2025 Honda HR-V Problems: 4 Known Issues

On the 2023-2025 Honda HR-V, the 2023-2025 Honda HR-V has a steering gearbox recall (NHTSA 24V-744) due to incorrect manufacturing. The steering gearbox assembly may have been manufactured incorrectly, causing excessive internal friction and difficulty steering the vehicle. This increases the risk of a crash. Symptoms include heavy steering, binding when turning, or steering that doesn't return to center. Under the recall, dealers will replace the worm gear spring and redistribute/add grease as necessary, free of charge.

On the 2023-2025 Honda HR-V, on some 2023-2025 Honda HR-Vs, the steering gearbox assembly may have been built incorrectly, according to American Honda (NHTSA recall 24V744000). The manufacturing error can produce excessive friction inside the gearbox, and the result an owner feels is difficulty steering the vehicle. Because loss of easy steering control raises crash risk, this is a safety recall rather than a service campaign. The HR-V is one of several Honda and Acura models swept up in the same campaign; the 1,693,199-unit total reported to NHTSA is campaign-wide across all of those models, not an HR-V-specific count. Notification letters went out November 18, 2024 under Honda recall numbers SJS, MJU, QJT and VJV.

On the 2023-2025 Honda HR-V, owners of the third-generation HR-V report the Collision Mitigation Braking System applying the brakes hard at road speed with nothing in the vehicle's path — the failure pattern commonly called phantom braking. On the 2024 HR-V this is one of the highest-frequency owner complaint themes recorded at NHTSA, with reports describing the system slamming the brakes on repeatedly and at an average of only about 6,000 miles. Separately, owners report a 'Collision Mitigation Braking System Problem' warning appearing on very low-mileage cars (one forum report at 600 miles), which disables CMBS, adaptive cruise and lane keeping together. The false-activation reports cluster around overpasses, cresting hills, shadows, oncoming traffic on curves, and roadside signage — the classic radar/camera fusion confusers. NHTSA has an open engineering analysis into Honda automatic emergency braking, but that action names the Passport and Insight, not the HR-V, so the HR-V evidence here is owner complaints and forum reports rather than a campaign.

On the 2023-2025 Honda HR-V, third-generation HR-V owners report the front door glass binding in its track near the top of travel. On the driver's door the auto-up function raises the glass almost fully, the pinch-protection logic reads the extra drag as an obstruction, and the window drops all the way back down — reported as happening on roughly half of attempts. Other owners describe the glass jerking just before it seats and then reversing, and passenger windows that will not roll down at all. Window complaints of this type sit near the top of NHTSA's 2024 HR-V complaint list, with owners describing the driver window as misaligned, sticking, and then slamming shut. Forum owners report a Honda dealership calling it a known condition and replacing the window motor and track under warranty, while in other cases service resolved it purely by re-initializing the window position. This is a mechanical/electrical regulator issue and is distinct from the separate glass-run weatherstrip that works loose out of the door frame.