiMH packs. With the third gen, they switched to Li-ion. It appears they learned their lesson, as i have not heard of them having issues with the battery in any model using Li-ion. They didn't exactly sell many of the gen3 either, so small test fleet, but no news is good news is likely the case here.

It isn't a full hybrid, so it isn't going to drive the same as a Prius. Fuelly reports appear to be slightly under the EPA rating.

CR had panned the gen9 Civic, because Honda got lazy, and didn't keep up with the competition. Which doesn't mean the car was unreliable. The complaints revolve around the new model looking dated, using cheap plastics, and not using the latest technology(4 speed transmission vs 6 speeds of others). The latter might be a sign of better reliability in general. I haven't heard of any hybrid system issues besides with the NiMH battery.

Most of the people I know with Hondas are generally happy with them. They aren't perfect like some believe, but I know of no reason to discount the gen3 hybrid Civic for consideration.

 

Looking on Wikipedia, they're still calling the 3rd gen Civic Hybrid system IMA (Integrated Motor Assist). I'd gather then, that it's similar in principle to previous gen?

We had an 06 (second gen), acquired new in Dec/2005, and within maybe 2 years of of ownership, say 30~40K kms, it'd started with the "recalibration" events. Basically: the car subtracts and adds charge to the battery back, and expects it to be at a certain level. Similar to a bank account where you make multiple deposits and withdrawals.

The recalibration occurs when the computers find there's less charge than calculated, decides to do a real test of the battery's levels. This results in the car not shutting down at stop, running at elevated idle and generally being kinda pokey. As the battery degrades this tends to happen with increasing frequency.

It finally threw a code for the hybrid battery, in our son's hands, around 159K kms and Jan/2014. The battery was replaced by Honda, for nearly no charge, just an hour's labour. Within maybe a year it was back to it's old recal' tricks, as bad as ever. Around this time suspension was getting really creaky, and the AC condensor (while still intact) was shedding fins like a Shiba Inu in spring.

In Jun/2018 we found water pump leaking, cracked engine mount and the CVT transmission on the verge of failure: son traded it in for scrap value.

 

It is IMA, but with an Li-ion battery instead of the NiMH one your car had. Different chemistry, and Honda knowing what they did wrong, points to a better outcome. Perhaps there is simply too few of them on the road for problems to be reported, but we haven't heard much of any problems with their later hybrids either. A Honda hybrid specific might be a better source than a Prius one for this.

How many miles/kms on it at the end? Age alone can lead to some repairs. The bearing to our AC condensor pulley just fell apart from rust on the 76k mile, 15 yr old Sable.

 

The 2015 civic hybrid has a 5/5 overall reliability rating on Consumer Reports. The brakes being the weaker spot. Compared to other 2015 hybrids, the Civic hybrid is 2nd, with a 90% reliability score. Behind the Prius with a 91% reliability score. So hypothetically you should do well in buying one. I say hypothetically only because I have no personal experience. I will mention that owners satisfaction is rated 2/5, with comfort being the weak spot at 40% rating(it gets into the lower 30%s as you look back from 2015 to 2012). This comes in 9th place on the Consumer Reports list of vehicles from the same year with an overall score for owner satisfaction at 58%. I understand you like the interior and I'm sure after test driving you'll decide what you think about comfort but I thought I'd mention it simply because it would raise a red flag if I were looking into buying one.

Cars.usnews.com gives it a 4.5/5 for reliability.

 

See I neglected to say: roughly 250K. Pretty good run. Still it was poorly performing for most of that, mainly the flakey battery.

 

This is an old thread but i'll share my experience. I bought used a 2010 Insight (same drivetrain as the civic) in 2017, 220K miles, $2800. Quite the deal i thought.

I then used it to deliver newspapers for 3 years. Yes, the car auto stopped at every paper box, 200+ times per night, 7 days a week, for 100K miles over 3 years. Sadly i hit a deer totaling it.

But in100k miles, from 220K to 324K miles it never broke down. Changed the oil every 10K and CVT fluid every 30K. Thumbs up from me.