76 complaints reported

2017 Honda Pilot ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,ENGINE

Owner-reported problems and safety issues filed with NHTSA. Review common failures, severity levels, and complaint trends over time.

Reports
76
Crashes
0
Fires
1
Injuries
0

Complaint Timeline

Chronological view of owner reports

Oct 2022

When at a red light the engine turns off when you press the brake. When you life you foot it should restart automatically. Multiple times my car has no restarted. It sends me a message to put the car in park, press the brake again, and restart with the push button. But it did not work immediately. I had to do the process 5-15 times before it restarted. This is a safety issue because I’m in a stalled car at a red light with traffic trying to get around my car or worse cars coming at a regular speed who don’t see I’m stopped. After researching I have seen that this issue has happened to other owners as well. I called my local dealership who said to bring it in so they could inspect it - which I have not done so yet. Just today there was a brief flash of an alert right after it restarts mentioning the collision assist or one of the other safety issues but it disappeared before I was able to fully read it.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Oct 2022
Oct 2022

Our 2017 Honda Pilot is having issues with the idle stop feature at a stop light or other standard stops. The engine completely shuts off and all electronics also shut off. It then needs to be placed in park and restarted. However, it sometimes takes multiple attempts to restart the engine. We are now having trouble with it even starting when the engine has been off. All the dashboard lights come on and it sometimes takes several attempts to start the engine. This issue is very unsafe when traveling and having your engine completely shut off while in traffic and could easily lead to a traffic accident. We have spoken to our local Honda dealer several times about this issue and they have said that Honda knows about this issue but does not have any solutions for the problem. Something needs to be done about this before a serious accident happens because of it.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: May 2019
Oct 2022

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 engaged. This has happened infrequently in the past but is now occurring more often, multiple times a month.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Mar 2022
Oct 2022

The engine would not restart at the red light. Start/Stop system was active, came to a red light and the vehicle turned off as normal with my foot on the brake, when the brakes were released the vehicle did not restart and I heard a click sound. I had to manually(push the start button) to completely turn off the car and then press it again to start the car. I had my entire family in the car including my child, with vehicles behind me on a main multi lane road. I almost got rear ended due to this malfunction.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Aug 2022
Sep 2022

For years the stop and auto-start feature will not restart automatically. Sometimes the entire vehicle itself will shut down, lose, power, then restart by itself. It is more frequent now. Last week while on the freeway, the car shut down and failed to restart altogether. The engine did not respond. I had to put it in neutral and restart the car. I had to attempt to restart it a couple of times before it finally turned on again.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Sep 2022
Sep 2022

When stopped, the engine idles off but when I go to accelerate, the engine shuts off. This is becoming a safety issue as the last two times were on a highway although it is really always a safety issue. Last year the dealer had me get a new battery. While that worked for a bit, the issue is back and worse than ever.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Sep 2022
Sep 2022

The auto stop/start feature is defective. It turns off the engine when stopped at red lights, but many times the engine then fails to start again when the gas pedal is pressed when the light is green, and the car stalls. This has left us stalled in intersections many times, and sometime it takes 10-15 minutes before the car starts again. We even had to call for a tow once. This problem has been ongoing for a few years and I have communicated it to my Honda dealership many times, and have brought it in multiple times, and they have failed to rectify the issue.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jan 2019
Sep 2022

While a stop light, the Idle Stop feature engaged as normal, however when the brake was released the engine failed to restart. This is not the first time this has happened, but this time following the instructions on display, place vehicle in park and press the Start/Stop button, didn't work. It was at night and I figured I would turn off the lights and radio to help. It took 4 or 5 attempts to get the vehicle to restart. This happens more frequently when idle stop is engaged short order, such as in a long line waiting for a left turn.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Sep 2022
Sep 2022

On multiple occasions now my Pilot has completely shut down while the auto-idle is on and I have been unable to restart it quickly. My young children and I have been stuck in traffic multiple times unable to move or get out of the way of oncoming traffic due to this and most recently on 9/16/22 I was almost hit due to be unable to restart my vehicle. I typically keep the auto-idle off for this reason but if I forget to turn it off, it happens again. I purchased my car on 7/06/22 and this has happened 3 times (which is a very high percentage of the time the auto-idle is accidently left on). I have tried to take it into be serviced but it does not happen every time so they have been unable to assist. There are no lights on, messages or any indication when this happens, the engine just shuts completely down and takes a minute to allow you to put it into park and restart the engine by pressing the break and the start button. This is terrifying for me, my children and everyone else on the road that has almost hit my idle car. I am scared every time I get into this car and unsure what to do at this point.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Sep 2022
Sep 2022

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 the doors every minute or so to see if I could get any kind of power, as well as try to start the vehicle again. After about 7 minutes or so I regained power and was able to drive home, which was about a half mile away. A message on my dash screen displayed "Anti theft System" "This system has lost power. Push and hold the power button for more than 2 seconds to enable the system". I did this and cleared it. I think the Anti Theft System turning on when it shouldn't is the real issue.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jun 2022
Sep 2022

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.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Sep 2022
Aug 2022

Failed to restart when auto engine stop engaged in the middle of a busy intersection. Large truck with heavy duty battery jump started but it took 10 minutes of being connected to the battery for the engine ignition to start again. No lack of charge (all electronics working but turned off just in case) but a defect in the restart after cutoff.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Aug 2022
Aug 2022

We own a Honda Pilot 2017 Touring trim. I saw your news report that there is a document out there published by the NHTSA that is investigating this issue. I’d like to add my experience to this. On or about April 2022, we started experiencing the start/stop issue while living in Kansas. When the issue occurred, an error message would flash very briefly across the dash, quick enough where we could not take a picture of the message. Our Honda would stutter then start back up. At this point, we took it to the Legends Honda dealership [10050 Parallel Pkwy, Kansas City, KS 66109] and after a free diagnostic they told us they could not A) replicate the issue, B) find evidence of the error message in the system. The next week, we had a complete engine failure while at a stop light for a full 5 minutes. During those 5 minutes, the engine remained off, the transmission shifted to Park on its own, and the vehicle could not be restarted manually. Traffic built up behind and around us as we were trying to figure out how to get off the road and we could not turn the hazard lights on. It seems this issue is related to an electrical component. After 5 minutes, we were able to push the ignition button to turn off the car completely and restart the engine. The vehicle operated normally afterwards. On August 12, 2022, the same issue occurred where the vehicle engine would not restart and we were prevented from manually restarting the vehicle for about 5 minutes. Once again, the transmission shifted itself to Park, an error message flashed across the screen briefly this time, and after 5 mins we could manually restart the car and continue as normal. Between these catastrophic failure dates, we would experience multiple start/stop stutters with error msg The only experience we have where this would not occur is to manually turn off the auto start/stop feature when driving the car. We see this as an issue that could cause injury, aggressive drivers, and other safety concerns.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Oct 2022
Aug 2022

The auto restart feature fails to restart the car after releasing the break sitting at a busy intersection. The car information center provided information to put the car in park and hit the ignition button again. I was able to get the car to restart after several tries by putting the car in park, shutting it off and turning it back on. This the third time this has happened in the past month.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Aug 2022
Aug 2022

Car stalls when auto stop turns back on

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jan 2022
Aug 2022

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.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Aug 2022
Aug 2022

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.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: May 2022
Aug 2022

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.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Aug 2022
Jul 2022

When stopping for more than a few seconds auto-idle stop turns off the vehicle completely and does not turn back on by pressing the gas pedal. Car must then be completely turned off, back on and shifted into drive to continue moving.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jan 2022
Jul 2022

For several year I've had a problem with the fuel-saving stop-start system on my Honda Pilot. Unless I turn this system off each time I drive it routinely (several times a week) fails to turn back on after making a complete stop, usually at a traffic light or stop sign. This has placed me in several dangerous situations as cars are speeding behind me, not expecting my car to be at a dead stop when a green light turns. It takes several tries to re-start the car and causes chaos at intersections. I took the car to a Honda dealer and was charged $975 to replace the battery, which they said would fix the problem. I have also followed all the safety recalls and yet the problem persists. I wanted to file an official report because this faulty system is a major accident waiting to happen. Given that my car fails to re-start once or twice per week, it's only a matter of time before I'm hit from behind while I'm stalled at an intersection. Honda has made it so that I am unable to permanently disable this feature and has yet to provide a repair so that it doesn't occur. Meanwhile, I've spent almost $1k trying to fix the problem myself without success. If the fuel-saving start-stop system is going to be a required feature please hold Honda accountable for providing a system that keeps their drivers safe and will not be the cause of an accident bringing harm to my family or others.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Dec 2022
Jul 2022

The auto idle stop function caused the vehicle to stop running, needing a full shutdown and restart. This happened on busy roadways, and it has happened two times with this vehicle, one time each in different years. I think the first time was in 2021 and the second was definitely in June 2022. We have had this vehicle into a dealership multiple times attempting to resolve the issue. Each time the battery has been replaced due to low voltage, and they were able to reproduce the issue at least once. The most recent time I was informed that Honda released a service bulletin recommending a change to engine compression that may be straining the battery when restarting the engine, but I am currently waiting on Honda to decide if they will cover the cost of this service before agreeing to it. We are currently operating the vehicle with the auto idle stop disabled. Other symptoms included the electrical system blinking off and on when restarting the engine after a stop. This was reproduceable after 3-4 consecutive stops in a short period of time, such as urban driving with traffic lights. This first appeared 3-6 months after a new battery is installed.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jun 2022
Jul 2022

Vehicle does not start back up after auto shut off activates. It is also stopping suddenly on the road

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jul 2022
Jul 2022

The Idle-Stop system shuts off when the SUV is stopped for two or more seconds. There are times when I release the break pedal after several seconds or more and the car engine does Not restart on its owLast episode 7/2/22

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Feb 2022
Jul 2022

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

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Jan 2022
Jul 2022

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.

Type: Vehicle, Vehicle: 2017 HONDA PILOT, Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Incident: Oct 2021

Trend Over Time

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Quick Summary

The 2017 Honda Pilot has 76 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,ENGINE complaints on file. Review the timeline above for detailed owner experiences.