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 / 2
Injuries / Deaths:
1 / 0
Average Mileage:
21,837 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 start/stop turn the car off and when I tried to restart the car nothing happen. The battery is good and I heard a click sound but it won't start back for a few minutes sometimes.
When at a stop, t he start/stop feature is enabled and the engine shuts off as expected. When I lift my foot off the brake, it doesn't always restart, and I am left stranded in an intersection or at a light, and almost in accidents. Very unsafe. I have to turn it off every time I get into the car. When I forget to turn it off, it always fails to restart.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that on several occasions while at a complete stop, the vehicle would stall upon acceleration without warning. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where they informed him that the battery was likely the cause of the failure. Upon investigation, the contact linked the failure to the auto Start/Stop switch which was under NHTSA investigation. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 60,000.
Engine has failed to restart after stopping on multiple occasions. When stopped, the engine shuts off and the dash prompts you to place your foot on the brake and press the ignition button. The engine may start back up after several attempts. All lights on the dash flash intermittently with each attempt to restart the vehicle.
- Bonifay, FL, USA
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while driving, utilizing the engine idle feature, the vehicle would shut down while depressing the brake pedal. The contact stated the vehicle struggled to restart. The contact stated that several unknown warning lights illuminated. The contact had to depress the brake pedal, place the vehicle into the park, depress the brake pedal, and press the START/STOP button several times for the vehicle to restart. The Forward Collision Avoidance system would randomly depress the brake after the restart. The vehicle was towed to the local dealer where it was diagnosed that the battery system needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired but the failure persisted. The mechanic informed her of several Forward Collision Avoidance system error messages in the system. The contact stated that while driving and making turns or driving in stop and go traffic with the cruise control activated, the Forward Collision Avoidance system inadvertently engaged. Additionally, while driving over a seam in the road the Forward Collision Avoidance system engaged. The manufacturer was not contacted. The approximate failure mileage was 53,908.
The vehicle is equipped with start stop feature. The issue is it will stop, then crank for a second or two, but sometimes not restart. It-€™s a safety issue when you try to move with traffic, but the engine is now off. This issue has been reported to the Honda dealer numerous times over a 4 year period. The starter & battery has been replaced, but the issue still exists.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that the while operating the vehicle, the check engine warning light remained illuminated, and the vehicle would not properly accelerate while depressing the accelerator pedal. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer who replaced the engine heater coil, the fuel injectors, and the camshaft however, the failure recurred. The fuel injectors were replaced a second time however, the vehicle continued to experience the hesitation while attempting to accelerate. The vehicle was taken back to the dealer who diagnosed that the torque converter needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not yet repaired. The manufacturer was not yet contacted. The failure mileage was 40,000.
Car's auto start feature for fuel savings has failed to function on numerous occasions and required shutoff and manual restart. There is no provision to permanently disable this feature but requires disabling every time car is started.
While driving between 30-45 MPH the engine RPM-€™s will start bouncing by around 500 RPM-€™s up and down. Usually on flat to slight grade with RPM-€™s in the area of 1500. The engine will bounce between 1200 up to 1800 RPM-€™s. Vehicle has 52,000 miles, just started in last couple thousand miles. Doing a Google search I found numerous complaints of same issue. This is a safety issue when the engine will unexpectedly surge or slow down.
For years, dating back to 2018, our 2016 Honda Pilot Elite auto on/off switch operations has been failing. Vehicle will not restart the engine after its engaged the auto start off. Engine and all components including electrical are off. Dashboard indications light up and essentially we are stalled, at risk of not being able to drive. It requires to place the car into park and restart the engine. This is serious safety issue that could result in being struct by another vehicle without being able to move. I have been taking the car to several authorized Honda service dealerships to address the issue. They have replaced multiple times the auto on/off switch, battery, adjusted values and updated software with no resolution. One dealership claimed to disable the auto on/off switch but this is NOT feasible. With the latest inspection, another local Honda dealership contacted Honda Corp Tech Line for assistance. Once again they instructed the dealer to perform all the potential fixes above and to ignore a code P2638. After investigating this online, Honda and NHTSA have opened an investigation June 2022 on this issue after 220+ complaints. There is no known fix, yet Honda Corp Tech Line informed local dealer to conduct value adjustments yet again, at a labor cost to us.
The contact owns a 2016 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that on several occasions without warning, the vehicle stalled. Additionally, the contact stated that a year ago, the vehicle stalled with several unknown warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the battery was replaced and the contact was informed that the Start/Stop switch needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired however, the failure recurred. The dealer was notified of the failure and the contact stated that she was informed that there was no fix for the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and the contact was informed that an appointment was scheduled for September 20th for a diagnostic test. The failure mileage was 89,529.
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.
The Honda Pilot includes an engine-idle stop feature that is specifically for energy savings. When this feature is on, when the vehicle comes to a stop, the engine idles and then is to restart upon release of the brake and by pressing on the accelerator. On a few occasions now, upon coming to a stop, my engine idles, and then when I attempt to press on the accelerator, the engine does not restart, but rather shuts off completely. When this occurs, multiple interior dash lights ignite and it states to shift to park. When attempting to shift to park the engine still does not come on, and rather I have had to wait until I am able to fully restart the car completely. This has occurred unexpectedly while in the middle of city traffic, while at a stop lights, and while at stop signs. On each occasion, it has been a safety issue as the vehicle is idle in the middle of traffic and there is no immediate resolution.
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.
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.
On numerous occasions, the auto-engine stop/start feature that turns off the engine when the car comes to a stop has had issues where the engine does not restart and the car enters into an error state. I must then turn off the car, then turn it back on. Sometimes this happens after I've pulled out into an intersection but have to stop before proceeding.
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.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Mount Vernon, NY, USA