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:
3 / 4
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
27,682 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 auto start/stop feature activated while I was at a stop and shut the vehicle off. When I removed my foot from the brake the vehicle stalled and would not restart. Had to place the vehicle in park and apply the brake to get it to restart. The restart took multiple pushes of the start button. This was a busy intersection where I immediately became a hazard.
The engine's idle-stop feature shut off my car while stopped at a busy intersection in urban traffic, and took 15 seconds to restart the automobile. The idle-stop feature kicked in when at an intersection. When I took my foot off the brake to accelerate forward, the car instead turned off. The dashboard prompted me to shift the car into park, put my foot on the brake, and press the engine ignition button. I did so, but the car did not restart, even when I repeated the process 2-3 times. Finally, on the fourth time, the car restarted.
I own a 2016 Honda Pilot (Touring) model. Upon start-up the idle-stop feature is defaulted to enabled. When the vehicle comes to a stop the idle-stop feature shuts down the engine but leaves some features such as air conditioning and radio running. Upon disengaging the brake, the vehicle should automatically restart. However, on many occasions both on residential and freeway the vehicle has failed to restart and stalled. After putting the vehicle in park and attempting to restart it, it does not restart right away. Because of the stall, the vehicle appears to be left in an indeterministic state making restart more difficult and time consuming. After several tries of applying the brake and pressing the on/off button to restart the vehicle, the vehicle finally restarts. When the vehicle stalls, many of the dashboard lights come on... maybe all of them do. The major safety issue is that the vehicle becomes non-operative on busy streets or freeways. The driver will be required to turn on his hazard lights while trying to restart the vehicle. This failure places the driver and passengers at risk of being hit because it is non-operational in an environment/situation where other motorists believe you should be moving. I have made an appointment with my dealership to have it inspected. The problem has occurred multiple times on both the street and freeway. It is not always easily reproducible but has been witnessed by passengers in my vehicle. There appears to information from the public regarding this type of failure on social media.
AUTO START / STOP functionality won't re start engine after it has engaged. Engine won't crank over, multiple dash warnings come on. PUSH START bottom doesn't work, have to put vehicle back in PARK and have to attempt several times to start engine.
We have a 2016 Honda Pilot Touring model equipped with the stop-start feature. This feature has failed to restart the engine while stopped at an intersection 3 times; after the first failure we try to remember to disable the feature however it must be disabled every time the car is started (worse, there is a delay in the confirmation that sometime leads to pushing the button twice and inadvertently re-enabling the auto-stop-start). The first time the stop-start failed was near the end of a long trip (New Jersey to North Carolina); it was dark out and we stopped at highway traffic signal triggering the auto-stop, there was no indication that anything was wrong. When releasing the brake, the car failed to start and went into an "off/stalled" state, leaving us stuck in the dark intersection with no lights (presumably the brake lights still worked). Given the vehicle has both an automatic transmission and ignition controlled by buttons (not a shifter/key switch); it took nearly a minute to find the right combination of button (and brake pedal) presses need to get the car restarted (as this was a highway light, the cycles are long). We took it to get the ignition system tested the next day and everything tested OK. We did not experience the issue again for roughly 7 months. The second and third time occurred in the same drive: our son sustained a compound fracture to his arm and given our proximity (less then 2.5 miles) to the ER we opted to drive ourselves there. The auto-stop-start failure occurred at a busy 4-way intersection; upon getting the vehicle restarted (in an admitedly more panicked state) we unsuccessfully attempted to disable the auto-stop-start. The failure occurred again about a mile away at the stop light before the ER; this time the car would not start back up; ultimately we let the car sit for an extremely long minute (a full cycle of the traffic light) before attempting to successfully start the car again in time for the next green light.
- Williston, VT, USA
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When auto stop/start engages the vehicle occasionally will experience a complete engine and electrical shut down when auto start is supposed to engage; the is often leads to a dead vehicle in traffic at an intersection. Occasionally it will have extreme difficulty with a restart, often only starting after several attempts at push button starting. Fuel injectors and battery have all been replaced recently, fuel injectors under recall/manufacturer issue and battery at replacement lifetime. Is often unpredictable when it will cause issues and when it will operate correctly. Has occurred intermittently for several years with a somewhat unpredictable pattern.
When stopped at a red light with my foot on the brake and the engine in idle, the engine turned off when I put my foot on the gas peddle. The engine idle stop was on. This occurred while stopped in city traffic (6/2022) and again when I was stopped at a red light on a highway (9/3/2022). The car rolled backward. I had to put the car in park and restart the car. I now have manually turned off the engine idle stop.
My 2016 Touring Honda Pilot has an issue with the idle stop/start feature. I exited the highway and the vehicle sh*t down as I was decelerating. All of the dash lights flashed and the car would not accelerate. The flashing warning toggled bw engine idle problem and transmission. I was unable to shift gears even into neutral. After shutting the car off, It acted normally for a few weeks. Now, the car is doing it again and I had to have it towed to the dealership bc the lights continued flashing and the I couldn-??t shift gears. Dealer says it-??s an electronic control issue and costs $900 to repair.
This issue has occurred twice. First occurrence was when stopped in traffic. Auto stop engaged. When brake was released auto start caused vehicle to stall-out. Vehicle restarted after multiple attempts. Second occurrence was when stopped at traffic light. Auto stop engaged. When brake was released auto start caused vehicle to stall-out. Vehicle restarted after one attempt. For both occurrences, radio was on, air-conditioning was on and outside temperature was +85 degrees. This is a serious safety concern.
Car has auto engine stop/restart as a fuel saving measure. Several times the car has failed to restart after turning off. This happens in highway stop/go traffic, at traffic lights. This is dangerous, as my foot comes off the brake, cars behind me think i am moving, and then the engine fails as it is restarting. I have to then put my foot back on the brake, put the car in park, and restart the engine before being able to drive again. This happened on 8/25, and 3 other times within the last month. This did also happen perhaps a year or 2 ago, the dealer did examine the car but I don't believe they found any issues to be repaired.
With increasing frequency of occurrence, the car will not start after the auto stop/start mechanism has been invoked. For example, when stopped at a red light, the engine will turn off as the car is not moving. However, once the light turns to green and the brake is depressed, the car will not start and/or will start and then the engine will cut-out. To start the engine, the car needs to be fully turned off, gear put into Park and then restarted. There appears to be something at fault with the automatic stop-start mechanism and/software. My car is a 2016 Honda Pilot Touring with less than 28K miles.
My 2016 Honda Pilot Touring stalls out at a red light while using the auto stop-start. It happens occasionally when I take my foot off the brake and put my foot on the gas. Instead of coming out of idle with the engine starting up again, the car would stall completely and I would have to put the car in park, press the brake pedal and push the start button to get it on again. I took the car into the dealer and they told me that there was no software update and that they couldn-??t do a update anyways because check engine light wasn-??t on. Also have a issue with transmission not switching gears smoothly on take off. Jerks on take of. Once again they told me transmission was fine and there was no software update and that they couldn-??t do a update anyways because check engine light wasn-??t on.
When start-stop feature is "on, " the car will not start again in certain instances when the engine is shut down after a complete stop. The NHTSA currently has an investigation opened in this matter (opened in June 2022)
As previously described on the NHTSA website, this model has the 9 speed transmission and it randomly turns the vehicle off at intersections/red lights when the vehicle is stopped. It is different than the engine start/stop system since the full vehicle turns off. It is very random and stressful when it happens since other vehicles are then waiting on our Pilot to get moving again.
The auto engine idle feature malfunctions. When stopped in traffic and at intersections the auto engine idle feature turns off the engine; however fails to restart. I can put the car into park, but the brake remains engaged and the ignition button blinks white. I have attempted many different things to 'reset' the computer. Putting the car in park, waiting, unlocking seatbelt, open/shut door. The last time, i had to walk away from the vehicle with the key fob in traffic. Locking and unlocking the car seemed to reset the computer. This placed me in dangerous traffic. It has happened in a construction zone on interstate, at intersections several times, during rush hour when it was impossible to leave the vehicle due to high speed traffic, and once while towing. Each episode has generally taken about 15 minutes for computer to shut down/reset. There is no message on the dash before, during or after. I now disengage the auto engine idle button when driving due to fear of being stranded in dangerous traffic situations. If I forget to turn it off, it is likely to malfunction. I have contacted the dealership about this problem before. There was no code, so the problem was deemed a mystery and remains unresoved by Honda.
The engine fails to restart on its own from a complete stop at a traffic light or road intersection with the auto/start stop function. This happens intermittently, but has put my family in danger on several occasions. When the light turns green, the car turns off, and has to be put in park and restarted. I have come close to being rear-ended during these situations, as approaching vehicles have to stop suddenly because my car is disabled. I have taken a video of these incidents, but Honda is unable to recreate the issue and has not offered a solution.
2016 Honda Pilot stalls during idol-start stop. Driver is forced to put it into park and restart vehicle. I took the vehicle to Manchester Honda (CT) for service over a year ago, but no issues were found. They updated the software, but it did not help. The issue is getting worse - sometimes it takes multiple attempts to restart the vehicle. This is a serious safety concern as it has happened in the middle of a busy intersection and in the middle of the highway in traffic. It is currently not possible to disable the system and I don't always remember to manually shut it off every time I start the car.
Auto stop/start function shut down all electrical components when vehicle was stopped and the function activated. This occurred on 2 separate occasions.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- West Branch, MI, USA