Our beloved 2004 Honda Pilot EX-L looked great and ran great with 124,000 miles. Our oldest is about to turn 16 on Easter Sunday and we were planning on gifting her the car we bought a month before her 1st birthday. We always kept up with routine maintenance and the vehicle still looked GREAT. The only visible rust was inside the gas cover.

We took the car in for a routine three month oil change and and to back flush the heater coil. Much to our surprise, we were told the car was unsafe to drive. We drove it two doors down to the auto body shop where they confirmed the cross member of the subframe needed to be replaced immediately. We did not hesitate to dump the estimated $2600 into this bad boy because it is a great car. Then, we got the dreaded phone call that the car could not be repaired after all because the frame rail was also corroded. What the heck happened?!?!?

We babied this car. We drove our family all around in this car. We planned to give this to our pride and joy. Is was a death trap! I called Honda customer service and got a claim number even though they said they do not have a record of rust issues with 1st generation Pilots. I suggested they look online as I can see many complaints similar to my own.

Since we are vehicle dependent in our town, we needed to make a quick decision. We did go straight to Honda and purchase a 2019 Honda Pilot EX-L because we had 14 years, 11 months with our first one but are extremely disappointed by the way our first Pilot got put down. Please tell me that there is a class action lawsuit about this!

I was checking my rear stabilizer bar links and bushings due to popping noise from the rear of my 2004 Pilot. While inspecting the parts I noticed some rust on the driver side of the body where it attaches to rear subframe. I started to chip away the newly found rust thinking "I will remove this rust and paint the remaining good area so it won't rust any more". Just to find that I had no good area left (see pictures). So I did some research online to find out what my options were. And found that there was no help or recall from Honda. So I looked for independent body shops to do repair but they would not touch it since it was a reliability issue.

This Pilot was maintained meticulously so it runs perfectly without any issues with good body. But I have no option at this point on where to repair this rusting problem before the subframe detaches itself from the body. So if you have this generation Pilot take the time to inspect your vehicle for rusting issues on rear subframe attaching area before it becomes a major problem while driving.