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.
This vehicle has shown juddering and difficulty with shifting gears, especially on an incline, although it RPMs will speed up and slow down even while traveling on a flat road at a consistent speed. The Honda dealership stated that the course of action is to drain and fill the transmission 3 times to the tune of $550+ and Honda Corporate claims this is "Routine Maintenance", which it is not. I have an extended warranty which would cover the torque converter but will not cover this fluid. As many other posts have indicated, this is not an issue limited to the 2016-2019 Pilots, but that it extends to 2020s as well. Continuing to escalate this with Honda Corporate, and will pull in my state's Attorney General for these unfair practices of lack of warranty coverage for a known issue that is due to manufacturing.
The contact owns a 2020 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while his wife was driving 30 MPH, several unknown warning lights flashed on the instrument panel and the vehicle went into LIMP Mode. The contact stated that the message "Pull Over When Safe" was then displayed and the contact's wife pulled over, restarted the vehicle, and drove to the residence. The following day, the vehicle was taken to a dealer who discovered a misalignment between the 4th and 5th gear, causing the transmission failure. The contact took the vehicle to an independent mechanic where the transmission was replaced. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 130,000.
The contact owns a 2020 Honda Pilot. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle stalled; the vehicle returned to normal operation several minutes after the failure had occurred. No warning light was illuminated. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V858000 (Fuel System, Gasoline); however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed and determined that the transmission fluid needed to be flushed and refilled. The vehicle was repaired; however, the failure persisted. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The failure mileage was approximately 35,987. Parts distribution disconnect.
The contact owns a 2020 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that after shifting into reverse to reverse out of the driveway, the contact had forgotten an item on the outside of the vehicle; the contact opened the door; however, while reaching outside the vehicle to retrieve the item, the contact released the brake pedal unintendedly and the vehicle rolled backwards, causing the contact to fall out of the vehicle. The contact stated that the vehicle continued rolling backwards and struck the sidewalk and the neighbor-??s garden wall. The contact stated that the vehicle then rolled forwards and rolled over the right feet to the right shoulder of her body and then struck the garage door and garage door frame to her residence and came to a stop. There were damages to the garage door and garage door frame. The contact became immobilized and yelled for help and a neighbor ran over to assist. The contact stated that the neighbor had a difficulty in shifting to park and turning off the vehicle. The vehicle was eventually shifted to park and the vehicle was turned off. The air bags did not deploy. The contact was taken to urgent care by her mother for X-rays. The contact suffered no broken bones but did sustain mild bruising to the right side of the body. A Police report was not filed. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and a case was filed. The vehicle was not diagnosed. The failure mileage was approximately 15,000.
2020 Honda Pilot with 80000 miles. A car i loved and had for over a year. I was driving from Florida to Texas. Everything was fine when I started. About 600 miles down I was at 70 mph and had to go little faster to overtake a truck because the shoulder was too small and my lane is about merge in to truck lane. There were at-least 10 vehicles behind me. I hit the accelerator pedal all the way until it touched frame but the engine is not at all responding and slowly losing power. The lane I was in was about to merge in to truck lane. I had to hit brakes with vehicles behind me but some how i managed to not get hit by them. It could have gone worse.
- Lakemary, FL, USA
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The contact owns a 2020 Honda Pilot. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V858000 (Fuel System, Gasoline); however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact stated while driving approximately 45 MPH, several unknown warning lights illuminated, and the vehicle failed to respond as needed. The contact pulled over and turned off the vehicle. The contact was able to restart the vehicle. The contact stated that the failure was intermittent but had become a recurring failure. Additionally, the transmission warning light was illuminated, and the vehicle was jerking into gear and the vehicle hesitated before responding as needed. The vehicle was driven to a local dealer and was being diagnosed. The vehicle was not yet repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 81,000. Parts distribution disconnect.
I am experiencing recurring issues with my vehicle that closely mirror the problems described in complaints with NHTSA IDs 11565876, 11490438, and 11489885. In July 2023, while driving through an intersection after stopping at a traffic light, I heard a loud clunking noise. Over the next 45 minutes, I noticed at least six additional clunk sounds at low speeds. I took the vehicle to the dealership at 51,244 miles, where I was informed that the transmission fluid was both dark and low. The dealership inquired if I had used the vehicle for towing, despite there being no tow hitch assembly. They recommended a transmission flush service, but within 2 to 3 weeks, I began experiencing transmission juddering at constant speeds and harsh shifting during acceleration. Despite multiple visits to the dealership, where I was advised that the vehicle needed time to "re-learn" driving patterns and that nothing was wrong, the issues persisted. Although the problem seemed to lessen, it reoccurred in 2024. At 73,656 miles, I returned to the dealership, where I was informed that the transmission fluid was once again dark and that the torque converter needed replacement. Throughout the period before the 60K powertrain warranty expired, I was repeatedly told that there are known issues with the 6-speed transmissions and torque converters, but since no "error codes" were present, the dealership could not authorize a warranty repair. Now that the vehicle is out of warranty, I am being advised to replace the torque converter at my own expense.
2020 Honda Pilot had started what was called Juddering by the dealer. Transmission upon acceleration will hesitate and jump hundreds of rpms up and down. I did research and was told also by the dealer Honda had issue with a torque converter within the transmission that I was told a bulletin extended the warranty on the 2017-19 pilots with 6 speed auto transmission. The 2020 I own has the same issue which the dealer confirmed but also told me my vin and model year is not covered. It is the same issue as the 17-19 and I'm concerned for me and my family's safety due to the transmissions' issue. Concern it will get much worse possibly breaking down on a longer highway trip which we will take sometimes 3 times per year.
On three separate occasions, after stopping at a traffic light or in a parking lot, I was unable to move my car. The first time, the transmission dropped into neutral and I was unable to get it to any other gear. I had to turn off and restart the car multiple times to get it into gear. I was on a heavily trafficked road with multiple cars behind me at the light. Turned my flashers on and prayed to not get hit. The second time. I was in a parking lot and was leaving. I pulled into a space to look for something and got a message to put the car in park. I was unable to do so. Had to turn off and restart the car twice before It would go into park. I then turned it off and back on and was able to get it into gear. Happened again on a 55 MPH road with my grandkids. Very scary. Honda dealer said that for a tiny second after the auto idle engaged the battery power was too low to restart the car. Their solution was for me to purchase a new battery. I feel this is an engineering and safety issue and was not properly addressed during the auto idle recall.
Vehicle suddenly looses power/shuts off at highway speed without warning. Vehicle starts and runs normally after incident. This incident has happened at speeds from 5 - 50 mph. Dealer was unable to retrieve any error codes. This stalling problem has occurred 7 times over the last 12 months.
When driving on ice conditions coating to a stop, my newly perchased used vehicle jerked, transmission stuck on downshifts, so bad it started the vehicle into a slide until antilock breaks engaged while iwasnt breaking. Sometimes the transmission pushes on downshifts on dry ground while breaking. Took it to dealer and they said all normal. This could have caused an accident if other vehicles were nearby.
The auto start/stop feature of the 2020 Honda pilot is defaulted to on. At three times in the last two weeks, at a stop light, the vehicle lost all power, directed me to put the car in Park and restart the vehicle. I had to press the start/stop button several times to get the vehicle to start again.
While driving my 2020 Honda Pilot it jerks very hard when accelerating. It continues to do this when shifting gears. It-??s also slow to accelerate and drags with the gears getting stuck until it finally jerks and shifts. I just had the transmission flushed 7k miles early yesterday 10/21 due to Hondas recommendation. I get regular scheduled maintenance and this is the 2nd flush with my car only having 50k miles. Now they say I will need to keep coming back getting repeated flushes at my expense until the fluid is cycled through. My car is driving worse than before the second flush. I-??m afraid to drive it on the highway due to these jerks and stalls in shifting because it might freeze up causing a life threatening situation.
The vehicle is showing the same issues as found in the Honda Service Bulletin 20-029 for "9-Speed A/T Hard Upshift with Steady Acceleration", and an occasional hesitation or slip. Our Honda Pilot has a Honda 6-Speed Automatic Transmission and AWD. The transmission has just had a full service, which included a "transmission fluid exchange to include torque converter lines" and replacing the transmission filter. When watching the vehicle shift, the tachometer will spike RPMs, then drop well below, and rise to settle in-between with a hard upshift. This issue was extreme prior to the transmission service, especially given the vehicle has only 49k miles and was purchased brand new. The constant hard shift and slip is a safety hazard.
There is a grinding/vibration or "rumble strip" sound around 44mph. This happens during cruising and not necessarily accelerating or decelerating. I took it to the Honda dealer and a special Honda tech came out and reported that this happens when the 5,000lbs towing package is installed which contains a transmission cooler and the cooler is where the sound is coming from. There is no fix. Cars, especially new cars, should not grind, and there is no fix from Honda and this issue effects all Honda makes and models with the 9 speed transmission since 2016 (so the dealer said).
The infotainment went out after less than 20 miles and 1 week of owning the vehicle brand new. There is no backup camera now - which is mandatroy, and no radio or anything from the dash. This happened while driving on local street and the speedometer also goes in and out. The vehicle is unsafe to drive. Tried leaving the positive battery unhooked for a while but it didn't fix anything. Seeing the other complains about this, this appears to be a lemon right from the factory and Honda is mass producing them, knowing this is a defect with no fix. The dealer needs my new car for 2 days to rewire the whole dash and they claim it won't fix it. They say that after that doesn't work, a special Honda tech gets flown in to try to fix it, but there is no guarantee that will work. Just great, my new car is junk and I'm stuck paying for it.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Rutland, MA, USA