1997 Honda Civic problems
Owners have filed 452 complaints with NHTSA about the 1997 Honda Civic. Air bags is the most reported problem area, at 32% of complaints. Next are cruise control (9%) and wipers, windshield & visibility (8%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 452 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 32% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 78 and 2
- Injuries and deaths
- 60 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 77,000 miles 115 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 10 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 11 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 18 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 20 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 13 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 14 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 9 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 7 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 4 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 4 |
| 200k+ miles | 5 |
What the data shows
Of the 115 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 77,000 miles. For air bags specifically, the median reported mileage is about 90,000 miles (49 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 78 complaints mention a crash; 2 complaints mention a fire; 60 injuries reported. Its complaints are more severe on average than those of 86% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 1997 ranks 20th most-complained-about out of 37 model years of the Honda Civic with enough data (236 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 2 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Takata recall the vehicle was involved in a crash where it hit a guard rail, flipped and caught on fire, neither air bags deployed!! My daughter had to be transported to the hospital with injuries.
On dec.10,1999 was involved in accident.hit on driver side of vehicle then proceeded to hit a light pole head on.received serious amount of damage.consisting of broken nose,broken ribs,loss of bone teeth and tissue,bruised liver and lungs ,bleeding on the brain.
Consumer was involved in a 30 MPH frontal collision in which driver's or passenger air bags did not deploy, cause unknown.
1- car has had problems with SRS light for several years now 2- number of things done to fix and still not fixed - this is a completely stock vehicle from the factory- no moods! The dealer says with the SRS light on the car absolutely has no airbags that will work. 3- changed the battery, took it into a dealer and he reset it, still not fixed. Dealer says they can't do anything about it.
I had car computer problems, air conditioning problem and paint on car body is cracking. These problems started to happen gradually, computer problems happened while I was driving on the road in the city; the paint started to crack for many years and the car looks miserable. The air conditioning broke down during a summer time, when I had no money to repair it and had to suffer due to the high heat weather. There is also a crack somewhere in the engine, not sure where, which can make things worse.