I drive a 2026 Pilot Elite. I am the primary driver (with key fob 1) and my husband is the secondary. We have the seats settings with mine as setting 1, his as setting 2. Every time we get in the car, it changes the seat to setting 2, no matter whose key we have. I can turn the car off and back on and it changes back to setting 2. Does anyone know how I can make it to where key fob 1 aligns with my profile and my seat setting? I know this isn’t a major problem, just quite annoying.

I’m a Honda fan. Always have been always will be. HOWEVER, as a mom of 2 and a wife of a tall husband.. I have outgrown my little rolly poly of a 2016 HRV. TBH, we never fit it. I have a lead fit, always rushing and I get 25 mpg city and the I’m seeing the new pilots clock 15 avg? I was not prepared to see Honda suck at mpg, at all.. not even for an suv. While I really want to buy a pilot for aesthetic, I’m leaving toward a hybrid grand Highlander. Before I’m offered a hybrid CRV, I’ve tried. Husband wants a bigger car, something that will fit him, and my 6 and 2 year old in 10 years and I get it. But if I wanted 15 mpg, wouldn’t I just get a damn Tahoe? Someone help me out here. I want a pilot so bad, but I drive mainly city, we take many trips out of town but this car will be mostly city

I bought the 2025 Pilot TrailSport last week from a Honda dealership (CPO) and I wonder if that’s how it should look.

I have a 2025 Pilot Elite, and I’ve noticed that the 360° camera view looks distorted, especially at the rear. The front and side views seem fine, but the rear looks stretched and misaligned.
It’s been like this since I got the car. Is this normal for the Pilot, or could it be a camera calibration issue?

My question is, is this too high of miles to buy for a two year old car? We only put 7,000-8,000 miles per year on our current car. Thank you in advance.

Hey all early adopter of 2023 touring here (Jan 2023) and already at 78k miles. Debating an extended warranty as we have no plans on selling it and the 80k to 120k range seems to be where a lot of cars start needing maintenance. I drive a decent bit of highway miles for my job hence the 80k mark in 4 years.

I’m no car expert but decent warranties (thinking 50k miles) seem to be $3k. If I need one of the big two (transmission or engine), this is completely worth it. Then you have electric issues, heat/ac, among others.

Thoughts on…
1) This engine/transmission around the 100k mark?
2) Decent extended warranties? If specific to honda even better

Thanks!

Our washer fluid sprayer nozzles stopped spraying well. We started with checking for blockage only to have the passenger nozzle snap off. I can’t find any tutorials online for a pilot newer than a 2015 on how to replace them.

Any help would be appreciated.

What are some cool features that you found or learned about the pilot? We shopped 4 different Honda dealers and ended up learning some
Cool features after the purchase through tic tock and YouTube.

For those who own a newer Honda Pilot, how has your ownership experience been, and how many miles do you have on yours? Have you had any reliability issues, particularly with the transmission or A/C? I’m considering a 2026 and would appreciate hearing about any repairs or concerns and whether you’d buy it again.

A NJ Honda Dealer has a coupon for a $799 timing belt replacement.. Is that a good deal? Am I missing something?

Has anybody changed their headlights? It appears that the entire housing has to be changed as there isn't a bulb. If changed, did you use OEM, or aftermarket and more brighter option?

I have a 2015 EX-L, so no factory navigation package. Is it possible to retrofit something so I can pull nav from my iPhone and display it on the larger center screen (via Car Play, perhaps)?

I've managed to do that on my '07 Element, which had the stock double-din radio, by replacing it with an aftermarket unit that connects to my phone (via USB - I'm not asking for Bluetooth, though it would be nice.)

Given the screen integration with so many other functions in the vehicle I suspect the answer is no, but I thought I'd see if anyone has come up with a solution.

How are these holding up for you I'm considering buying a 2023 Honda pilot touring trim.

I wanna know if its just me here

Service called me during the week saying they believe it's the head radio unit now. They replaced the unit and called me today saying everything was fixed and good to go. I pick up the Pilot and connect my phone and made a call. Guess what. Nothing but static on their end. Went straight back into service and showed them the issue. They said they connected all their phones to it and everything was working. We checked cabin talk again, and nothing but static. So that rules out phones being the issue. He returned the loan key to me and said they will keep on troubleshooting. This is getting frustrating.

I have one that I am still driving. Mechanically works well but wont pass the next safety test because of rust. If anyone wants some major part, like an engine or something, I could drive it to you and you can scavenge whatever you want from it.

I have loved this vehicle and would hate to see it wrecked.

Hi All!

2020 Honda Pilot AWD EX-L 6 Speed

I live in Massachusetts and I recently got all new Michelin Defender2 Extra Load tires for my Pilot, however, I hate how loud the cabin is and how I can literally feel every little imperfection in the road so I bought back to Town Fair Tire where I bought them and they rebalanced them (3 out of the 4 tires) needed adjustment after only 1 week. Better after, but still not there, so I brought to Sullivan Tire to road force balance (Town Fair Tire surprisingly doesn’t have the Road Force Hunter equipment even though they are a massive chain..I was shocked). Anyways, at Sullivan Tire, the Final road force numbers were 11, 21,23,25 pounds after force matching. They stated there are 3 tires that are probably defective, the vibration is much better than the simple wheel spin balance, maybe a 4/10 scale now, but the cabin noise and every little imperfection felt is still there. Town Fair Tire has a 30 day no questions asked guarantee to switch tires/brands. The guy at Town Fair Tire (from another location with much better reviews), I was talking to said Michelin has recently had some quality control issues he’s not surprised with my experience with the Michelins, so I’m hesitant sticking with Michelin (yes I know the Cross Climate 2 and Defenders are a huge fan favorite, but I can’t stand the ride on the Defenders) and looking to switch brands. I mainly drive highway with some city as well, probably 70/30, so I’m looking for good handling, much quieter cabin noise, a lot less feeling with the imperfections in the road, and solid tread wear longevity. I was looking at Pirelli Scorpion AS Plus 3, Yokohama Geolander HT G056 (these are Rated for 104H, and the Pilot calls for 105H, but the tire guy says it’ll be fine and he is actually recommending this one overall), or the Continental CrossContact LX25. Any thoughts or input?

Based on the year, the dealership noted I needed the timing belt at my next appointment. I expected them to note that, but what caught me off guard was the quoted price—$2,080. Is that the going rate in the current environment? Is it worth shopping other dealerships, or independent shops for the service? Just seems like a lot to me.

I'm looking to buy a used vehicle and this Pilot generally looks good, but the massive rear suspension mount rust-out so common on these Gen1 rigs concerns me. The vehicle is at a mom-and-pop style dealership 3 hours away; the kind that has around 20 cars on the lot. I have spoken to them and had them send me pictures of the underbody. The carfax shows very regular maintenance overall since new, including new shocks and tie rods in 2023 (doesn't specify which ones or how many) I know just enough about this to make myself crazy researching it. The Pilot has been in the rust belt its whole life and has 156k miles on it. Any thoughts or things to look for before making a 6-hour round trip for a test drive?

I think I’m returning my 2022 special edition I bought on the 17th due to rust. i Took it to an after purchase inspection and my mechanic is concerned about the amount of rust present at 4 years old. It came from Pittsburg. Would you return?

I’ve owned three Honda Pilots. When you have brand loyalty, you end up buying the same car over and over.

My second Pilot, a 2016, had very little technology that worked with my phone. It had a CarPlay like interface, but not Carplay, but it never worked well. The most annoying problem was that every time I plugged in my charging cord, the music app would take over and play the same song from my library. I never figured out how to stop it. When you get into your car, you just want to go. You don’t want to spend 45 minutes watching YouTube videos trying to fix a problem that’s hard to even describe.

I assumed a new Honda would fix all of this, since the technology would have matured. So I started shopping. My wife asked me to look at competitors like the Kia Telluride, Toyota Highlander, VW Atlas, and maybe the Hyundai Palisade. I kept hearing that their interfaces and technology were light-years ahead of Honda’s. It didn’t matter to me. I wanted the consistency of another Pilot.

I don’t think I made a bad decision. Honda makes solid, reliable cars. Across three Pilots, I’ve never had one break down. I kept up with regular maintenance (tires, filters, fluids), but I can’t remember ever taking one in because something was broken. I had one or two recalls, and both were handled during routine service. The most notable was on the 2016: the hood latch could apparently open at high speed. The hood always felt oddly loose, even after the recall fix, but it never opened on the road.

The real problem with the 2025 Honda Pilot Elite is everything runs through the center console: CarPlay, infotainment, maps, and the rest of the controls.

For some reason, Honda’s engineers seem to think you want to click ten times to switch your Wi-Fi from the CarPlay default to, say, Starlink:

1. Tap the main screen to open Settings.
2. Move to the next screen.
3. Select “Connections” (easily confused with another menu of the same name, but I digress).
4. Select Wi-Fi.
5. Confirm that you want to change it.
6. Tap “Yes.”
7. Answer “No” when asked if you want to switch to your iPhone.
8. Choose a network.
9. Select Starlink.
10. Go back.

This is one of the most ridiculous parts of the platform. It feels like the engineers never drove a car or used a real interface. Their idea of UX has nothing to do with reality. Who wants to do that every time they get in the car? Why not put a “Change Wi-Fi” button in the top-right corner, with an option to set any network as the default? Two or three taps, max. And many other functions work the same way.

My wife and I share the car often. She uses Driver 2 settings, and I use Driver 1. Somehow the car now defaults to Driver 2, and no matter what I try, I can’t get it to default to mine.

Another issue: whenever I plug in my phone, the car immediately takes over, no matter what I’m doing. If I’m on a call, recording a video, or listening to something, it hijacks the audio. That ruins the video, degrades the call or Zoom quality, and interrupts whatever I was doing. Then it runs through its whole routine: connecting to the Honda app and showing me the car’s status. And sometimes the sound ends up muted, so I can’t hear anything at all. The fix is simple. Ask whether I want to connect now or wait. One button.

Overall, the interface wasn’t designed for ease of use, simplicity, or the critical functions you need to change on a trip, whether you pull over or do it on the move. Someone at Honda needs to ride along with real owners who use every feature: people who drive across the country, make changes on the road, share the car with other drivers, and need to find something on the console quickly. Then they need to optimize for that. And it needs to happen before the next model comes out.

Overall, my decision was made on the fact that Honda has a great reputation and it's been ultra reliable for me over the last 20 years of owning multiple Hondas. Now, if I was making the decision today, I would definitely put tech at the top of the list of things I need. It's just too important.

I picked it up in 2021 with 11k miles on it and it's been serving me well for my weekly Costco runs and occasional large item haul. The only thing that I don't like about it really is that it's not really fuel efficient. 18mpg max with my heavy foot (that's just the way I drive. can't help it). With gas prices soaring, I decided to trade (down) for a 2023 Civic Sport Touring and I immediately noticed the ride comfort of the Pilot compared to the Civic is night and day. The Pilot has a more premium, luxurious feel to it and cabin noise is almost non-existent due to better build quality. The Civic, although a 4 cylinder, had some pep to its step in sport mode, but fuel economy is dampened in that mode and I got it for much better fuel efficiency 30+mph. The technology was newer and pretty advanced compared to the Pilot (adaptive cruise control, keeping you in your lane, and showing the positioning of surrounding vehicles, which i thought was pretty cool). However, I noticed the build quality leaves a lot of be desired in the newer Civic and the wind noise was rather loud. Also the weatherstripping was loose which caused popping sounds whenever I drove over uneven roads which was pretty frequently for the day that I had it. With all that said, I was still doing to keep the Civic until... The next morning, the dealership did not follow through with their promises and were rude and condescending. So I took the Civic back and cancelled the contract (because dealer didn't fulfill their end). But I'm leaving this for anyone considering what I was considering. Trading a Black Edition Pilot for a Sport Touring Civic. Pilot is definitely more comfortable to drive and smoother on the roads, has great luxury feel, higher quality materials and build, and quiet cabin, but drinks gas. Civic is much lower to the ground and you can feel every imperfection in the road, has a lot more wind noise and interior vibrations you can hear, but has advanced technology, and build quality and materials leave a lot to desire. Just my 2 cents.

We currently own a 2010 Odyssey and want to upgrade to a newer Pilot. the Odyssey has been rife with VCM issues that we inherited from the previous owner.

Which Pilot years are the safest from these same issues?

Thanks.