2017 Honda Pilot complaints

When the engine stops when the brake is applied, there are times when the engine shuts down completely, restarting electrical systems and not starting up again. This incredibly scary and dangerous. I have brought it to the dealer who has no idea how to fix it. I read an article that this is something the NHTSA is investigating and am very relieved that there is finally some attention being paid to this problem. I wanted to log my vehicle as being effected also.

The start/stop feature on our 2017 Honda Pilot Touring has failed continuously since we owned it. The vehicle stalls when trying to re-start from the traffic signal, leaving angry drivers behind us. We now turn it off to prevent recurrence. Our local Honda dealer in Fort Walton Beach has changed a switch, but the problem continues. Their next "guess" is to change the battery, which tests good otherwise

Engine does not restart after start stop feature {auto stop} when stopped at a stoplight or stop sign. Sometimes engine turns off with just a soft application of brakes. So far no serious accident except holding up traffic at an intersection. Could become dangerous. So I immediately turn off the feature whenever I remember when I get in the car. Thanks.

Fuel injection pump makes really loud noise and reduction of engine power. Took it to the dealer for diagnosis and was told the fuel pump needs a replacement. Have been waiting 2-3 weeks for parts, with no loaner or estimated timeline provided.

The idle shut off feature has shut the car off and then not restarted when it was supposed to. This has happened in two intersections and a stoplight. When it doesn’t restart, I am unable to do anything, shift in to park or restart the car. It is extremely unsafe as it leaves you sitting in the middle of traffic or wherever it decides to leave you and you can’t do anything with the vehicle. There is no warning when it does it. I have not approached the dealer since there is a button to override the feature I figured they would not listen. However I think it is ridiculous that you have to push a button to make sure your vehicle doesn’t die on you while driving. I would like to see the auto idle feature removed from the vehicle.

Automatic shut off and car would not turn back on

My 2017 Honda Pilot Elite is equipped with an auto idle/stop functionality. I depress the brake all the way (at a full stop) and the engine temporarily turns off. Much like the other 200+ complaints you received, I'm also experiencing the issue where the car stalls after I remove my foot from the brake (so that the engine turns on again). Sometimes the electrical system "resets" (sounds like everything clicks off and then on again), but recently I have had the car stall (more than once). Additionally, the other day when this happened the car "shuddered." A couple of times I've had to turn off the car completely and then turn it on again. Fortunately, I have not needed a jumpstart.

The contact owns a 2017 Honda Pilot. The Auto START/STOP system failed to operate as designed and the vehicle would stall and had to manually be restarted. The contact stated that occasionally several attempts were needed to restart the vehicle before the vehicle would perform as designed. The failure had occurred approximately 4-5 times. The contact had taken the vehicle to the dealer however, the vehicle was not yet diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 45,000.

The contact owns a 2017 Honda Pilot. The contact stated while coming to a stop at a traffic light or traffic sign, the vehicle shut off while the vehicle was stopped. The contact stated that several unknown warning lights were illuminated as soon as the vehicle came to a stop. The contact stated that it took several attempts to restart the vehicle. The contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer who diagnosed the failure and determined that the battery needed to be replaced. The contact had the battery replaced by an independent mechanic. The vehicle was repaired; however, the failure recurred. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown.

There is a major and potentially dangerous issue with the idle stop/start feature. When the car is at a stop and the engine shuts off (gas saving feature) and sometimes the car will fail to start again, leaving me stranded in the middle of an intersection or whatever road I'm on. Sometimes all of the collision systems fail to start again (dash warning), sometimes it takes minutes to get it restarted which results in angry drivers behind me and the potential to create an accident. This issue began within a few months of buying the car. I had informed the original Honda dealership where I purchased the car but they failed to properly document the issue because there were no error codes populated by the on-board computer. After it happened dozens of times I took the vehicle to a different dealership and was able to demonstrate the problem directly to a technician after two separate appointment attempts. They then agreed to replace the battery. This helped for a time period of about 9 months and then it started again. I believe there is a wide-spread issue with the computer's ignition system and I'm not alone, although Honda seems to pretend they've never heard of the issue. I have attached my first 'documented' (although it was reported YEARS before this) service report followed by the second in which they finally replaced the battery and admitted fault. I am hopping the NHTSA can investigate and help the owners of these Pilots come to a permanent resolution. Thank you for your

On multiple occasions with the auto engine restart engaged, the engine has shut off while stopped at a stoplight and then failed to restart the vehicle upon attempting to go. On some occasions, the power blips but the engine restarts. On other occasions, the power blips and the car stalls, leading to having to fully shut the car down and turn it back on, with a successful restart. On a few occasions, this has taken multiple tries leading to the vehicle sitting at a green traffic light for over 15-20 seconds while attempting to restart the engine. This is a safety issue as I am now scared to leave the auto-restart feature engaged for fear of being stuck at a green light and rear-ended. I have tried to turn the feature off, but there is no way to disable it permanently… instead, I have to remember to turn it off at the beginning of each drive. This issue has been ongoing for over two years. I have replaced the battery which did not solve the issue. It has not been looked at by the manufacturer, police, or insurance.

Hello, I was driving down the road and my collision mitigation light quickly flashed on and then went off with no objects in front of me or bad weather or rain. Also, my vehicle felt like it tapped the brakes and the steering wheel slightly jerked a little. It was maybe a half second long and then went back to normal. I kept driving and the vehicle did it once again and then 2 more times. The last time I was pulling up to a light when it did it. I should have pulled over first but I decided to turn the vehicle off and turn it back on to maybe reset the computer. Also, I know the car does this anyway when I have my auto start/stop button on. I usually turn it off when I drive. I've had the vehicle since 2018 with no issues before so I was pretty confident it would immediately start. When I tried to turn the vehicle back on, it had completely lost all power and wouldn't start or give me any sign of power. The scary thing was that I was in rush hour traffic with my young kids in the car and I couldn't put my caution lights on or put the car in gear to push it to the side of the road. Again, I should have pulled over first, but there was no logical reason the vehicle wouldn't start. I put the hood up but nobody behind me could see the hood up. I'm stuck in the middle lane of traffic and had to get out of the car to signal traffic to go around me. I checked my key fob batteries and the vehicle battery connectors and everything was fine. I kept trying to use the key fob to unlock t

I would like to formally report an issue with my 2017 Honda Pilot Touring's auto stop/start feature. I have had several scary incidents where my Honda would not restart at an intersection or on the highway due to high traffic and needed to stop. This is very scary and it is not easy to restart with the fear of getting rear ended by vehicles approaching. With the push button start feature it can be very difficult under stress to re-start your vehicle when the auto stop/start features stalls and needs to be restarted. My wife refuses to drive my car and the inability to permanently turn off the feature creates risk if you don't manually turn it off after starting the vehicle each time.

I just read an article which says the FEDS are investigating Honda Pilot SUV engine failures. The compliant being that the fuel-saving stop-start system on some Honda Pilot SUVs can fail to restart. I personally have experienced this issue at least three or four times in my Honda Pilot. For this reason, I do not use the fuel-saving stop-start system anymore. However, when I did experience the issue it was exactly as described in the article. I was at a stop light. I took my foot off the brake and the engine did not restart. I was fumbling pushing buttons trying to get the car to start. I would turn on my emergency blinkers to let cars know I was experiencing a problem. I think eventually I turned the engine start button on and off and the car started. I had complained and expressed my frustration with the Honda repair people when I took my car in for regular servicing. They were either not really aware of the issue or not concerned. After reading the article, I wanted to let you know that I have experienced the issue. I think if other people were aware there was an investigation they might come forward to. I didn't want you to think it was only 221 people that had experienced it as stated in the article, because perhaps the problem is more wide spread that we are aware of. Honestly, it is a very uncomfortable feeling to be stuck a stop light with a car that won't move and you have no idea why.

I own a 2017 Honda Pilot Elite, with 65000 miles, that was purchased new. The vehicle has repeatedly stalled at various point of operation. Upon stalling, every light appears to activate on the dashboard. The vehicle remains stalled until the computer "recycles." I can usually restart the vehicle within 2+ minutes. The dealer, located in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, has identified the vehicle’s stop-start as the problem. The dealer suggested to turn off the stop-start while driving the vehicle but that is problematic as this needs to be done each time the vehicle engine is turned off and then restarted. The dealer, upon inspection, found some errors in the ECU, but none that would create this problem. The dealer is unable to recreate the problem and admitted that many Honda Pilots have this issue. To possibly fix the problem, the dealer suggested a valve replacement at a cost of $1000+ and a new battery, even though the battery has been tested and is fine. These vehicles are dangerous, and Honda has done nothing to correct the problem.

We were at a Sheetz gas station last month and the auto-start/stop cut the engine off and it would not restart. We had to place the car in park and manually restart it. We have had this issue happen on another occasion and we purchased the car in April.

The auto-stop and -start function is not working correctly. When I am stopped at a light or in traffic and the auto-stop engages, the engine sometimes refuses to start back up when I take my foot off the brake and put it on the gas. It has been dangerous when the light turns green and my engine won't start. I've had to tell other cars to go around me. Usually I have had to turn off my SUV and try to re-start it several times before the engine finally turns on again. This started happening about a year or two after I got the 2017 model year SUV (new in May of 2018). When I first told Honda about it, my service tech told me he thought it was the battery, and he had it replaced. That solved the problem temporarily (for many months maybe close to a year). The issue started happening again and I went to Honda asking for another battery based on what happened the last time. They tested the battery and said it was fine. They could not explain why the auto-stop -start function wasn't working properly, but suggested I may be hitting the gas too soon (which I disagree with because I didn't change my driving habits after the battery was replaced the first time and the problem went away for a short while). The problem keeps happening, so I have to remember to turn off the auto-stop and -start manually every time before I drive to prevent it.

The system that has failed involves the auto-idle feature which is automatically engaged when the car is turned on, and operates by putting the car into idle and turns off the engine when the vehicle is stopped; when the brake is released, the engine is supposed to automatically restart. However, in our vehicle, when the brake is released, the car stalls. Sometimes it cannot be restarted for several minutes. This is extremely unsafe, as it has happened in bumper to bumper traffic, and at traffic lights, where the car stall unexpectedly, then we are stranded in traffic and this puts the occupants of our car at risk, as well as the occupants in cars around us who don't know that we are stalled and are expecting our vehicle to continue in traffic. We reported this to our local Honda dealer, and they said that they have not heard of this problem and don't know what is causing it. The car has not been inspected by others. There have been no warning signs that this will occur. We are able to manually disable the auto idle feature when we turn on the engine, so that the car will not stall. This is what we generally do every time we drive our car. If we forget, the car stalls after we brake at a full stop then release the brake. We don't recall the date that this first occurred, but it has happened at least a dozen times over the past several months or longer. The date below is the date of a recent incident when the car stalled at a traffic light on a high speed road and we were unab

During auto start/stop car will not restart when the brake is release.

The auto start/stop is not reliable. I have had three incidents in the past 2 years where if I'm at a light and the car turns off due to the auto stop, it will not restart. I did take it to my dealer and they could not find anything wrong with the battery or any other issue. I have to manually turn the auto stop/start feature off every time I drive the car in fear I will be stranded in an intersection. Very frustrating. It has been an issue for 2.5 years out of almost 5 years of owning the car.

Parked in a lot with vehicle at full temp. Quick Stop. Drove vehicle to exit of lot and stopped to wait for a break in traffic. Vehicle turned off engine with Start/Stop feature. On brake release, the vehicle made an attempt to restart and failed. Took 10 minutes and I had to disconnect the battery to get the vehicle to reset enough to get started again. Had I not had a toolkit in the vehicle, it would have been much longer. During that entire time, the single exit to the parking lot was blocked and there was a significant backup with people going out the entrance. VERY dangerous. This was not the first time the vehicle had failed to restart, but the first where it was not possible from the driver's seat. It was also the last as I installed a device to disable the feature. I've not had any issues with the vehicle since. Start/Stop does not save enough fuel to make it worth the potentially dangerous failure. Feature should be MANDATORY for disabling in every vehicle. I for one will NEVER EVER own a vehicle that it can not be disabled.

Auto start/stop has caused the engine to shut off multiple times. One particular incident occurred at a stop light and only turned back on after several attempts using the ignition button.

The car auto stop/start feature is failing to restart the engine when coming to a complete stop, sometimes while in a turn lane turning left with oncoming traffic.

Auto start stop - car turns off and will not restart via auto start/stop system at red lights and stop signs. This is extremely dangerous in a heavy traffic situation. The system, if doesn’t completely shut down is very delayed in responding to turn back on. I’ve had this issue since I purchased the car. Dealership had no idea how to fix. They replaced the fuel injectors, thinking it would solve issue, which didn’t help. I still own this car. 75,000 miles and this still happens.

Many times over the past few years, my car has stalled out at a light or stop sign when the auto start-stop has been engaged. I noticed this happens more in the summer than winter. I have to disengage this function when driving, however, with no permanent way to shut off this feature, I often forget to shut it off every time I start the car. As a result, I frequently have to deal with the stalling. I have always been able to restart the car after a minute or so, but it's obviously a safety issue with cars stuck behind me. No warning lights come on before this happens, and I have no taken the car to a dealer or repair shop.

The automatic start/stop killed the engine at a stop light, and took several tries to restart the engine. I always disengage this feature now to avoid being stranded.

2017 Honda Pilot does not restart when auto idle feature is engaged. The engine idles, as designed, but does not restart. Instead, the engine shuts off entirely and we lose all power features. On one occasion, we were stopped on hill on a coastal highway and began rolling backwards. Fortunately, I was able to stop our Pilot before it rolled into the vehicle behind us but it was difficult as the power brakes were not working. This has been an issue since we purchased the car new and the dealership has not been helpful in the least. We've taken it to them several times and they had it for roughly a month on one occasion. They've told us repeatedly that they haven't heard of this issue before (a simple Google search will show that other consumers have experienced the same thing) and are now telling us the issue is no longer covered under the vehicle warranty. Since the dealership was unwilling to help us, I opened cases with Honda America but they, too, have been unresponsive.

When at a stoplight, auto idle causes car to completely stall and shut down and won’t restart unless car turned completely off and try to restart again. This has caused me to be placed in some dangerous situations where I have almost been rear ended from behind. Dealership says that it’s the battery but from hearing from multiple people, this has not fixed the problem. It seems like it’s something electrical with auto idle stop feature.

My 2017 Honda Pilot does not want to start after the auto idle comes on. For example. When my Pilot comes to a stop and the auto idle system shut the engine off. The vehicle does not want to start when I take my foot off the brake. I thought it may have been my battery, it the problem still happened after I got a new one.

The auto stop/start feature does not always restart the car when I release the brake after stopping. Mostly in town at stop signs and red lights but recently it happened while I was in stop and go traffic on an interstate. At all locations I was blocking traffic (flashers on of course) and hoping no one hit me while I sat for a few minutes trying to restart my car. From experience I have found that I have to release the brake and push my engine start button a couple times to completely turn off everything then push the brake and button to start the car. A few times it I had to do that cycle several times before it actually restarted. Meanwhile I am in the middle of the road completely blocking traffic. My dealer was “unable to replicate” so my solution has been to turn off that feature. Unfortunately, auto stop/start is automatically on every time I start my car … so this happens when I forget to turn it off. There are times that it works and the car restarts but even then the electrical system shuts down. Radio turns off and back on as the car is restarting and dash lights turn off then on, which reminds me to once again turn the feature off. I have had a lot of electrical issues with this car due to a sunroof leak so I chalked it up to my ongoing electrical problems until I saw the article today about other complaints from people having the same issue. The date listed below was the most recent incident but it has occurred many times.

On several occasions, the automatic idle and restart system has failed. While setting at a red light with a breaking engaged the engine goes off. When releasing the break the engine does not restart automatically. Sometimes it restarts easily and sometimes not taking two to three attempts to do so while traffic is backed up behind me at a stoplight

Stop/start functionality stalls the engine, forcing me to restart it

Vehicle will stall out at an intersection, or stop sign after the auto restart shuts the car off. When I lift my foot off the brake for the gas peddle, the entire car stalls and I get a series of warning lights and messages about shifting the car into gear before restarting. Despite attempts to restart the car, I'm generally stranded for 1-2 mins. I brought the issue up to the dealership last time I brought the car in. After 1 test drive they claimed to have found no issues, and that if it happened again I should "film it happening with my phone". This is now the 4th time this has happened within the last 6 months.

In January 2021 our 2017 Honda Pilot Battery was replaced by the dealer, Anderson Honda, in Hunt Valley. In February we started experiencing problems when Auto Idle is engaged (as it is when you start the car). We were sitting at a red light and the car shut off (as it is supposed to with auto idle). When the light turned green the car was off and wouldn't turn on for about 8 minutes we were stuck at the light with no abiltiy to turn the car off or move the car. This happened repeatly, the car does not start again for many minutes. We took the car to the dealership numerous times with no solution. It is very dangerous to be blocking traffic with an immobile car.

Our car is 1,100 miles over warranty and the air conditioner system broke. The dealer cannot tell me anything about why it happened, just that they need to replace the entire system, including the compressor and condenser. Our AC is blowing hot air now (and we live in Georgia and it's the summer), so the car is basically undriveable. It's going to be $5900 to replace.

My 2017 Pilot has a "feature" where the engine will turn itself off when fully stopped and in drive. Sometimes the car won't restart when you remove your foot from the brake, and sometimes it struggles to restart. I have been stuck at an intersection before and had to restart it myself manually. When this happens, it also gives me a warning that one of the safety features has a problem (I'm not sure which one, maybe collision warning?) I've started to simply turn off this "feature" when I start the car, but sometimes I forget and then it happens again.

I was stranded multiple times at redlight signal and while taking left on yeild due to idle stop and it took me 30 seconds to start the vehicle . When i went to show room they replaced the battery which fixed the problem. Problem is everything else work fine except idle stop start and it caused lot on anxiety when i got stuck in middle of intersection.

The auto engine idle engaged when car came to a stop and then stalled out my car. This has happened about 4 times. I am unsure of the exact date of first incident but this has been happening for a couple of years. This required me to turn off the car and then restart. Usually at a red light causing the driver behind me to be confused and angry. Usually I will turn off this feature when I turn on the car but if I don’t remember and this feature engages it it doesn’t always stall out the car but the sound of the engine sounds like it’s having a hard time restarting and sometimes the radio will cut out (like the battery is off for the car) for a second. This was reported to my dealer a couple years ago and they found no issue (took it out for one test drive) and had never heard of this happening as they say.

The auto Start / Stop feature that shuts the engine off while stopped at stop lights has failed to restart the car dozens of times over the last year. While stopped at a light, the engine shuts off as expected. Then when going to release the brake pedal to pull away from the stop light, the car fails to restart. The method to restart requires putting the car into park, applying the brake, pushing the start/stop button, and then putting the car back in drive. All while traffic behind me is trying to move forward. This is a very scary situation in a busy intersection. After many instances, my wife and I are very fast at the restart procedure, but we get nervous anytime someone else drives the car. Replacing the battery seemed to help for a few months, but did not stop the issue. The issues seems to happen more frequently in hot weather situations where the air conditioning is pulling a large load on the electrical situation, although it also happened a few times over the winter when the heater was running. There are no warnings, lights, or messages that appear on the dashboard. This relates to Investigation # PE 22-005.

My car shuts itself off at stoplights to save fuel. There have been 4-5 times where I couldn't get the car to restart when the light turned green. It is a scary situation to not be able to restart the car in traffic or when I'm in another city away from my home. I have heard this is happening to others too. Please investigate.

Malfunction with the auto start/stop function on my 2017 Honda Pilot. When the car was in the first 40K miles, sometimes I would notice a longer than normal pause for the car to restart and engage the engine. It happened occasionally and I noticed it most often when pulling into traffic and needing to do a fast acceleration. This felt unsafe because I didn't feel like I could reliably pull out into traffic with speed and immediate timing. At approximately 40K miles I started having issues when my engine would die when pausing at a stoplight, a stop sign, or a round a bout. One particular time I had my children in the car, was in rush hour traffic turning left (so was in the intersection). As I tried to make the left turn at the yellow, the engine went into neutral and my car was unsponsive and would not shift into drive or re- engage. I tried to restart the engine a couple of times. Finally I waited approx 10 seconds and tried again. The engine turned on at that point and I was able to pull out of the intersection. It was a really horrible and scary experience for my children and for me. For the past 20K miles, I try to consistently turn OFF the auto start/stop, because I feel it is too dangerous. I don't always remember, so still have had issues with the engine dying. There is not a way, to my knowledge, to engage a setting where it is always disabled. It is very frustrating to have to remember to manually turn it off every time I start the engine. I estimate, even with regu

Periodically, while using automatic engine idle stop, when I release the brake to restart the engine, the engine will shut off and not turn on. Only pushing and holding the start button will restart the engine after about a minute. Also, more often, when the engine restarts, all electronics will flicker off then on.

The automatic start/stop sometimes fails to restart and car stalls. The car must be shut off and turned back on. At other times, the engine shuts down immediately upon stopping, such as at a 4 way stop or in traffic. I must pump the breaks to restart. These are intermittent problems that sometimes go away on their own and it has not been able to be replicated when in the shop. No warnings or engine lights appear as a result of this problem. Because it is intermittent and can happen in traffic, it is dangerous. This problem has been recurring for months.

The engine won’t restart on its own from a complete stop, have to disable the auto engine shutdown due to concerns of car not re-starting.

We have had several instances when our Honda shuts off and will not restart. Several times we either a) have to leave it sit for hours b) press really hard on the brake pedal and hold the start button down for an extended period of time c) get the other set of keys which seems to then allow the vehicle to start or d) jump it to reset the issue so it will start and run. We also think this is somehow tied to the auto start stop or restart function.

Engine fails to start when idle stop is active. The June 2018 date was the first incident. There has been multiple incidents since.

Multiple times the vehicle has shutoff when the it has reached a complete stop at a traffic light and has not restarted on its own. Took it to dealer but they could not recreate it supposedly. In addition fuel pump issues and the Honda dealer is not able to obtain parts to the fix the vehicle. Feels like a lemon vehicle.

Problem: Malfunction of the auto engine idle feature. Multiple (five to ten) occurrences have been observed in this vehicle since 2021. When gas pedal was pressed to start the car moving forward after idling for traffic conditons, instead of driving forward, the car automatically engaged neutral gear. In order to place the car in drive gear, the driver had to power off the car and then power back on. This problem was observed while traveling in stop-and-go interstate traffic and also while stopped at stop signs. This is a safety issue because restarting the car immobilized it for about 20 seconds of time each incident, while in traffic that was trying to move at posted speeds. Because this has been an intermittent problem so far, it was unable to be replicated by the dealer’s service technicians. There have been no indications of any problem prior to each stalling incident.

On numerous occasions when engine has automatically stopped, it has failed to restart to allow continued driving.

Auto on/off issue. Vehicle did not restart after auto shut off. Luckily not in a place where it caused a traffic problem. After a minute or so of being off the vehicle being completely off it started up again. After it sputtered a few more occasions, I have been turning off the feature manually each time I start the car now. Honda doesn’t allow you to permanently turn it off. It has to be done each time.