Honda Pilot Complaints

9,418 consumer complaints on file.

#11468233June 8, 2022
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM, ENGINE
Car shuts off and does not turn back on properly when stopping while driving. It does not happen all of the time, but when stopping at light/stop sign the car will turn off like it is supposed to but fails to start back up. When it fails to start it will not start back up, because the car is not in park, so the push button will not work until you hit the park button.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468262June 8, 2022
UNKNOWN OR OTHER
The auto engine idle engaged when car came to a stop and then stalled out my car. This has happened about 4 times. I am unsure of the exact date of first incident but this has been happening for a couple of years. This required me to turn off the car and then restart. Usually at a red light causing the driver behind me to be confused and angry. Usually I will turn off this feature when I turn on the car but if I don’t remember and this feature engages it it doesn’t always stall out the car but the sound of the engine sounds like it’s having a hard time restarting and sometimes the radio will cut out (like the battery is off for the car) for a second. This was reported to my dealer a couple years ago and they found no issue (took it out for one test drive) and had never heard of this happening as they say.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468273June 8, 2022
ENGINE
The auto Start / Stop feature that shuts the engine off while stopped at stop lights has failed to restart the car dozens of times over the last year. While stopped at a light, the engine shuts off as expected. Then when going to release the brake pedal to pull away from the stop light, the car fails to restart. The method to restart requires putting the car into park, applying the brake, pushing the start/stop button, and then putting the car back in drive. All while traffic behind me is trying to move forward. This is a very scary situation in a busy intersection. After many instances, my wife and I are very fast at the restart procedure, but we get nervous anytime someone else drives the car. Replacing the battery seemed to help for a few months, but did not stop the issue. The issues seems to happen more frequently in hot weather situations where the air conditioning is pulling a large load on the electrical situation, although it also happened a few times over the winter when the heater was running. There are no warnings, lights, or messages that appear on the dashboard. This relates to Investigation # PE 22-005.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468274June 8, 2022
ENGINE
My car shuts itself off at stoplights to save fuel. There have been 4-5 times where I couldn't get the car to restart when the light turned green. It is a scary situation to not be able to restart the car in traffic or when I'm in another city away from my home. I have heard this is happening to others too. Please investigate.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468281June 8, 2022
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM, ENGINE
I recently saw an article that NHTSA is investigating Honda vehicles 2016-2019 regarding the idle stop/restart of the car and want to corroborate that this issue does exist. My husband and I bought a 2016 Honda Pilot Elite in late July of 2019. We believe we are the second owners of the vehicle. All was fine except for occasionally, the idle stop/restart feature would not work: the car would cut off at a red light, but when taking my foot off the brake and expecting a restart, you would see and hear all of the electrical turn off--radio, a/c, etc. and sometimes the car would not restart. I would have to wait 30 seconds or so, then restart the car as normal. The most harrowing experience with this happened on a six-lane highway where I was the last in line at a red light. The light turned green, all cars accelerated and left, but the idle stop did not restart, the car cut off completely, and it would not restart at all. I had to wait for a minute or two to re-try several times. This was a 55mph highway, I was in the middle lane completely stalled out with no other cars around me, and my children were in the car with me. I was afraid someone would come barreling along at the speed limit and hit us. We took the car in to our local Honda dealership on 11/21/19 and still have the paperwork, which reads "BMS no supplying proper voltage for auto stop function to operate properly", "Install new battery management sensor", "Battery test bad" and "replaced battery". We all figured it was the car's battery. A year later, we asked and they still couldn't disconnect that feature for us. I have made it a habit to hit the button to disable the idle stop whenever I drive the car. Just last week, my husband drove with the rest of us in the car, he did not disable the idle stop at a red light, and the car briefly cut off all electrical (but quickly turned back on) when he lifted his foot from the break. We still have the car. Please do inspect it. There are no warning signs.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468283June 8, 2022
ENGINE
Malfunction with the auto start/stop function on my 2017 Honda Pilot. When the car was in the first 40K miles, sometimes I would notice a longer than normal pause for the car to restart and engage the engine. It happened occasionally and I noticed it most often when pulling into traffic and needing to do a fast acceleration. This felt unsafe because I didn't feel like I could reliably pull out into traffic with speed and immediate timing. At approximately 40K miles I started having issues when my engine would die when pausing at a stoplight, a stop sign, or a round a bout. One particular time I had my children in the car, was in rush hour traffic turning left (so was in the intersection). As I tried to make the left turn at the yellow, the engine went into neutral and my car was unsponsive and would not shift into drive or re- engage. I tried to restart the engine a couple of times. Finally I waited approx 10 seconds and tried again. The engine turned on at that point and I was able to pull out of the intersection. It was a really horrible and scary experience for my children and for me. For the past 20K miles, I try to consistently turn OFF the auto start/stop, because I feel it is too dangerous. I don't always remember, so still have had issues with the engine dying. There is not a way, to my knowledge, to engage a setting where it is always disabled. It is very frustrating to have to remember to manually turn it off every time I start the engine. I estimate, even with regularly turning off the auto start/stop, my car has died 10 additional times....at traffic lights, stop signs, and round-a-bouts. It always moves to neutral in those cases. A few times it will start right back up after I shut my car down (in the middle of the road with traffic behind me). Other times it takes several attempts, or a long pause where I count to 10 and try again. When I talked to the dealer, they said they had no knowledge of the issue, which was also frustrating.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468284June 8, 2022
UNKNOWN OR OTHER
The engine fails to restart on its own from a complete stop at a traffic light or road intersection with the Auto Start/Stop function engaged, It have happened many times. I have taken the vehicle to the dealer for assessment and they keep telling me that it is due to all the electronics going on at the same time
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468294June 8, 2022
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM, POWER TRAIN
The contact owns a 2019 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds, the Auto START/STOP feature failed to operate as needed causing the vehicle to stall. The contact would restart the vehicle as an unknown message was displayed on the instrument panel. The vehicle was taken to the dealer on multiple occasions; however, the failure persisted. Recently, the contact stated that the vehicle had locked up after the failure occurred and the gear shifter would not move from the park(P) position. The vehicle was towed to the dealer. The manufacturer had yet to be notified of the failure. The vehicle had yet to be repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 23,000.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468320June 8, 2022
ENGINE
When engine turns off it won't turn back on
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468323June 8, 2022
ENGINE
Almost every time I forget to disable the auto stop function on my pilot and I come to a stop it will more likely kill the engine. Not all the time, but more times than not. It’s annoying because it literally takes me a good 10-20 seconds to start it back up and get moving with cars behind me honking their horns . Issues with this started about a year in to owning this vehicle and have progressively gotten worse. Have taken my 2016 Honda Pilot into Honda multiple times with no help. They always say they could replicate the issue which is complete bull. This needs to be fixed
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468325June 8, 2022
ENGINE, ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
Periodically, while using automatic engine idle stop, when I release the brake to restart the engine, the engine will shut off and not turn on. Only pushing and holding the start button will restart the engine after about a minute. Also, more often, when the engine restarts, all electronics will flicker off then on.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468328June 8, 2022
ENGINE
Honda Pilot 2016 auto idle feature stalls engine completely when recovering from idle to Run (e.g. complete stop at a signal or busy traffic, engine goes to auto idle and upon releasing the brake the engine stalls). Issue started during warranty period and multiple repair attempts were made by Honda dealership, replaced battery and starter motor (50% paid out of pocket though the car was in warranty, 50% was courtesy credit from Honda). Even after multiple attempts the issue remains unresolved. Honda/Dealership recommended to turn off the feature and use the car. This is a safety issue as engine keeps stalling and only starts after full power cycle (about 1-2 mins).
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468332June 8, 2022
ENGINE
The engine automatic idle stop malfunctions on a regular basis. At idle, the engine will stop and is supposed to re-start automatically and on average once per week the engine will not re-start. The car will need to be put into park and then manually restarted. This usually occurs while at a traffic signal and leaves us stuck blocking traffic. It has occurred countless times in the three years we have owned the vehicle. We have taken it back to Honda multiple times to complain but they have never been able to find a problem.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468351June 8, 2022
ENGINE
In 3 occasions my Pilot was stopped waiting for the light to change and all of the sudden the engine died and refuse to turn itself ON as usual. The first time it happens in Miami, Fl. The second time in our hometown of Teaneck, NJ and the third time it happens in New York City (Manhattan) The first time the car re-started after 5 minutes trying (more than 5 times). The second time the car died and 5 took about 5 times to restart again. The third time, we had to use our battery jump starter because the battery died. After the car turned on, all the systems were fine, including the battery.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468185June 8, 2022
POWER TRAIN, ENGINE
I will be filing a issue with our 21 Honda Ridgeline too as the same problem has occurred in both vehicles with the same engine and transmission. This has happened a total of 3 different times. When I drive the Pilot for a long time (over 4 hours)on the expressway and then pull off on a ramp and turn left the vehicle will go into safe mode. The engine light will start flashing and you can not drive over 30 mph. The engine runs rough and idles hard. I have contacted Honda and the dealership I purchased it from. Honda has acknowledged this is a problem and has occurred multiples with many different vehicles. The dealership I work with has acknowledged the same thing as they have several vehicles that have been brought in with this problem. I have waited several months for Honda to come up with a solution, so far they have not. This is a safety concern because what would happen if this same situation came up when I'm pulling my trailer or on the expressway at higher speeds. This could cause an accident. This first started on my Pilot in December of 2021. It has happened several times since then. Every time there is no code the computer keeps, even though each time the engine light is flashing. What I have been told is the computer thinks the engine has backfired and goes into safe mode, but Honda doesn't know why it does this. If you turn the vehicle off and restart it, the problem goes away. When the dealership has run a diagnosis off the computer, there are no codes the computer throws. Even though the check engine light is flashing when this occurs.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11467970June 7, 2022
ENGINE
My vehicle came equipped with a feature that shuts the car off at stops/stoplights. It is supposed to restart immediately once the gas pedal is pushed. My vehicle, however, doesn't always start right away and often dies altogether. To restart, I have to put the car in park and restart and even this sometimes doesn't work. This has happened at several red lights and I have almost been rear ended by cars who have to swerve around me while I'm trying to get the vehicle started. I have taken it to Honda and their answer is to always push the button to override this feature, but if I forget to push the button, I'm in danger. This feature is suppose to save fuel but it's a complete hazard and needs to be remedied.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11467971June 7, 2022
ENGINE
The automatic start/stop sometimes fails to restart and car stalls. The car must be shut off and turned back on. At other times, the engine shuts down immediately upon stopping, such as at a 4 way stop or in traffic. I must pump the breaks to restart. These are intermittent problems that sometimes go away on their own and it has not been able to be replicated when in the shop. No warnings or engine lights appear as a result of this problem. Because it is intermittent and can happen in traffic, it is dangerous. This problem has been recurring for months.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11467994June 7, 2022
ENGINE, ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
Vehicle died when auto start/stop was activated at a stop sign. The vehicle had to be jumped to restart. My wife and 8 month old baby were in the vehicle alone in heavy traffic and nearly caused an accident.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11467998June 7, 2022
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
On multiple occasions the car will stale and not restart when the auto engine off engages. It is left me stranding in the middle of traffic several times. The vehicle has been taken to Honda for service on many occasions and told there is nothing wrong.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11468000June 7, 2022
ENGINE
Auto Start/Stop function fails constantly. When coming to a stop light, the engine will stop as designed, but will not then re-start when pressing on the accelerator. Sometimes after this happens, it will take 30 seconds or more for the engine to actually start back up. At busy intersections, this creates a dangerous backup with a lane being blocked by a stall which is created by this issue. Took vehicle to repair shop and they replaced battery, but a new battery was installed less than 7 months ago from same dealership.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0

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