2018 HONDA PILOT Complaints

Multiple incidences of vehicle power shutting off unexpectedly including at a stop light in busy major downtown causing a dangerous situation and requiring police assistance. Start will fail unexpectedly requiring a period of time before another attempt or a jump start.

This has happened to me about 10 times in this vehicle: I am at a stoplight or stopsign and my "Idle-Stop" system in the Honda shuts down my engine and then when my foot comes off the brake it does not restart like it is supposed to leaving me stranded in the middle of traffic with a non moving vehicle. I think this is extremely dangerous and I am scared this will cause a terrible accident if not fixed. The only way the engine restarts is after about 30 seconds to a minute it finally is able to power back on. Please have Honda issue a recall for this issue.

The automatic Stop-Start feature has had multiple issues in the last two years on my 2018 Honda Pilot Elite. The lesser issue has resulted in ALL systems turning off when the brake pedal is pushed all the way down. While the usual, expected result is just the engine cutting off, many times the entire electrical system shuts down. On two (seemingly random) cases, however, the car did NOT restart for quite some time. Once was at an interaction, the other was in stop/go traffic in the rain on the highway. Here is where it could have been catastrophic as I could not even turn on my flashers to warn (in low visibility) that I was stopped while all other traffic was flowing. In neither case did I require a jump start and I have never had any reason to blame the battery. Even in the winter, the car starts right up (here in Virginia). My local Honda dealership is claiming that I need a new battery and a software update. I have a claim in to Honda CustomerCare (even have a Case Manager assigned), but I have not heard from them in the last 3 days.

On multiple occasions / almost daily the engine auto shut off kills the engine completely. The vehicle needs to be restarted to get moving. This poses as a significant safety hazard. This delay is going to get someone killed. The engine dies at stop lights, stops signs, off ramps and sitting in traffic. A complaint was made to the Honda dealer on 4 or more occasions with them informing us they can not replicate the issue and there isn’t a safety recall on it yet. This issue has gotten so bad that I am thinking about selling this car do to a safety issue. Honda is usually a trustable brand and stand by their brand, but some reason they will not admit to this reoccurring problem in the Honda Pilots.

I have had multiple (5 times) over the past month where when stopped at a stop light or other stopping point my Pilot failed to re-start on it's own. In all 5 instances I had to put the car in park and restart the vehicle. It is August (warm weather) in Chicago and there were no other weather/local environmental issues that should have caused this issue. There were no warning messages prior to the automatic re-start failure. I have not yet reported this issue to Honda but plan to do so.

The automatic stop/start for the engine is failing. It stops at inopportune times, and it is very slow to restart. Sometimes i have to put it in park and push the start button. This has been problematic at intersections and it has been happening more and more frequently. The SUV only has 24,000 miles on it.

Engine unable to restart after stopping at traffic light. When Auto Engine is enabled I have faced this problem multiple times and it was unable to restart. Traffic backed up because I could not go forward. I had to literally shut down everything and then start the engine again. I have already seen this news that you guys are investigating this issue with Honda. Now I disable my engine before I start my journey.

The engine stop start function fails to "start" the truck in traffic when the failure happens 60% of the time you can follow on dash instructions and restart the truck - the remaining 40% it will ONLY restart after you JUMP Start the vehicle with another car. This has left my Wife Stranded 2 times in a busy intersection and we had to get jump started in the busy intersection While in this state we also could NOT put the vehicle in neutral to move it from the intersection trapping it where it was until it was jump started.

I had the hood latch recall fixed at Gerald Jones Honda and a week the next day I notice my hood would shake when I would pass by cars. I took it back and they said it was fixed. Currently is shakes and rises when I pass cars. I am afraid to drive with my small children. I have contact the dealership who repaired it and American Honda. By next step is to get an attorney.

routinely if the auto stop is on the car will stall out when you try to accelerate from a stop. It will completely die, multiple errors will flash on the board. The car will be completely unresponsive. Eventually I have thus far been able to restart the car but it frequently happens at intersections and I am constantly concerned about getting rear ended. The dealership denies there is a problems. I have replaced the car battery and even with a brand new battery the same things happens. Only way to prevent it, is to disengage the idle/stop every single time you enter the car.