CarComplaints.com Notes: It's worrying when the top category for 2016 Honda Pilot problems are transmission problems. Owners report jerking when accelerating. Also as the first model year of the redesigned 3rd generation Pilot, it's not a good sign.
Honda released a TSB on October 29 2016 that's possibly related. The TSB deals with a "a judder from the torque converter lock-up clutch ... while driving between 20 and 60 mph" due to deteriorated transmission fluid resulting from "specific driving conditions". In the TSB, Honda states they are developing a software fix to try to keep the transmission fluid temperature within spec.
We are keeping a close eye on this defect trend because if certain driving conditions can affect transmission shifting in the first year of ownership, we'd hate to think what 10+ years will do.
10.0
really awful
Crashes / Fires:
4 / 3
Injuries / Deaths:
1 / 0
Average Mileage:
18,967 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated while at a stop light and attempting to accelerate, the vehicle lost motive power and stalled. The contact attempted several times to restart the vehicle however, the vehicle failed to start up immediately. After several more attempts, the vehicle restarted and operated normally. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing however, the mechanic was unable to determine the cause of the failure. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 23,000.
During several stops now, the auto engine idle kicks in, but vehicle does not restart. The vehicle is at a complete stop with the engine off. This has happened on 2 occasions on freeway off/on ramps, which has been extremely dangerous, with the speed that vehicles are traveling. It has also happened over 4 times at intersections and stop signs. 2 separate dealerships have inspected the vehicle, where 1 was able to reproduce the issue and both times, my battery was replaced, well before the life of the battery. Maybe 1 year into having the new battery the issue presents itself again. I have owned the vehicle for just over 3 years now and I have purchased 2 batteries, that is not acceptable.
Purchased the car back in 2/2016. Had the battery replaced this year after noticing the auto stop-start function showed some signs of hesitation. In the past month, I've had the vehicle stall twice. The first time, I was at a parking lot, waiting for the other car to move out. While the car was stopped - the auto stop/start feature activated. Upon letting go of the brake, the car failed to restart. I had to place it in Park. Hit the ignition button. It restarted after 2-3 tries. The second time happened today while at a stop light. The car was off when the auto stop/start activated. When light turned green, brake was released and car failed to start. Had to go through the same routine as above. The car finally start.
While at a stop the engine stopped as it should but did not restart. It then took multiple tries of pressing the brake and hitting the start button to get it to restart. This meant the car was blocking the flow of traffic creating a safety issue. This has occurred on multiple occasions with no issues found at the dealer.
I-??m having problem with the start/stop feature if my honda pilot 2016. For a couple of incidents already, when the car idle on a stop, it will not start back. It happened today 7/23/22 in Fletcher ave in Fort Lee, NJ. I had to jump start the car and it caused traffic for a while.
- Fort Lee, NJ, USA
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The Auto Engine Idle Stop malfunctions. This has happened multiple times. When this feature is NOT de-activated, the engine will turn off (at say a traffic light) and will not restart properly. While this has happened multiple times, today I took note of the specifics. When I realized the engine was turning off, I attempted to disable the auto engine idle stop. The car switched itself to neutral, the battery light came on and I had to push the button to start it again. During this time the A/C also turned off. On previous occasions, instructions have appeared on the digital screen (i.e. press brake, press start twice, etc, ), but I do not recall the specifics as this causes anxiety and panic when it happens. I've had to turn on my hazard lights in the past while I attempt to restart the vehicle, while traffic is building behind my disabled vehicle. This issue does not always happen, but when it does, it's terrifying. It's dangerous as someone would expect you to be driving, but cannot because your vehicle has randomly shut off (say in traffic). I told the dealer about it a while ago, but they could not recreate the issue.
At lights when the vehicle stops for a short period, the engine goes off and is supposed to restart. Many times the engine is kicking off, this is not normal, it has almost caused us to get rear-ended a couple of times because the car goes off completely. You have to put the car in park and turn it off and on again to restart. As you can imagine this also frustrates drivers behind us. Please look into this, it is a HUGE safety issue. I don't see it as a recall as of yet, but read people have been reporting the same issue.
While waiting for green light, the gear transfer from D to P automatically and stuck there, the only thing I can do is turn off the engine and restart it, that happened four times in recent three months, the car became unreliable, I don-??t know when it will happen again.
The engine begins to idle rough, after a few days of driving a lot of cluster lights come on starting with check engine light, VSA as well as others. Disconnecting battery works to clear the the codes, engine will appear to idle ok but after a week of driving it will start idling rough again, then the cluster lights will light up as before. I believe this is due to Service Bulletin 20-100 or Service Bulletin A20-100 which states that issues with the fuel injectors were found relating to quality control. The TSB listed above states that if your vehicle is affected by these symptoms your warranty will be extended to 10 years of manufacture date or 150,000 miles. Our Pilot currently has under 80,000 miles on the odometer.
While driving on the highway on cruise mode, the car was driving fine. Then suddenly, cruise mode turns off, and the following four lights appeared on the dash: emissions system problem, vehicle stability assist problem, hill stability assist problem, and steering problem. When the car attempted to accelerate, it would not go above 50 mph on a 70mph highway. When it did go above 50mph, the car would bounce as if it was on a bumpy road even though the road was smooth. Additionally, when the problem would appear again, the car would suddenly slow down, increasing risk for an accident with the other cars driving so fast. We have bought many cars in the past but this was the first time we have ever experienced a problem like this with a Honda vehicle. I came on here to send this message to make other drivers aware that this is a common problem that 2016 Honda pilots have been experiencing, according to some mechanics.
When the auto idle stop is not disengaged (the default setting when the car starts is that the auto idle stop is engaged), the car will sometimes not restart when the idle stop occurs. It's unpredictable and scary, especially when it occurs at a light or in stop-and-go traffic. The dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree, and there is a clicking noise. I have to place it into Park, shut off the engine fully (it's not running - I think it's in Accessory mode), step on the brake and restart. Because of this, I make a habit of disengaging the auto idle stop when I start the car. Unfortunately, sometimes I forget to disengage and this engine restart failure happens. I have read that an old/weak battery is suspected. This is not true in my case. This issue has happened several times after I changed the battery on 12/15/2020. Interstate MTX48/H6 battery at $300. It's not just me - it has happened to my wife, and my 17 year old son, when driving this car. At first, I thought my wife did something wrong, then it happened to me. In total, I'd guess it's happened > 6-7 times. We try to be careful to push the button and disengage the auto idle stop. But you have to do it EVERY TIME YOU START THE CAR. If you forget or are distracted, then the problem can occur.
While stopped at a red light, with the auto start enabled, the car would not turn back on and placed the car in -??neutral-??. The dash info message prompted me to put the car in -??park-??. I did. It then instructed me to depress the brake and hit the -??start-?? button to turn the car on. It did not after I tried a few times. Finally to get it started I pushed the -??start-?? button with the key fob. It then turned on and allowed me to put it in -??drive-??.
Engine will intermittently not re-start after the auto-stop start function turns the engine off. Most recently happened on I-95 in stop and go traffic and took multiple efforts to re-start the engine. Was a very dangerous location to be stopped given the volume of traffic at the time and the number of large trucks.
Honda Pilot Elite shuts off at stop light due to idle-stop feature, the car did not turn back till after 5 minutes. Tried multiple times to restart engine.
On several occasions I have been stopped in traffic and the engine idle stop feature kicks in on my vehicle. When I remove my foot from the brake, the vehicle shuts off and I have to restart it. I took my vehicle to the dealer twice for this. The first time I was told that the battery tested fine and there was nothing that showed up during the diagnostics. The second time I was told that the battery and the starter tested fine, but the ignition switch needed to be replaced. They replaced the ignition switch so I thought the problem was fixed. I try to remember to turn off the idle stop feature when I start my car, but sometimes I forget. A little over a week after I got the ignition switch changed out I was at the gas station filling up my tank. As I was exiting the shopping center's parking lot I encountered a little traffic. I stopped and my car shut off completely. The cars that were coming behind me started honking, but I could not move because my vehicle would not start back up. I was able to put on the hazard lights, but eventually they died as well. Everything shut down in the car there was no power. While I was waiting for AAA some guys tried to give me a jump, but it didn't work. They also tried to push me out of the lane of traffic, but because all of the systems in the car shutdown, we were not able to put the car in neutral so they could push it to safety. We had to look up a video on youtube to learn how to manually put car in neutral. Meanwhile I'm in the lane of traffic and anyone could have rear ended me. Finally when AAA got there they were able to jump my car after trying repeatedly. Also, while the car was trying to boot back up, all sorts of system error messages started popping up on the dashboard.
Today was the second time my car has shut down at a traffic light in the last 2 months. The auto engine stop kicks in and the car shuts down. It took multiple combinations of pressing the start button and turning on/off the car before I could get it to restart. I-??ve recently replaced the battery so I don-??t think it-??s a weak battery.
When idling at a stop light, the auto shut off feature engaged and turned off the engine. When I engaged the gas to start moving again, the engine would not restart. I applied to brake, put the car into park and then tried to manually restart the car using the start button on the dash. The car engine would not start. The auxiliary power to the accessories would not go off when I pushed the stop/start button on the dash, but the engine would not restart either. I attempted to restart the car several times. It did not attempt to turn the engine over, but did literally nothing. I paused and waited for a minute and then attempted to restart the car again with the stop/start button and the car engine finally turned on. The exact same sequence of events has happened and two separate occasions some weeks apart. This incident put my and my passengers-?? safety at risk by stranding me at very busy intersections with no way to move the vehicle out of the road. The auto-shutoff feature has engaged while in stop and go traffic on the freeway and if this had happened then, the results could be catastrophic. I now always manually turn off this feature due to fear of this happening again and would disengage it entirely if possible, but was informed by the dealer that was not possible. No one has inspected the vehicle as the problem is not reproducible on demand, but I am willing for any necessary inspections to occur.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that on multiple occasions, the START/STOP feature failed to operate as needed while at a complete stop. The contact stated that the vehicle would shut off upon releasing the brake pedal with several unknown warning lights illuminated. The contact had the vehicle towed to an independent mechanic on several occasions where several electrical components were replaced. The dealer was notified of the failure and the contact was informed that they had no knowledge of the failure. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 75,000.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle lost motive power with the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was diagnosed with a misfire in cylinder #3. The dealer informed the contact that the engine needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired and remained with the dealer. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 130,000.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Canton, GA, USA