10.0
really awful- Crashes / Fires:
- 3 / 0
- Injuries / Deaths:
- 8 / 0
- Average Mileage:
- 24,855 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.
« Read the previous 20 complaints
2016 Honda Pilot A/C grinding noise after activated at cold start after more than 36-48 hours parked. When A/C activated while driving vehicle belt system slips and pulls forward loosing speed. A/C compressor damage confirmed by dealer and Honda confirmed and acknowledged problem due to severe loop on the A/C suction hose design on this model causing issues with the oil flow. Issue found at 12,444 miles and current mileage 17,874.ongoing issue since 2016. No fix at the moment according to Honda. According to this there's an issue with the clutch engagement which explains the loss of power on the belt system.
- Miami Springs, FL, USA
Honda Pilot 2016 model with 30000 miles has stalled on highway interstate suddenly within 2 min of signalling messages of engine temperature too hot, transmission system problem, emission system problem etc...and went into neutral mode with failure of brakes. Car would not respond to brakes as it went to neutral state. Also noticed a burning or gasoline smell inside the car. I had to apply parking brake to stop the vehicle from moving on highway which could have led to a major crash. As I was not on the speeding lanes, things were not worse. I had to call 911 and they helped me move my car to a shoulder and later towed to Honda dealership. This was the second time happening for the same issue where earlier it happened on a local road. The same dealer kept the car for a week and returned the car saying its fixed.within 30 min of driving into the highway, it stalled again this time the situation being on highway. The car is now returned to same dealer who fixed first time and is under investigation.
- Naperville, IL, USA
[2016 Honda Pilot exl AWD with sensing, 28 K miles and 2.4 years since purchase] on Friday Aug/24/2018 while driving home (around 40mph) the vsa light came on and stayed on for barely 4-5 seconds and then turned off. Did not notice any major issues then. On Sunday 26/Aug/2018 while driving at around 30-35 mph, the car suddenly lost power and came to a complete stop almost like the brakes had been applied (did not notice the orange brake sign or the collision warning beep sound). I was on the right lane with no one behind or ahead of me and no obstacles in front. Turned on the hazard light and then noticed that the vsa light was on. Car would not move and just kept revving when I tried to accelerate. Put the car in park and then in drive, no change. Pushed the vsa button to turn off vsa and both the vsa light and the vsa off light stayed on but the car would still not move. Shut down the car and restarted it after which the lights went off, and the car started moving (although slowly). Drove home with vsa turned off and at a speed of around 20-30 mph. The abrupt braking/stopping was particularly dangerous and would have caused a collision even in regular traffic on any other day. Note: The key fob was low on battery and the only other warning I had on the console was one informing about the key fob battery being low.
- Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
I was traveling on a two lane highway at a speed of around 75mph. I needed to slow down so pulled my foot off accelerator and slowed by about 10mph. When I went to accelerate again I had no power and the car began to decelerate for the next 10-15 seconds. I had no power and had a car coming in close behind me and a big rig to my right. This was a dangerous situation. The car finally kicked into gear after several attempts to accelerate. After taking it to Honda to be checked they said they could not "duplicate" this nor find anything in the log but Honda has placed an extended warranty on the transmission. An extended warranty isn't going to save our lives if this situation occurs again. Honda needs to address this issue.
- Castro Valley, CA, USA
Vehicle randomly cuts power to engine. While vehicle is in motion, stability control symbol flashes when accelerator is pressed and power is cut from the engine causing vehicle to slow. Releasing accelerator allows vehicle to coast and stability control symbol on dash goes away. As soon as accelerator is pressed again, stability control symbol flashes and power is once again cut from engine. Very scary on freeway. Pulling over and putting into park and drive does not correct issue. Vehicle must be turned off and turned back on to reset. Imagine how scary this will be doing 70 on the freeway and power being cut from the engine surrounded by traffic and unable to get to the shoulder to turn the vehicle off and reset the system.
- Santa Rosa, CA, USA
I had pulled out of a parking place and was waiting in the traffic lane to exit the area. There were two cars in front of us. The cars were stopped. I was approximately 20-25 feet behind the car in front of me. I took my foot off the brake in my car to let it idle forward. As I approached the Yukon I reapplied the brake. The car accelerated to what sounded like full RPM's and I applied the brakes as hard as I could and nothing happened. The car slammed into the Yukon with such an impact that both front airbags deployed. The driver side airbag hit me in the face. The passenger airbag did not reach my wife in the passenger seat. She immediately experienced severe chest pain and rapid heart beat. Bystanders called 911 and two park Ranger arrived in approx. 15-20 minutes. The Ranger finished taking pictures and asked me to pull in to a parking spot out of the travel lane of the parking lot. I started the car and proceeded slowly and turned into a parking spot. As I applied the brake to park, the same phenomenon occurred again. The car accelerated forward over a curb and walkway and struck a pedestrian before coming to a stop on a retaining wall. I desperately tried to stop the car without success. The ems was there shortly after this occurrence. A Ranger asked me how fast I was moving and I stated I had no idea. I asked him to ask the Ranger who was right behind me and he said 5 mph. I exited the vehicle after they transported the pedestrian on the backboard.the ambulance was ready to take my wife to the hospital so I approached the park Ranger and told him that I needed to ride in the ambulance with my wife.
- Goodland,, FL, USA
My family traveled in this vehicle to carlsbad last week for vacation, including myself, my wife, our 13 year old daughter and 11 year old son. The vehicle worked perfectly until we were on our way home Saturday, July 22, 2017. We were on I-10 approximately 1 hour East of phoenix in the right lane with the cruse set at the 75mph speed limit. There were no cars in front of us for at least a mile. All the sudden, without any warning whatsoever, nearly all the vehicle system lights came on and the vehicle slowed at an emergency rate down to approximately 40mph in about 2 seconds. I immediately hit 'cancel' on the cruise and stepped on the gas, but the vehicle continued to slow quickly. I immediately started to move to the shoulder of the road and noticed the 18 wheel tractor trailer behind us make an emergency swerve to the left and missed hitting us by inches. We were nearly involved in an accident that could have easily been fatal. All this took place in about a 5-10 second timeframe. After stopping on the shoulder of the road I made note that the vehicle was showing a transmission problem, an emissions problem, an AWD problem and I think just about every other issue light was lit up. I tried to get the vehicle back on the road, but it would not go any higher than 3rd gear and the dash kept indicating a transmission and AWD problem. I pulled over again and turned the vehicle off and back on. At that point the only indicator light that lit up was the emission system problem (see attached picture). I reentered the interstate and the transmission was working properly again. We stopped at the next gas station and filled the gas tank and upon restarting the engine the emission light was still on. We carefully drove home at 65'70mph. The following day (Sunday), the emission light was no longer on.
- Mesa, AZ, USA
Vehicle has a lurching jolt when at a stop and go into 1st/2nd gear. Very noticeable downshift when breaking as well, with more lurching jolts.
- Copperas Cove, TX, USA
This is a follow up to complaint 10881962 in which one of my fears has come to fruition. I was driving my car in the normal mode (acc and lkas disabled) on a normal two lane paved road when the car in front of me made a slow right turn. I was not following very closely and came to a complete stop on my own to avoid running into the other car. I stopped about 15 feet away from the other car. The other car then completed the turn to the extent that the other car was no longer in the way of me driving forward in a straight line. When I pushed the gas to then proceed the collision mitigation system started flashing the "brake" message and producing an audible warning. At this point I was possibly going 10 mph again. After verifying that there was definitely not anything in my way, I kept applying the gas. My car then started braking on its own, at which point I pushed the gas harder to presumably over-ride the braking. A moment or two later, my car then made a sudden and hard brake on its own that brought my car to a complete stop, despite the fact that I was pushing hard on the gas. The other car that had turned was well clear of the lane by this point, and was easily 1 ft away from my path of travel when I started accelerating in the first place. My only explanation is that the collision mitigation system was confused by the lack of a shoulder lane marker (only a raise cement curb was present) and somehow thought the car was still in the "road." In either case, the system malfunctioned to the point that my car was suddenly brought to a complete stop, and the car behind me very nearly rear-ended me in a situation where I had already come to a stop, and the obstacle in front of me had cleared / continued to become increasingly more clear of my path. The situation was dangerous and clearly misinterpreted by my car.
- Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Hi, I got a strange problem in my car as per the attached image. Thanks,
- Plainsboro, NJ, USA
My car has a variety of dangerous behaviors in the driver assist functionalities that could either cause or fail to prevent an accident. I have only driven it 2,000 miles but observed these many times. I reported these to the dealer and was told the car was fine. Adaptive cruise control issues: - fails to detect vehicles in odd situations, such as a truck where the rear of the body protrudes out from the rear wheels, as if the radar is only at ground level, or if a vehicle is driving in my lane but one tire is in the other lane, or a wide load which occupies all of the adjacent lane and half of my lane, or a "bobtail" truck. - after an empty stretch, upon coming up to a slower car, rather than slow gradually by easing off the gas, the car will get very close to the car and then rapidly brake, causing drivers behind me to nearly rear-end me. Collision mitigation: - all of these trigger "brake" messages to be displayed, which is just 1 step before the brakes being auto-applied, which could cause me to be rear-ended. - false alarms while merging from lefthand onramps where a pending collision with the jersey barrier is detected - false alarms by the hills adjacent to the road when going around a sharp turn on back roads - false alarms when cresting a hill with a curve after the hill and it thinks an oncoming car will be hit, because it can't see the lane markings past the hill lane keep assist: - partially goes into exit ramps on its own if in the right lane, causing other drivers to think I am leaving the lane and start to merge themselves - is confused by lines of tar and will depart the lane on its own - often "fights" with the lane departure mitigation around corners - tries to prevent me from giving other vehicles some buffer when passing them, if they are wider or drifting toward me. - does not alert when it stops being able to detect the lines
- Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Vehicle loss acceleration while traveling at 65 mph (engine still running) speed slowed to 25-30 mph then returns to full control. This happened in rush hour traffic in atlanta and several times on open highways. Honda updated the PCM and tcm and it did not solve the problem. Dealerships say they cannot replicate the problem so they can not fix it. This has happened 3 times.
- Fayetteville, NC, USA
- Orange, CA, USA