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.
On November 27, 2021 at approximately 12 noon, while driving on I95 south in North Carolina. We came to a slow crawl then a stop. The vehicle stalled and wouldn't turn on. After following vehicle instructions on the dash to depress brake and turn vehicle on for approximately three minutes the vehicle finally started up. This is a very dangerous situation for anyone I had my family with me. While looking this up I realized that it is more common then I thought. This should not be occurring. No dealer nor Honda has defined the issue let alone pinpointing it. We need answers and a solution before someone dies. Please help.
The car on prior occasions would not start and it would show emission alert as well as other alerts, have the car for servicing and they started checking and replacing everything. Same problem happened 2 weeks ago but resolved on its own. Today while driving, all the emergency lights came on including emissions malfunction, as well as other malfunction and then accelerator was not working, D was flashing and started making clicking sounds in transmission. Luckily we were close to a fire station house and stopped there, where the car was not going into park, was not changing any gears to reverse or neutral and when turned on, all emergency lights were flashing and could not even get it into neutral to push it away as it seemed to be transmission wheel jammed. Also a burning smell came from the engine when we attempted to restart and put in gear and the transmission clutch made horrible sounds and the car was revving up on its own. If we were on a major Highway this situation could have been a disaster with the family in the car, as the car was stalling on the road and could have resulted in a crash, loss of Life or injury to others. The novel is an elite 2016 pilot and has given my wife recurrent similar issues but we-??re lucky it happened in a parking lot. The dealership always states the problem is assessed and fixed but at year 5 and only 75000 miles this is a disappointing situation. We bring this to the notice of NHTSA as this could be a life threatening issues for family owner drivers
When on the road and you stop at traffic light with auto stop and go the car shuts off completely. It won-??t start afterwards and car needs to be placed in park and turned back on. Though this isn-??t an immediate solution. The car has been brought in multiple times into dealer. Changed battery couple times and problem persists regardless of what they do and they continue to say they don-??t see anything. Though it still continues and is completely dangerous.
Auto engine idle malfunction: engine would not restart when brake pedal released. Dash instructed to shift into park. All electrical stayed on, but engine would not restart for several minutes. With electronic shifting, wasn't even able to get into neutral to get out of the way of traffic. At busy intersections, being stranded could be very dangerous or even fatal.
My 2016 Honda Pilot Touring randomly completely shuts off at traffic lights rather than restart in the automatic shut off. It displays "Shift to Park" on the dash. This has been occurring for the past 2 1/2 years and has been reported to both Honda and the dealerships with no resolution. Despite my numerous reports to both Honda and dealership, only two times have they documented as requested. The past 8 months it has been occurring more frequently and has become increasingly difficult to restart. The past two times, I have been in a location with high speed limits so traffic approaching from the rear was coming at high speeds. The first of these recent incidents, it took 6 attempts to restart the vehicle and the second time I lost count. These situations were terrifying to the point I am no longer wanting to keep this vehicle. I can't help but consider if I have children in the back and am rear ended. The dealer has repeatedly told me there are no codes, so they can't identify the source of the issue. Interestingly, I purchased this vehicle when it was 18 months old and the switch for the auto shutoff was missing. The dealership replaced it, but now I am wondering if the previous owner was experiencing this same problem and had it removed.
- Point Pleasant, NJ, USA
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At a stop when the idle stop shuts the engine off, the car will not restart automatically like it's supposed to and I'm stuck in the intersection until I can get the car to restart. This is obviously very dangerous. Others with Honda Pilots are having the same issue. This needs to be addressed. This has happened many times over the past 4 months.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while stopped at a red light and after releasing the brake pedal the fuel-saving feature had malfunctioned and the engine did not immediately restart. During the incident, the message "put vehicle to park mode" had displayed. The contact indicated that the failure was very intermittent and when the vehicle was taken to the local dealer the failure could not be duplicated therefore no problem was found and no service was performed. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 30,000.
The first issue is when the car is stopped and the auto engine idle is on, when I lift the brake to press the accelerator, the car shuts off the engine completely, puts itself in Neutral or Park, and requires me to put the car in Park (if not there already) and restart (press brake and ignition button). So when I-??m at a red light that turns green, when I attempt to go by lifting the brake my engine quits. It occurs when I take my foot off the brake after having been at a stop with the auto-engine idle on. Engine shuts off, the car puts itself in either Neutral or Park, and I have to restart after 30 seconds to a minute (including a prayer to not be rear-ended in the meantime). Sometimes, I can get the engine to start up again within 30 seconds. Sometimes, it's been more than a minute. A number of warning messages show up on the center console as well. Things like, Collision Mitigation Braking System, Road Departure Mitigation, Brake System warnings start displaying. I-??ve had the dealer look at the car and they can-??t find anything wrong with it. This has been happening for months and the dealer ended up putting a new fuel injector on to see if that would fix it but it hasn-??t. I am very concerned for myself, my kids and my family who ride in this car. I-??ve been in some scary situations at red lights where I couldn-??t go. I pray this doesn-??t happen on railroad tracks!!!
The car, when at idle, and the "idle start/stop" feature is active, does not restart. The car stalls, loses all power, including hazard lights. This happens at busy intersections, and the car is able to be started again after several minutes. The las time it occurred, the power was not restored until the hood was popped (while on a major highway in the left lane) and battery power cable checked. The power suddenly was restored and the car was able to be restarted. After which, error appeared on screen for power failure. We purchased this car used in April 2021, and this issue has occurred consistently (at least weekly) since the beginning of May 2021. The last incident occurred on October 1st. The car has been at the dealer since October 5th, and they have been unable to diagnose or recreate the issue.
Auto engine Idle shut/off malfunctioning. At red light...when turned green, took foot off brake to accelerate...car completely shut off. Dashboard lights came on and instructed to shift vehicle to park and restart. Vehicle in rear view coming up fast and thought I was going to be rear-ended and quickly found hazard lights and luckily driver was paying attention and shifted to other lane. Never happened when brand new now happening few times a week. Of course am making an appt with Honda but if they can't replicate the problem in the shop they can't/won't fix. This is a safety issue and people are going to get rear ended! Honda needs to rectify this situation as I have seen many threads with others stating the same problem.
My Honda Pilot2016 has intermittent -??keyless start system problem-??. The error comes and goes, it once caused me not able to start the engine. From online forums, this looks like to a common issue of Honda Pilot 2016. I am very concerned with my safety when I drive this car.
Automatic idle engine was enable and once I took my foot off the brake, the car stalled. I was unable to start the car for a minute or two and had to turn off the entire car and then restart. This has happened multiple times before this occasion.
This car has an auto idle feature that, when the brake is pushed down at a stop, the car engine stops but then restarts either when the brake is disengaged or after a certain period of time. At that point, the car engine restarts. Since owning this car, I have reported to the dealer the issue with the auto idle which is a clicking sound and the radio cutting out when the car restarts. That issue has accelerated from clicking to the engine stalling to the car completely shutting down and having difficulty restarting. I have had this occur in traffic in an intersection twice and it was quite frightening and dangerous to say the least. Honda has not been able to repair this issue and the only solution they can offer is for me to manually disable the feature upon starting the car - this is not a safe solution. Please force Honda to solve this issue. I am now worried that my safety is at issue when the car stalls in traffic.
Even with "auto start" off, the engine will and has died multiple times at freeway speed, causing a huge safety issue as the vehicle suddenly decelerates with no power; this is an often reported problem (google it) that ranges from dying from a stop to dying while in motion. This oft reported problem needs to be addressed by Honda, but they say they're unaware of this issue. They are lying. Imagine driving a busy metro freeway when all of a sudden you lose power and have to fight for control of your steering and brakes.
I have reported this problem before, all the warning lights on dashboard light up and car loses power. The first time I was driving on a highway at 70 mph and the car completely shut off, the second time, my wife was driving, with my daughter, and the car shut off while she was going 40 mph. She almost cause a chain reaction accident because she panicked when the car would not respond to her acceleration. In both instances, all the warning lights on the dashboard light up and the car goes into limp mode. The first incident, Honda updated the transmission software, after about 8-months later, Honda service found a DTC P0369 code and now want $2500 dollars for repairs. They want to replace the CMP sensor, Cam Shaft, Cam Shaft Thrust Cover, Valve Cover Gasket and Camshaft Seal! Why would a 2016 need a new Camshaft" There has to be a design issue with the engine, I would call this a premature failure of a critical part. Since this causes the engine to shut down, at any given time, the car cannot be driven until the camshaft is replaced. All I want is to have Honda make things right, a car with 76,000 miles should never have engine surgery like this, period! I render the Honda Pilot from 2016 to 2021 unsafe to drive, the engine has not changed, I wonder if they fixed the camshaft problem on later models" If so, they know there is a design issue.
The auto engine idle feature malfunctions, car stalls out at times when taking off from a stopped position, also this stalling will occur while driving at highway speeds causing the car to de-accelerate and having to pull over and restart car. We have had several close accidents because of this, nearly hit by other cars at intersections. We have had car in shop 3 times and they cannot find problem. The ECM was changed out last year due to entire dashboard warning system failure but this didn-??t fix the idle start stop problems. Honda dealers stating nothing can be done unless we pay to start changing out various systems until problem found. Will cost thousands. Problem start at around 30 k miles, and now has 60k miles and no longer under warranty.
While at a stop light my idol stop function turned the car off. When the light turned green I lightly took my foot off the brake and the car tried to turn back on (the power clicked) but instead it shut off the car fully. Only the car radio was still working as if it was in accessory mode. Car display said to turn the car on I needed to press the brake and press the ignition button. My foot was still on the brake. I pressed the ignition button but nothing happened. Pressed it again and nothing happened. Lifted my foot off and on the brake and tried again. Nothing. Display still read press brake and ignition. Lifted my foot off the brake and on again and then pressed the ignition, it FINALLY restarted the car. Extremely dangerous situation as this took nearly a minute for the car to restart, the light had just cycled again. Dealership could not replicate the situation. They updated the cars software and it did not fix the problem. They said the battery was still good but I had read on the piloteers.org website that changing the battery seemed to solve the problem. I had them change the battery anyway and it fixed the issue, now nearly 2 years later the problem is reoccurring again.
The car was traveling on a highway and stopped responding while quickly decelerating all the while rolling through all of the warning sign sign screens. Luckily was in I side lane and able to hop curb to pull off to shoulder. Every time we take to dealer they claim it-??s a known problem and -??reboot-?? system. Then seems to work ok for a while. This is the fifth or sixth time taking back to dealer. This time almost caused an accident. I-??m starting to think the vehicle is not fit to be on the road.
From a stopped position, when foot released from brake, car completely shuts down. Happens randomly. Six times over last 2 months. Complaint was called in today 8/16/2021.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Windermere, FL, USA