To improve the connection performances of steel-aluminum hybrid lightweight car-body structure, the clinch-bonded hybrid joint technology between steel and aluminum were researched by simulation and experiment. With the A5052 aluminum alloy and Q235 steel as the connected elements and epoxy as the adhesive, cohesive zone model simulating the damage behavior of the adhesive was applied to build up the shear and peel simulation model of the clinch-bonded hybrid joint. On the basis of the experimental verification of the simulation model and multi-objective optimization set by the RSM model for the connection parameters, a Pareto solution about the shear strength and peel strength as well as the optimization combination of the parameters were gained. The results show that the multiple schemes in the optimization solution can ensure the shear strength above 9 400 N, and the peel strength above 700 N. Experiments confirm that the strength of clinch-bonded joints can be twice or more as the sole clinch joint without adhesive, and it can reach 80% of the weld tensile strength of steels under the same conditions.