The Best Years For The Toyota Matrix, And Some To Avoid

Just because a vehicle does not stick around for a long time does not mean that it was a failure. In fact, there are some hidden gems peppered throughout every manufacturer's history that had short production runs that were well liked and very reliable vehicles. If there's any company you can truly expect that from, it is Toyota, as the Japanese company has been renowned for decades for its ability to build high quality automotive machines. One of those Toyota vehicles that had a very short life but had quite a few well-liked years was the Toyota Matrix.

This was essentially a hatchback version of the Toyota Corolla that was developed in conjunction with General Motors, which released its own version of the Matrix with the Pontiac Vibe. Introduced for the 2003 model year, the Matrix only had a production run of a little over 10 years, ceasing production after the 2013 model in the United States. Despite the standard Corolla being a very popular vehicle, the Matrix was not even selling 4,500 units in a year when it was decided to pull the plug on the hatchback.

Despite those sales drops, the Toyota Matrix would still have model years that were very highly rated by drivers, and there are some very good options if you're thinking about getting one on the used market. Of course, not every year is perfect, either. Based on ratings and complaints from owners, we are going to look at a few of the best and worst years for the Toyota Matrix for used car shoppers.

For a lot of vehicles that hit the market, it takes them a few years before they get settled in and have a year that drivers end up being fond of. For the Toyota Matrix, that satisfaction actually occurred with just its second model year in 2004. After a rocky first year, which we will get to later, the Matrix saw a significant drop in the number of complaints from drivers across the board. This was also only a momentary drop because the model years immediately after this would have those numbers go back up.

Drivers have submitted 138 total complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), making it the only model year of the first four to get under 150 complaints. Over on CarComplaints, it has just 13 submitted problems from drivers. For that same four-year span, it's the only one under 20. With just three recalls issued against it in 20 years, that shows there is not much major fault being found with the car. Two of the three recalls were about the front headlamps not being as bright as they should be. That can be a serious issue, but once the recalls handle that, there is not some other consensus issue drivers have found with the car.

Beyond the complaints, drivers have given this model some incredibly positive ratings. Customers on Edmunds have given it an average rating of 4.7 out of five stars. Those rating it on Kelley Blue Book are almost as positive, with a 4.6-star average. The 2004 Toyota Matrix may be old, but it has proved itself to be rock solid.

Even though the Toyota Matrix did not have a very long life, it did manage to go through two different generations. The next entry on this list for the best model years is 2008, the final year of the first generation. Although the 2004 model year had a relatively few number of complaints from drivers, it does not hold a candle to 2008 for the best of this generation. Only two complaints have been submitted to CarComplaints in total. One complaint was for a noisy serpentine belt, and the other was for the check engine indicator light turning on whenever it got below a certain temperature. In the grand scheme of car problems, these are extremely minor.

There aren't many more complaints made to the NHTSA either, with just 38. The complaints are a little more varied than on CarComplaints, with complaints including a couple of instances of an airbag not deploying or flickering dashboard lights, but there is not much consistency here. The only complaint that would give a slight pause are the reports of accelerator problems, but there are still a relatively small amount of those as well. 

There are two recalls for the 2008 Toyota Matrix. One fixes an issue related to engine stalling, and the other is simply a new label that owners need to put on their car to fix a mislabeling load carrying capacity of the car. With an 83 out of 100 quality and reliability score from drivers surveyed by J.D. Power, there's little to not recommend about the 2008 Toyota Matrix.

For the final recommendation on this list, it would be very easy to pick any of the last three years of the Matrix's run in the United States. Starting with the 2011 model year, the Matrix was able to close out strong, but its strongest year of any model year was probably the very last one in 2013. The lack of complaints levied against this model year from drivers is rather astonishing. It shows that it was simply the sales of the Matrix that made it come to an end, and not the quality of the actual vehicle.

Owners have only submitted three problems on CarComplaints. One person was hearing an odd knock when opening the trunk door. Another had an issue with a slipping clutch. The last had a faulty hubcap. There is no consensus to any of this, and even if there was, these isolated incidents are not exactly the direst problems drivers have ever faced.

To bolster the lack of complaints even more, we turn to the NHTSA. Impressively, not a single complaint has been made to the institution about the 2013 Matrix, which is the only model year that is the case for. Seeing not a single complaint is rare enough, let alone for a model that is over 10 years old. You pair this lack of reports with the fact that only a single recall has been issued for it, correcting an airbag problem that was common across many different Toyota models. Although the 2004, 2008, and 2011-2012 model years are all strong, 2013 stands above the rest.

Even though there were quite a few good years for the Toyota Matrix, there were some pretty bad ones as well. For the first year that you should avoid, all you have to do is go back to the very first model year for the hatchback, 2003. It is not uncommon for a new vehicle to have a lot of problems out of the gate, and that is the case with the 2003 Matrix. Although there are model years that have received more complaints from drivers overall, it is the severity of these complaints that have led to CarComplaints deeming this the worst model year for the Matrix of them all.

The primary reason behind the site's determination of this is that engine failure makes up a significant percentage of the 42 submitted complaints from drivers. This is a costly endeavor, as you typically will have to spend thousands of dollars to either fix or replace the engine. Nearly on par with the engine failure complaints are issues related to transmission malfunctions or failures. It doesn't help that none of the three recalls address these issues.

The NHTSA has recorded nearly 270 complaints for the 2003 Matrix. Here, it is the airbags that have made up the largest percentage of complaints. So, while there isn't necessarily a consensus on a single issue, there are several separate issues that have each been subject to a concerning number of complaints. There are reasons why you should never buy the first model year of a new car, and the 2003 Toyota Matrix certainly falls into that pattern.

While the 2003 Toyota Matrix is probably the worst of the first generation of the hatchback, it was not the only one at fault in those early years. 2004 was a down year for complaints, but things went back up again immediately after, reaching another complaint peak for that stretched across the 2005 and 2006 model years. These years did not get quite as many as the initial year, but there are still enough complaints from drivers for these models that should ward off any potential buyer on the used market.

Starting with 2005, we see a jump to 24 complaints on CarComplaints, nearly double that of the previous year. Most commonly, drivers were experiencing warning lights coming on that they could not explain, such as the check engine and airbag lights. More often than not, these warnings were not easily explained or fixed by the dealer when brought in for service. The airbag light in particular was responsible for over 100 of the 213 complaints made to the NHTSA by drivers, and neither of the two recalls addressed this.

The 2006 model year for the Matrix went up in the number of complaints from drivers on CarComplaints to a total of 27. On the other hand, the number of complaints to the NHTSA went down to 169. Rather than the most common complaints being mechanical, this model year had a bunch of complaints related to its build, from cracking door handles to rubber door seals falling off to paint chipping, along with some more airbag issues. The 2004 Toyota Matrix seems like an anomaly with 2005 and 2006 following it.

For the final entry on this list, we move on over to the second generation of the Toyota Matrix. Just like with the first year of the car's life being extremely problematic, the same can be said for the first year of its second generation. Although CarComplaints deems the 2003 model to be the worst, the 2009 Toyota Matrix is the one with the most overall complaints on the site from drivers with a total of 79, nearly 40 more than 2003.

51 of those 79 complaints have to do with the car's engine. The vast majority of them concern the engine's tendency to consumer oil at an excessively rapid pace. This has caused drivers to replace the engine entirely, replace its piston rings, or just throw their hands up in the air in frustration. Excessive oil consumption can be incredibly damaging to an engine's performance and drastically reduce its life, so this is an incredibly serious issue.

Drivers who have submitted their complaints to the NHTSA — for an overall total of 192 — have a different complaint that stands above the rest. There have been many instances of an airbag deploying with the inflator rupturing, which causes metal fragments to shoot into the cabin and potentially harm the passengers. Thankfully, this has been addressed with a recall, but it is still an incredibly dangerous problem that the recall has been known to not always solve. Toyota was able to turn things around and end things strong for the vehicle, but the 2009 Toyota Matrix should be avoided.

Even though there are not a ton of model years for the Toyota Matrix, there is a fairly clean line in the sand between the years that are really good and quite poor. To determine this line, we looked at the opinions and experiences of actual Matrix owners. First, the number of complaints submitted by drivers was considered. One source of this was the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is the government body responsible for examining the safety of vehicles and issuing recalls. Another is the website CarComplaints, where drivers can freely submit their specific complaints with their vehicles.

Along with the number of complaints, owner satisfaction and reliability ratings from drivers were used as background and supplemental information. These are from sources such as J.D. Power and Consumer Reports, both of which survey actual owners for their experiences with their cars. Taking all of this into consideration, these seven model years were chosen to represent the best and worst of the Toyota Matrix.