Used 2018 Honda Clarity Consumer Reviews
Used Clarity for sale
Very Happy with this Car
RickSE, 09/19/2018
updated 09/27/2021
2018 Honda Clarity Touring Plug-In Hybrid 4dr Sedan (1.5L 4cyl gas/electric hybrid CVT)
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
Just went to test drive it and didn’t intend to trade in my ‘16 Accord Touring. Got 4.5k off msrp, $7.5k tax credit and $2.5k in state rebates - and 0.9% financing. Battery gets me round trip on my commute without gas, and getting 45 mpg with gas only. Very comfortable car. Handles great with plenty of room for kids. Honda has had two service bulletins fixing a few things people complained about. It’s new technology and some blips are to be expected. This car is very inexpensive for what Honda delivers. I don’t regret this decision in the slightest. Test drive one and you will see. This is a great car with no compromising. Update after one year of ownership: I like this car more now then when I wrote the original review. I’ve put over 12k miles on the car, almost entirely in EV. The only gas I have used is 60 gallons over the past year to go on five road trips. Using gas I am getting between 45 and 50 mpg s. This on a car that seats 5 and has plenty of room for luggage. I charge at work for free and my commute- even in the winter - is shorter then the cars battery range. I’ve probably saved $900 on gas alone this year. The car handles great, even in snow. It is very heavy due to the battery and the weight is low to the ground so it is very stable. Very smooth ride. Good (not great) acceleration. Plenty of power for around town and highway commuting. I don’t understand why this car isn’t flying off dealer lots. The deals are amazing with $8k off sticker in Massachusetts plus a $7500 tax credit. Plus not needing to buy gas. Whatever, I have a great car with an 8 year warranty that I bought and an 8 year battery warranty from Honda. I’d buy it again in a heartbeat. 3 Year update: Still really happy with the car. Can’t find anything on the market I’d trade it for. Honda doesn’t make it any more, but if you find one used you won’t be disappointed.
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Perfect car if it meets your driving profile
Mark Pope, 06/05/2018
2018 Honda Clarity Electric 4dr Sedan (electric DD)
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
I finally had it with my BMW(Break My Wallet) and went shopping for a Honda Ridgeline back in December 2017. Honda dropped the least and drive off fee at that time. I've had 5 Accords and a Pilot and think very highly of the brand. I live in Sacramento. I reviewed my driving patterns on Google and found that I drove to North Dakota once, Chico and San Francisco several times. All other driving in the last five years was local and under 70 miles a day. I called all the dealerships in the area to test drive one and found several in Lodi(60 miles away). I was sold after the test drive because of my trust in Honda, familiarity with Accords, and the torque from 0mph or at 80mph. I had to wait for two hours after completing the lease agreement for the Clarity to charge on a 110V line at the dealership! I had range anxiety all the way home, esp. as traffic slowed in Sacramento. CA gave me a check for $2500, my utility company gave me a $700 L2 charger and a discount rate of .07 kw/h if I charge between midnight and 6am. Because I am a moderate driver and don't use the electric heat warmers, a full charge shows 110 mile range. I can drive to the gym, work, lunch, home to pick up my wife, and go downtown for dinner and still not use 70 miles of range. It's difficult in Sac to go 100 miles. When we need to go to SF/Chico/Humboldt/Tahoe we take my wife's Lexus. My kw/h usage is $0.85 for the first hour after midnight. Considering how much I am saving not buying gas or paying repair shop bills this car will reduce the cost of that future Ridgeline. My decision to lease this car and postpone a purchase has nothing to do with the environmentally friendly green movement. I was indifferent to the electric drive train but after two months of driving I will have a difficult time returning to combustion engine. If the battery tech improves and Honda swaps out the battery at the end of the lease I will seriously consider keeping it. But I would really like a small truck that is electric. So our kids are gone, my wife has a long range vehicle, and I cannot exceed 89 miles in daily driving. This compliance car is perfect for me, not my neighbors or co-workers.
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2018 Honda Clarity for sale near you
Showing 3 of 28 listings
- Touring Plug-In Hybrid SedanMSRP: $14,500200 mi away
- Touring Plug-In Hybrid SedanMSRP: $14,97237 mi away
- Plug-In Hybrid SedanMSRP: $15,900132 mi away
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My favorite car ever- like a new toy
Big Nose Frank, 07/30/2018
updated 02/09/2022
2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid 4dr Sedan (1.5L 4cyl gas/electric hybrid CVT)
16 of 17 people found this review helpful
I wanted to wait 3-4 weeks of owning this car before casting a review on it. First of all I had no intention of replacing my old car yet (a VW) but reliability issues forced me to re-examine my strategy of hanging onto a German car that was about to go off warranty and was requiring a lot of expensive trips for service. I knew my next car would be hybrid and/or electric but thought it would be 2-3 years down the road. As of two months ago I never heard of a heard of a Honda Clarity. I liked the looks of all the new Hondas and thought before trying out a Hybrid Accord I would try out the Clarity just to 'eliminate' it from my candidate list. Instantly I liked the quietness and the feel of it and the ultra modern interior. The accord was of course nice and I felt the salesman was pushing me towards the accord, and they had tons of Accords on the lot and only two Clarities. I stepped away from shopping for a bit to resolve VW engine issues and when i returned to it went straight for the Clarity, and have not regretted it once. So like other reviewers I have now had it for almost a month, and have driven it 360 mi and still have 3/4 tank of my original gas! I have run out of charge a few times and the last time I was really trying to observe what happens when you do? And I could not tell. I did go into HYBRID mode automatically but nothing other than a dashboard message would lead me to know that. Several times I have tried out SPORT mode and punch the accelerator and am quite pleased at the power it has. But typically i do not even use it around town. I a more interested in squeezing out as much of the battery charge as possible. The regenerative braking paddle shifters are very cool (had to watch a Youtube video to see what they were about). Now when i come into corners i try to use those rather that braking to regain a little juice back into the battery pack. If you have driven motorcycles or standard shift cars its very much like downshifting into corners which is more fun than braking like an old lady. With respect to the radio- I love it. It has excellent sound and CarPlay is perfect for both iPhone use and Android- which we have both of. i owned a VW 5 years and never once could get my smart phone to 'pair' and with this I synched it up at the dealer and drove home with the Smart phone maps. I play Spotify and that works well, the transition between main menu and smart phone usage is a little clunky - for example smart phone maps AND SIRIUS works but I tend to fumble around with it. In all I love the the infotainment system some complained (alot) about no volume knob- I guess I would like one but the steering wheel controls work easily. All in all I like the car a lot and am very happy I got it. I have owned many cars over 40 years and have never enjoyed one this much. I still use the 120 V charger but my garage has a 220V outlet so I just need to buy the charger but they are a bit pricey and the one (that comes with the car) has worked fine. Interior space is excellent but coming from a compact SUV that was just plain small (and stupid). I did not opt for the leather as the cloth seemed nice on the test drive and it was >$3k for the leather plus nav and few other things I did not care for- at that price. all the interior surfaces and finishes are of a nice quality, nothing downscale about any of it. They do not offer a sunroof in any models - thats a bit of a bummer but not a showstopper and my other car is a 2 seater convertible so no biggie (but it uses GAS...) So I have no idea why there are not more on the road it almost seems like Honda wants to keep it under wraps? ITs a great product- I hope its reliable, it's s my first Honda auto but have had 4 Honda motorcycles and all were excellent. The info screens/radio is so cool i hope I don't get killed playing with it instead of watching the road closer. I wish Honda had more options for cars like this- i.e. an SUV or large hatchback, though this is almost hatchback like. With the tax rebate its an amazing bargain. Couple that with a reduction in gas bills its really a no brainer. I am retired so do not commute. If you commute less that 25 miles each way this car makes perfect sense unless you hate comfort, value, and efficiency. ***update- still love the car... One and only ding I can give it is the ability to hold battery charge in frigid weather. Instead of the 50 or so miles on a charge, for example, this number dropped to under 30 over thanksgiving in upstate NY as it was -1 degrees And the car was parked outside. I don’ love it in gas engine mode but for long trips its sort of necessary. And this is relative to electric mode which is amazing - smooth quiet and powerful. I live in NC and its always garaged, and we don’t go out in nasty weather. out. Two year update...now at 28k and two.years of ownership. I have had 0 problems with the car, without question the best car I have ever owned.. *****Four year update... To date ZERO problems , still love the car!!
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Best plug-in hybrid (I'm not biased!)
Bryan B, 05/06/2018
2018 Honda Clarity Touring Plug-In Hybrid 4dr Sedan (1.5L 4cyl gas/electric hybrid CVT)
15 of 16 people found this review helpful
We looked at several plug-in hybrids before buying the Clarity. A plug-in made sense for us at this time: we do most of our driving within a few miles of home, so the electric covers us for over 90 percent of the time, but we take regular trips a few hundred miles from home, so the gas backup is a reasonable alternative for those times. My wife liked the size of the Clarity, which is about the size of the Accord or our old Altima hybrid (I would have been happy with something smaller). Trunk size was important as we needed to fit in my mother-in-law's wheelchair; the Clarity has a relatively huge trunk for a hybrid. The Touring model has all the bells & whistles you'd expect, except maybe for a sunroof, which wasn't important for us. The car is extremely comfortable and fun to drive. The only negatives I have are relative nitpicks: mostly that the dash relies too much on the electronic LCD panel. I really miss having a physical knob to control the audio volume--the digital buttons are too hard to hit, especially when driving. The console has no indicator for whether the A/C is on (you have to hit the "Climate" button, and even then neither the On/Off A/C digital buttons is illuminated to show whether it's on or off). It really should have a button to turn it on (there's wasted space with a large button to turn the fan on/off, for instance). One other oddity is the wide shift-controller arm that extends from dash to the center console. It covers a storage area underneath that's a bit hidden because the shift arm has these side 'wings' that seem to serve no purpose--you can't really set anything on them, so it would have been better to make that whole arm narrower, I think.
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honda clarity plug-in hybrid, great car
kenL, 08/04/2018
updated 11/27/2023
2018 Honda Clarity Touring Plug-In Hybrid 4dr Sedan (1.5L 4cyl gas/electric plug-in hybrid CVT)
9 of 9 people found this review helpful
The clarity plug in hybrid is basically an electric when driving around Tucson. We have gotten over 55 mile range on a charge, and never use gas except for longer road trips. The car has good power, stable handling, comfortable seating, and is fun to drive. It is quiet, has a good sound system, and some great safety features. When switching lanes on the highway, you don't have to crank your head around to move right. When you signal a right turn you get a complete picture on your monitor of everything on the right. Charging at home is simple. I plug in to a regular outlet at night when electricity is cheaper. I haven't had any problems in 3 years and and 35,000 plus miles, and the quality seems very high. After over 4 yers it’s still great. Best car I ever drove especially on cross country trips.
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