Traveling 45-60 miles per hour, vsa light comes on and vehicle comes to a complete stop, no warning no brake lights nothing, vsa recall has been performed 3 times now, along with yaw rate sensor. After repairs done again on 07/28/2015 lasted until 09/09/2015 when traveling 45 miles per hour and vehicle stopped again almost causing a major accident. Anyone else out there experiencing these difficulties ?
2005 Honda Pilot driver assistance complaints
Page 3 of 4: complaints 41 to 70 of 100, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Random, repeated and sudden breaks apply; car slows down dramatically. Vsa light may come on, may not. This occurred several times. The first time it occurred was on a trip to pa. The car would suddenly slow by more than 20 MPH. We were thrown hard into our seat belts. We went to a honda dealership in pittsburgh.they wanted to sell me 4 new tires stating the problem was due to tires not wearing even. This was hard for us to believe. It was extremely dangerous. We had to veer off the road many times to avoid accidents! Google search on vsa car suddenly breaking - first 'hit' was a 2013 recall on the vsa harness and sensor. We received no information on the recall. Honda pittsburgh fixed the recall free. Then 8 weeks later in maryland the car began to do the same exact thing. We emergency stopped at a local auto center. Their system code showed faulty "ABS brake system" they kindly reset the codes, but the car continued to exhibit same. We then went to salisbury, md. Honda. They said we needed a new vsa module despite the diagnostic showing no codes stating we had a faulty vsa. The only vsa module was in ohio and would take a week to get to maryland, and cost us $1,710! All other vsa modules were on back order. We were on vacation and could not stay an additional week. Nor did it make sense to us to replace the vsa module when salisbury honda said it was "working as designed". I have a legal formal complaint registered with honda america. I urge you to do the same. Winston salem, nc honda feels it is the yaw sensor. However, they have had my car for 5 days and are unable to duplicate the problem or show a code. I feel a recall should now be made for a yaw sensor. Better yet, honda america should replace all vsa modules for free before someone is killed!! .
This is an addendum to complaint #10734361 the incident date was not correct. It was 2015 not 2014. And since the original complaint, we took the vehicle to auto parts store & they came up with 2 error codes. 25-1 yaw sensor malfunction & 61-1 battery voltage malfunction. These error codes seem to be a common thread with a lot of the complaints filed. Also, we have had to replace our alternator & battery since the recall service. Coincidence?
1st incident-I was traveling at a slow rate of speed (approx. 25-30 MPH). Heard a growling sound & car suddenly braked on its own. I also felt as if I had lost steering ability. The vsa light flashed on then off during the incident. 2nd incident- same as above only a week later. 3rd incident- about 2 weeks later. My wife was driving the car. Had slowed down to enter the ramp to get on the highway. Again the car made a grinding sound, the vsa light came on momentarily while the car applied the brakes on its own. All of these incidences occurred after the car was serviced for the vsa recall(13-026) on may 6, 2015. Previous to this service, we had never had any issues with the vsa. We believe that by having this recall performed, has caused another malfunctioned as a result. I have read some much more frightening incidences than ours on your site. So we are now driving our car with the vsa off! Please investigate before someone seriously gets hurt. Updated 11/27/2017
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 honda pilot. While driving approximately 60 MPH, the brakes engaged independently. As a result, the vehicle swerved from left to right and the vehicle stability assist warning light illuminated. The vehicle was serviced under the federal safety agency campaign number: 13v092000 (service brakes, hydraulic, traction control system); however, the failure recurred. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the yaw rate sensor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 126,000.
Sitting in a parking lot and the vsa light came on. Looked it up and saw the recall on the vsa so intended to get it checked out. A couple days later I'm tooling along at freeway speed and for a brief second it felt like someone slammed on the brakes and released, and the vsa light came on. Took it to the dealership and the codes they found were for some sort of a power drop and blamed it on a possible power outage or drop at some point. Maybe alternator, battery or something, but they didn't find anything wrong with any of those, but it cost me $125.00 to be told they don't know. The vsa recall was completed in 2012 for the wiring harness. Today (a week later) I'm going about 25 on a surface street and the exact same thing happened, so I took it to the dealership without turning off the engine and possibly clearing any codes. What they came back with was a faulty yaw sensor code, but they want to keep it for a couple days to do further research. I'm told it is connected to the main computer and if it is the yaw sensor then the main computer has to be replaced, at a cost of $1650.00 (they will credit toward the repair the $125.00 I paid last week for the non-answer). In reading online, I'm not the only person who has had this issue. Also reading online a quick review seems to lead me to believe that the sensor can be replaced by itself, separate from the main computer, at a much lower cost.
My daughter was driving our family's 2005 honda pilot. She applied the brake lightly which resulted in excessive breaking in the left front wheel and then appearance of the vsa light. I brought the vehicle to the honda dealer who first indicated there was no recall and then indicated there was a vsa wire harness recall (the federal safety agency 13v‑092) but that it did apply the vsa light going on and therefore had nothing to do with the recall. A vsa light diagnostics which I independently paid for indicated a yaw rate failure code (25-01). This light vsa light has continued to intermittently go on and off with an intermittent contemporaneous relationship to braking. On 2/25/15 my daughter was driving the vehicle on the highway (no vsa light on), applied the brakes lightly and the car braked severly even once her foot was off the brake and pulled the car in the same front right direction as before forcing her to swerve along side a passing truck. The vsa light went on after the event occurred. Calling the honda dealer today, the service manager indicated that honda does not have a recall on this matter once the part for the 13v‑092 recall was replaced. In reviewing safer car.gov the federal safety agency campaign id number dp12002 it describes well what has occurred twice and which has not been corrected by the recall service performed. I have also contacted honda USA. I believe honda has inadequately evaluated the relationship of similarly reported events regarding unexpected car brake assist with mild application of the brake since the vsa wire harness recall repair did not resolve the unexpected and inappropriate vsa/ESC/ba system logic response. It is not clear why honda is not addressing my matter under this recall (the federal safety agency 13v‑092) and the referenced the federal safety agency dp12002, and further investigating under a known safety recall.
This is an addendum to my november 21, 2014 report regarding the vehicle stability system on my 2005 honda pilot engaging the brakes on its own: on one of the occasions that the stability system engaged the brakes on its own, the car swerved to the left into the adjacent lane.
Vehicle stalled and will not accelerate, vtm,vsa and engine lights on. Problem started in 2008 before honda issued a recall. Problem ongoing as of present. Seems like temporary fixes each time, honda can't seem to find a permanent fix. Keeps getting the run around. Very frustrating.
I heard a loud thumping or grinding sound from the front of the car and the brakes engaged on their own. At the same time the vehicle stability warning light came on (yellow triangle). Over next three weeks this happened three times, seemingly randomly. On one occasion the "yaw sensor" code was triggered. The vsa recall in 2013 was performed by the dealer in 2013.
My 2005 pilot model has 108,000 miles. The vsa light started to come on while I was driving the car. Whenever that happens for a fraction of a second the brakes and steering wheel would lock up and vsa light remains on until vehicle is turned off. The stability control recall 13v092000 was performed july 2013, it was to fix this problem. Local honda dealer found yaw rate sensor failure and wants $1,100.00 to replace.
Vsa engaged while driving xway, pulled vehicle to right, into other lane. This was repaired per previous recall, but continued to engage periodically within 3 days. Additionally, I am on list for airbag recall, but not yet recalled in ky. We are in ohio valley, with higher humidity than florida. I have driven to florida multiple times. We should be added to recall list.
On numerous occasions during the ownership of the car, especially when it is raining, damp, or snowing while driving the car for no reason it loses power. The steering wheel locks, and the car acts as if the battery has been disconnected. This has happened more than 20 times. This is a defect. I am reporting, because I realize this needed to be reported. It is a safety issue. This loss of electrical power has occurred with the original battery, as well as two other batteries over the life of the car. It appears to be electrically related. The loss of power results in the steering wheel locking and no power. Luckily, each time this has happened, I was driving at 30 miles per hour. If this ever occurred on the highway, it could resulted in an accident.
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 honda pilot. The contact stated that while driving approximately 60 MPH, the vsa light illuminated as the vehicle started to shake. The contact mentioned that the steering wheel became hard to maneuver and it felt as if the brake were engaging. The vehicle was merged to the side of the road, where it was turned off and restarted. The vehicle resumed normal operation. The failure recurred several times. The vehicle was taken to a dealer. The technician diagnosed that the yaw rate sensor had failed. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 9,000.
The first incident happened while turning, car came to a stop, jerked the wheel almost hitting another car; all without warning. A child passenger was in the back seat and was thrown forward hitting her head on the passenger front seat and seat belt locked causing her to have a seat belt bruise. Vsa (light), the vsa activation light (triangle with exclamation inside) were both illuminated. Suv was taken to local dealership to perform the recall work. Two weeks later, same thing but this time I was going about 55mph on highway, SUV came to almost a complete stop within a short distance. Grinding feeling and with the vsa indicator lights on. Almost hit someone when the wheel jerked and caused me to go into the right lane and almost hitting someone, kids were in the SUV one in the passenger side front and the other in back same side. Seat belt once again left a bruise on their chest and caused the front passenger to have strained his neck. This is a vehicle that cause great concern. I am now afraid to allow my son to drive this vehicle with this problem continuing. The dealership has said that they have performed the recall bulletin and I will need to fix this on my own. This is not satisfactory at all.
I went to honda dealership on may 30, 2014 in fremont california for the safety recall campaign - installing subharness. After the dealership installed new harness for the safety of vsa (vehicle stability assistance) on the 30th of may 2014, vsa light is on when I pickup the car and the service advisor at the dealership said it was yaw rate sensor failure according to the code scanned. Before the recall, the car was ok, without the vsa light on. Basically I am driving the without vsa after the recall from honda.
While driving around a bend towards a red light, without my foot on the pedal my car made a weird shutter or brake pulsing, I thought I had gone over some ripple strips. When the light changed, I proceeded to make a right turn in a busy intersection, when going almost 30 & out of the turn, my pilot came to an unassisted abrupt stop! Im so lucky the person behind me didn't rear end me! It sounded like the transmission was grinding & the tires were locked. I waited a few seconds let go of brakes & the vehicle began to move but in 5 ft it did it again. Towed to dealer who cant seem to find or recreate the problem. Multiple brake, ABS, vsc & electrical alarms were reported by dealer but still no solution. This car is unsafe to drive and by multiple reports this is a widespread problem.
As I was approaching a left turn lane I applied the brakes gently and the left front brake momentarily grabbed causing the vehicle to swerve into the oncoming traffic and the vsa lights activated. This has occurred 9 times in the last 300 miles. I took the vehicle to the dealer immediately and they told me they could not duplicate the problem and they found no problems with the car. Never had a problem until the "recalled" vsa module was replaced less than 6000 miles ago. The dealer tells me that the vsa module is not under warranty.
When driving on straight, level pavement, vsa light illuminates and car suddenly shudders and changes direction. Uneven brakes are being applied by the vsa system in order to correct a problem that is not present. Meanwhile, the loss of control of the vehicle is dangerous. The problem has happened several times before and after the recall to replace the wiring harness. The recall service did not fix the problem or make it happen less frequently. My car seems to only have the problem in sub-freezing temperatures. Dealer diagnosis says that yaw sensor is sending a bad signal to vsa system. A new yaw sensor is currently on back-order, so it seems that I am not alone in having problems.
After the recall of vsa it happens that the SUV experiencing the symptom of excessive braking and vsa light comes out... Before the recall we haven't experiencing this vsa problem.. I don't know in some reason why it comes out after the recall had been made..first occurrence I bring it to the dealer and advise that they been check , fixed and inform it won't come out any more .. After two weeks it happened again and my SUV will bring again to the dealer for the second time... I feel they make me feel worse this recall that been made ... Is there any advice ????
The vehicle would apply additional brake force on the driver's side front wheel while the driver use the brake to slow the vehicle on a downhill road. The extra brake force only last 1 second or 2 but it caused the vehicle steer to the left and the vsa come on. In several occasions, the vehicle crossed the lane to the oncoming traffic. The vsa light will come on until I turn off the ignition. The honda dealer initially suggest it was related to the vsa recall but after performing the recall work 4 times, the issue still exist. They finally determined the yaw sensor was causing the problem and replace it.
2005 honda pilot. Consumer writes in regards to malfunction of alarm system in vehicle. *smd the consumer stated the alarm system went off, while driving. The consumer made every effort, to stop the horns from blaring. Soon after, the vehicle stalled. He put the gear in park and turned off the ignition. He attempted to re-start the vehicle, but it would not go into any gear. The consumer managed to get help, to push the vehicle off the road. The tires would not roll, and shortly thereafter, the brake lights and horns went off, as well as the vsa was lit. The vehicle was towed to a repair facility. The next the day, the same problem occurred, a couple of days later, the consumer received recall notice 13v092000. The description of the recall, described the problem he experienced.
2005 honda pilot. Consumer writes in regards to a defective vsa electrical control unit recall notice and seeks reimbursement for repairs. *smd the consumer stated without warning, the vehicle came to a complete stop in the middle of the intersection. The vehicle was towed to a repair shop, where the vsa/ABS modulator assembly was replaced.
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 honda pilot. The contact stated that while driving 25 MPH, the vehicle stability assist engaged independently, causing the front driver's side tire to seize. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for inspection and they stated that the vehicle stability assist module needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 195,000.
I've just brought my 2005 honda pilot in to the honda dealer to have the recall fixed but now it seems like the random breaking with the vsa on is more frequent after the fixed. The recall for the honda pilot 2005 with the vsa did not fix my vsa trouble. The trouble I getting is still the same after the fixed. "if the control unit was damaged, the vsa system may apply a small amount of breaking force even if the driver has not pressed the brake pedal."
The brakes suddenly applied while cruising along the interstate at 75mph. The vehicle was able to be directed off the road then the brakes locked up and vehicle would not go forward. Vsa light came on. This happened several times later at lower speeds and the brakes would lock up and vsa light would come on. Mechanics could not determine the problem, since it was an intermittent problem. Honda dealer told me that no recalls or alerts were on vehicle. The front brake rotors were machined in feb 2012 because they were "warped" and then had to be replaced a year later because the brakes were pulsating. Since nov. 2009 I have had to machine the rear brake rotors that were "warped" twice. I am now using the vehicle with the vsa off.
While exiting a driveway at approximately 5 miles per hour the brakes locked without the driver applying pressure. The driver was able to get the vehicle to the center painted median with extra gas and still under unwanted braking. Once the car came to a complete stop for 30 seconds or so the brakes released. The driver then drove the vehicle at a slow speed along the curb to our house within 2 miles. It's now parked as we are afraid to drive it. A call to metro honda in montclair was of no assistance. They said my vehicle was not effected by the recent honda recall on the issue. The vsa light remains illuminated as well as the system warning light.
While driving I went to apply my brakes to begin slowing down, I only applied a very small amount of pressure when a grinding noise started and lasted only a few seconds then a slight jerk as if my car was braking on its own and then a warning light turned on (exclamation inside a triangle and the vsa letters appeared) this stayed on until I turned off the car. This has occurred now 4 times. Fortunately I only have to drive 5 miles to work. Firstly, I am afraid to drive any distance especially on the highway should this get worse and secondly I have grandkids that I transport and am concerned that I could possibly be putting their lives in jeopardy!! I do hope that something is done or a recall is made so that this can be fixed.
Long story but I believe it is all related. Based on my understanding the anti-lock brake system and vsa are all part of the same system in a 2005 honda pilot. We were having a "noise" that was believed to be caused by a random anti-lock brake system self check. This would happen at any speed and appeared to be activated by any small bump in the road. This was more of a nuisance than anything but we thought we would have the dealership look into it. More on this later. In addition we also had the vehicle stability assist (vsa) engage once and the results were a little scary or violent at best. The problem occurred when traveling at approximately 70 MPH under windy conditions. The vsa system engaged, the brakes were heavily applied, and the vehicle was put into a control mode that pulled the vehicle left and right. We had very limited control of the vehicle when all of this was happening. We were able to pull the vehicle over without incident and deactivate the vsa to finish our trip. What our dealership found was a cracked electrical connector on the main engine wiring harness where it connects to the anti-lock brake and vsa module. The connector is located under the engine shroud in an area that isn't accessible during normal or routine maintenance and we have never had any service done on anything in this area. Our guess is that it was cracked during the original installation or it fatigued over time. The honda technician thought the root cause of the problem was moisture entering the control module via the damaged connector. This in turn caused damage to the printed circuit board that controls the braking and vsa system. We stopped investigating the repair at this point because of cost. It was over $2000.00 to get the harness and control module replaced. I wanted to share this because of all the recent news on 2005 pilots.
First incident, my wife was driving approximately 45 MPH when 2005 honda pilot began to vibrate and make a "groaning" noise or a noise almost like when you drive on a gravel road. 2005 honda pilot was also (while vibrating and making noise) abruptly slowing down/ stopping without depressing the brake pedal. It would also do this while applying the accelerator. Second incident was later that same day. I picked the 2005 honda pilot up from my wife as she was now to afraid to drive it. After about 10 mins of driving, I was doing about 55 MPH and the 2005 honda pilot made the same noise and vibration as described above and also slowed down abruptly as if I hit the brakes(which I didn't). About another half mile was a traffic light as I began to slow down for light I applied the brakes gently and as I applied the brakes the brake pedal left my foot and the 2005 honda pilot came to an abrupt stop. This happened two more times so I pulled into a parking lot because I did not feel safe driving at that point. When I stopped in the parking lot I noticed my vsa indicator light was on. It would not turn off until I turned the 2005 honda pilot off. Same day I took my 2005 honda pilot to the local honda dealership and they have not been able to reproduce the symptom.
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