Overview & Reviews

User Reviews:

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  Disappointed! - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By abaker115 - September 29 - 8:09 am

  My previous car was a 2004 Honda Pilot. Loved it so much wanted another one. MISTAKE! I have had it for one year. After six months, I was aware of three problems. Neither of them could be fixed. 1. Unable to start the car because I could not depress the brake enough to start it. This was a random problem. Did not happen when I took it in to the dealership, so they had no idea how to fix it. 2. Horrible shift from first to second gear. Takes and extra second to engage transmission. When I am accelerating, there is a noticeable lurch. Was told it is the way nine speed transmission works. Well, it is really bad! Would think a more expensive car would be smoother! 3. The entertainment system crashes and restarts. Once again, not every day, not every time I drive it. Once again, nothing wrong with the car.

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  Love My Elite - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Franco Lionetti - September 27 - 6:40 pm

  Upgraded from a 07 Rav4 Sport to the Pilot Elite. I started researching different SUVs over a year ago. Decided to get the Highlander, that is until the 2016 Pilot was announced. After the specs were released, I compared the Highlander and Pilot. On paper the Pilot edged out the Highlander enough where I decided to take a chance on a newly redesigned vehicle. To that end I got the extra warranty, just in case. Im glad I did. A week after I bought the Pilot my wife and I went on a camping trip. With my Rav4, after loading all the camping stuff, the cargo area ( with seats down) was stuffed to the point that I couldnt use my rear view mirror. Not so with the Pilot, plenty of room leftover and I could actually use the rear view mirror. The gape between the captain chairs made loading a little awkward, but we figured it out. The ride was comfortable and quiet. On the twisty roads the Pilot handled great once I learned its limitations and kept with in them. Its not sporty by any stretch, but its not sloutch either. After about 700 miles so far, Ive been averaging about 22 to 22.5 mpg in mixed driving, 26.2 in streight highway driving. Not bad for this size. The interior is clean and well laid out. Love the ventilated seats. The Garmin nav works great and the infotainment system in general is responsive and fairly easy to use. It didnt take me long to figure things out with the manual and just playing around on my own. The Honda Sense tech works well, the ACC is my favorite feature. One thing about the follow distance is even at the lowest setting its still pretty large. I think its set that way for safety, in case of a panic stop situation you still have enough room to break and maneuver. This doesnt bother me at all, but everyone is different. I also found that the engine shut off gets a little annoying for very short stops (like waiting for the garage door to open or stop signs), but in general its ok and if I need to I can turn it off. Lane keep does its job especially when Im tired after a long grave yard shift. blind Spot Monitoring also does its job. Collision avoidance has already paid off for me. The rear view camera has spoiled me. My only gripes are: Why doesnt a SUV, especially one thats $47k, come with a cargo cover, or power folding side mirrors. Also why doesnt Honda include the Blind Spot monitoring in the lower trims, at least as an option. Lastly, whats the deal with only getting the captain chairs in the Elite, why no bench as a option. I love my Pilot. The looks, ride, comfort, tech and mpg. If youre in the market for an SUV, you should really take a hard look at the new Pilot.

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  We like the Vehicle, infotainment not so much... - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Carguy - September 26 - 6:57 pm

  2016 EX-L AWD and the vehicle itself has been great overall. Mileage is good, power is good, interior cargo room is great. With that said they should have just not put a radio/infotainment system in at all and saved me some money. The EX-L has the middle of the road option for sound system for the Pilot, and if you were to put it into a stage coach it would be an insult to the stage coach rather than an upgrade. They focused so much on the form (look and cleanliness of Dash) that they forgot about the function. Having no volume knob is flat out annoying, but just when you think you can get used to that the system shows how slow it is. Then you have the actual functional/quality control problems. 1) FM radio signal fades in and out at random while the car is moving (in areas with strong signals, and verified with other vehicles). 2) The subwoofer is pretty much useless to non-existent, and attempting to change the signal level on the settings page does absolutely nothing (full minus setting to full plus plus). 3) Dumb stuff like giving you the option to move the clock to different corners of the 8 inch screen, yet when an option is selected nothing happens, our clock is and has always been on the top right side of the screen despite trying every option that is given with no response. Car has been to the dealer, and it resolved nothing other than documenting the problem. Contacted American Honda Customer Service, they just gave the number for tech support and didnt really seem interested in helping. Contacted Tech support and they stated all they could do at this time was document my concerns. I wish I was the only one having these issues but a quick internet search will reveal many are experiencing the FM fade and Subwoofer issues. My advice for anyone looking to purchase this vehicle is to do an extremely thorough test of the infotainment system and make sure it is performing to your liking before purchase. In my opinion it behaves and functions nothing at all like you would expect for a vehicle with a $40,000 price tag. Update 8/23/16: Pilot has been back to dealer several times and the tuner has been replaced twice per a Honda TSB. This seems to have resolved the FM fade for the most part, but reception sound quality is absolutely terrible with stations on the lower end of the spectrum sounding muffled and the higher end frequencies only having treble. Dealer Service Manager agreed the system sounds atrocious, but they dont know what to do as a pilot we tested on the dealer lot had the same symptoms. Subwoofer control still seems to have no response, and the clock doesnt respond to options selected. Infotainment system is pure garbage.

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  Named Memes Roadrunner - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Cathy Guerrero - September 24 - 1:18 pm

  Excellent car. Great gas mileage. City getting at least 20mpg drops when oil needs changing. Price little steep so shop around for specials or discounts. Could use little more cargo behind 3rd row for luggage for large family other wise Love Love my SUV. Easier to park than my F250 Crewcab

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  DO NOT BUY THIS CAR WITH THE 9 SPEED TRANSMISSION! - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Teri - September 5 - 5:56 am

  We traded in our 2011 Honda Pilot, and went for the top of the line this time. While the interior and amenities are very nice, they dont make up for the problems with the transmission. Two months after purchasing the car we noticed a whining sound while accelerating. Took them 2 months and me being very insistent on getting a fix, which was a new wiring harness. Recently the vehicle started having transmission problems, similar to other reviews. Transmission was glitchy, lurching, missing gears, this was most notable when climbing a hill. The vehicle then started with some sort of belt squeaking noise, engine then started overheating while idling. Back to Honda Service...."somehow" transmission fluid had gotten into the radiator, and the Honda service verified the transmission problem, the fix replacing the entire transmission. Found out at the Honda Service desk that they had to replace a transmission on another Elite just a few weeks before mine. After doing extensive research on this 9 speed transmission, it seems this transmission is not reliable. I too like other Elite owners, am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED WITH HONDA. Why would they put this transmission in their most expensive vehicle? I have called American Honda to open a case, with the hopes of getting out of this car and into a Pilot EX-L with the tried and true 6 speed transmission. Of course the dealer with "let" me trade my car in and accomplish this, and then I can loose twelve grand. SHAME ON YOU HONDA!!!

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  Horrible transmission problems on 9-speed. - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By John Saaty - August 12 - 4:14 pm

  The 2016 Honda Pilot is almost a perfect car except that it has major, major transmission problems that arent readily evident in just a test drive. We just purchased a 2016 Honda Elite and the transmission really is a mess. It cant find gears correctly, when on a downhill and you brake the car actually speeds up because it upshifts while you are braking, there are head-jerking episodes that are unexplained, when trying to climb hills it downshifts so much that you actually fight the car to try to get it up the hill. We are so disappointed I cant even tell you. We paid $51,000 for this car at a Honda dealer in Northern Virginia and it only has 265 miles on it and my wife refuses to drive it anymore. She was in tears at the dealership and they, so far, have taken no ownership of the problem. By the way, if you think that this is just us then go and look at other reviews on forums for the Pilots on the Internet. It is known that the 9 speed has a real problem. Honda does not seem to be addressing this which is shocking given that it is happening on the 2 highest end models -- Touring and Elite. But Im getting the feeling that they dont care or dont know how to fix it. With literally just 265 miles on the car we have listed it for sale. We are going to take a major loss on this car and get rid of it right away. I have nothing but the worst feelings about Honda as a company and brand. Do not buy this car. Do not buy this car.

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  Elite Model was a Lemon for us - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Stephanie - August 9 - 2:40 pm

  We purchased a 2016 Pilot Elite and loved it at first! Then the maintanance lights started popping up (Emissions system problem) at around 20,000 miles. Catalytic converter was replaced. Lights came back on like a Christmas tree shortly after. Fuel injectors were replaced. Lights back again and this time they said we had bad fuel. We had a lot of delayed acceleration problems. The air conditioner started going out. The dealer always helped us, but they couldnt make the vehicle more reliable. We ended up with 30,000 miles on this vehicle before we sold it and took the loss. Please research this trim model.

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  Honda Pilot 2016 Ex - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Dave - July 28 - 4:40 am

  We just brought this car last month 7/1/2015 and already Im started to hear a weird squeak noise after i start the engine. At first I thought it was because I left the car for couple of days without using it but is not the case. Its happening quite frequently now. I go in press the brake then the start button and the engine comes on and then a squeak noise. Please let me know if anyone else is having this issue. I will take this in and see what is going on. Thanks

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  Awesome car!!! - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By Janelle - July 22 - 9:59 pm

  This car is amazing. It beats all the other SUVs of its class, and the technology is incredible too. The ride is much quieter than the 2015 model, and looks 100% better too. The front and rear LEDs look great. Get this Honda! You wont regret it.

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  i hate the inside arm rests - 2016 Honda Pilot
  By albuquerque1956@yahoo.com - July 22 - 4:41 pm

  The stick arm rest have got to go, put on console with arm rest like I dont know the CRV. On long trips the stick arm rests dont work for me.