I am reporting 2 safety issues in this report, both involving the AUTO STOP/START function in my car. SAFETY ISSUE #1: MALFUNCTIONING AUTO STOP/START (ASS) FUNCTION: At least 4 times during the past 2 months, I have had a serious safety issue with my 2017 Honda Pilot wherein it stalls and is completely inoperable for a short time, while I’m stopped at an intersection. This has caused me undue stress and jeopardized the safety of myself and my passengers, and disrupted traffic. According to my best recollection, the situation occurs when the ASS function stalls the engine (when stopped), and I manually press the ‘Disable ASS’ button to restart the engine. But instead of the engine turning back, all systems completely ‘black out’ as I frantically try to re-start the engine, to no effect. After several scary seconds, somehow it re-starts. SAFETY ISSUE #2: CORRECTLY FUNCTIONING ASS FUNCTION: Even when functioning correctly, the ASS function has caused a safety issue for me at least twice. When the ASS function was automatically engaged, I was unable to immediately accelerate to avoid a potential collision. Although no collision resulted, these few scares ‘trained me’ to manually disengage the ASS function whenever I remember to do so. Based on my experiences, It would be safest to have no ASS function at all.
2017 Honda Pilot electrical complaints
Page 5 of 10: complaints 101 to 130 of 266, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Keyless Start System Problem indicator illuminated in driver information display. Error notification is displayed intermittently. Stays on for several drive cycles and then goes off for a bit only to come back on again. So far the car seems to start ok, not sure if this issue may eventually cause car to no longer start.
The auto start stop function has failed multiple times on this vehicle in different situations with multiple different drivers. When my mother in law was driving my vehicle with my kids in the car the vehicle would not restart at a stop light in the middle of town with moderately heavy traffic. It took several tries to get the vehicle started again. This has happened to me several times at stop signs and traffic lights since I don't primary drive the vehicle I forget to turn off the auto start stop function. It has failed several times on my wife as well in similar situations. I have not brought this to the dealerships attention due to no fix available and not want to pay to have them tell me the same thing I already know.
Auto-stop feature failed to restart vehicle after auto-stop was engaged at a stop light. When letting off the brake, the auto-stop disengaged, but the vehicle engine failed to start, posing a safety risk as the vehicle did not restart in heavy traffic. This has been reproduced numerous times by the owner, but not by a dealer or independent service center. The component has not been inspected by the manufacturer, but the owner is an ASE certified mechanic. Warning lamps illuminate after vehicle fails to start, but the only way to restart the vehicle is to shift into park, completely shut off the vehicle electrical and attempt to restart. The system is receiving appropriate recharge from alternator, and battery is in acceptable condition.
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.
Auto engine start/stop has failed multiple times causing dangerous conditions in traffic. Engine will not restart for minutes after cutting off due to start/stop component.
Car fails to restart when the engine auto shut off engages. The engine will attempt to restart, but then nothing happens. The car is essentially stalled in traffic. This has happened three times. The car has to be put in park and fully shut off before it will restart using the car’s on/off button. One time it took a few minutes before the car would restart. This happened even after having the battery replaced. I informed the dealer about the problem, and the dealer acknowledged that there is some sort of problem with the auto shut off feature.
Car alarm keeps going off randomly and the electronic dashboard flickers repeatedly while the car is parked. I recently left the car at a parking garage and apparently the alarm was triggered and ran all day - I came back to the car that evening and there was clicking sound coming from the engine (not turned on, of course). The battery was drained and when I got a jump start, the alarm went off and the dashboard went crazy again. I wonder what would might happen when the car is being driven. There's clearly something wrong with the electronics. The dealer said I needed a new body control module (BCM), but the part is hard to come by apparently. Having done some research on the the issue, this appears to be a common problem with Honda Pilots. My car only has 50k miles on it and seems out of character to have this part fail. The short-term solution is to leave the car unlocked which in turn disarms the car alarm, but I've seen the dashboard and cabin lights flicker off and on in this state. This problem has been ongoing for months now.
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.
While the vehicle was stop, the auto shut off went off, and upon moving the foot from brake and depress accelerator, the Honda Pilot 2017 turned off and restarted requiring driver to depress Engine Start again.
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.
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.
1. The automatic start/stop feature sometimes fails to restart the vehicle 2. On a few occasions now I have been stranded at a stoplight trying to restart the vehicle with people trying to navigate around me. 3. I have not have it inspected by the dealer or mechanic yet. In my own research of the issue I found the there are a number of complaints about the same issue in the range of model years that includes my 2017 Honda Pilot 4. There were no lamps or warnings prior to the issue. When I take my foot off the brake the engine is supposed to restart but didn't. I had to completely power off the vehicle and open the door (so that all accessories like the radio were also powered off) and restart the car. But it took multiple tries. When I pressed the starter button the accessories would come on but the engine doesn't immediately start. There were no prior symptoms and, outside of the auto start/stop failures, I have never had a problem starting the vehicle. The auto start/stop works most of the time so, although the issue has happened a few times now, it is not consistent.
After stopping and the auto start-stop system is utilized to turn off the engine, the engine does not restart on its own when releasing the brake pedal. The vehicle must be shifted to park, turned off, and restarted before you can begin driving again. This has happened many times and poses a major safety risk since it happens predominantly at stop lights.
Numerous times the auto stop/start feature has failed to work. When the car tries to start back after the stop/start feature has been engaged, it does not start and will completely turn the car off. All the electronics will flash off and back on. When this happens the car has to be returned to park and can take several minutes to start back leaving the vehicle stranded in the intersection. I have complained to the dealership but they say there isn’t a problem and to just turn the feature off. In order to do that a button has to be pushed every time the car is started.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The auto-idle system causes the car to stall quite often and poses a major safety hazard. We bought the car brand-new in May 2018. The problem started happening approximately 2 years after buying the car. The car fails to restart when you lift the foot off the break and instead, stalls the car. My husband and I have had the car stall at red lights, at stop signs, and recently while we were in the left lane of a major highway in traffic. Just this past weekend, it stalled on me twice in less than 24 hours. It takes quite a bit of time to restart because you have to put the car in park and make sure it is completely shut down before trying to start it again, while also trying to remember to put on hazard lights. I did bring it to Lia Honda in Albany NY on Sept. 24, 2021, 3.5 years after buying the car, specifically for this issue. They could not recreate it in the shop. They suggested I needed a new battery and proceeded to install a new batter at a cost of approximately $500 (it is my understanding batteries should be replaced every 5 years typically). This helped for about 6 months but now the car is stalling quite often again. While they have a button to disable this system, it defaults to "on" every time you power the car off/on, and it is easy to forget to turn it off. This is a major safety issue as the cars behind me don't realize I have stalled. I realize this is a known issue as other Pilot owners have filed similar complaints, and I hope Honda fixes this issue because we paid a lot of money for this car and will have teenagers driving it soon. We are happy to have the car inspected further if necessary. Thank you.
The car sometimes fails to restart on its own from a complete stop at a traffic light or stop sign with the Auto Start/Stop function engaged. Furthermore, on two recent occasions the car would not start at all after it was turned off to get gas. One of those times it sat for 40 minutes at the gas pump while waiting for a jump start (it eventually started on its own), and the other it had to be towed to the dealer. After the first incident, we were told there was nothing wrong with the battery and a month later, when the car had to be towed, we were told the battery was completely dead. The concern with the start/stop trouble has been reported to the dealer and we were told there was nothing they could see. There have been no warning lights, lamps or messages. The start/stop problem began approximately a year ago, and we have tried to turn that feature off when driving, due to the problems that occur, since we were told there wasn't a problem that could be seen. On the occasions we forget to take this step, it always struggles at a stoplight or intersection and if not caught in time, the car will stall out, sometimes taking 2-3 tries to restart. The vehicle is currently in the shop, awaiting a battery replacement as we have been told that is what is causing the start/stop issue.
On multiple occasions, the engine idle stop system has failed to restart the engine at an intersection when releasing the brake leaving the car disabled in a dangerous situation. This started after about 20k miles. When it happens the car is fine until brake release. It seems to try to restart but the entire car loses power. No lights, no anything. Won't restart at first either. After a few moments trying to get it to restart it will fire up and you can put it back in drive and continue. I did note it happened less when I replaced the battery for a while. Dealer has replaced fuel rail and ignition switch to no avail. As a car guy I can say when it happens it's almost like there is not enough power to throw the starter. At that moment it's like all the power is sapped away like a bad ground or something. But then it comes back because obviously it restarts after a bit. Battery, Alternator and starter tests are always good. We now turn engine stop off every time we start the car out of fear but there is no permanent off switch.
The idle stop feature not working properly. Many times the engine will not restart after releasing the brake and pressing the accelerator. This has left me stranded in busy traffic situations including intersections. This is very dangerous and a hazard for me and my family.
I have experienced several instances where the vehicle's auto stop-start system fails to restart the vehicle's engine after a stop. This has happened 2-5 times. Specifically, when the vehicle is at a full stop (with brake fully depressed), the auto stop-start system is designed to stop the engine to conserve fuel by turning the engine off. During the episodes at issue, the system works correctly to stop the system. However, when I have released the brake pedal and attempted to resume driving, the engine has failed to restart and the power system appears to fail/reset. The vehicle then requires that I attempt to restart it using the stop/start button. On at least one occasion, I had to make multiple attempts to restart the vehicle before it finally began operating again. This situation often results in the vehicle obstructing traffic for an extended period of time and creating a dangerous situation. I have begun disabling the auto stop-start system when driving the car to avoid this problem occurring.
On numerous occasions, when the auto engine start/stop engages, due to coming to a temporary stop, the vehicle completely shuts down. I then have to restart the car manually. Usually a notification pops up on the dash telling me there’s an issue and you have to follow the instructions. It’s very stressful because I am usually in traffic and have my children with me. This is a huge safety issue.
I was stopped at a stop sign and the auto-idle engaged. When I went to start again, the entire car shut down and would not start. I told me to depress the brake to start the vehicle, but the brake would not depress. I was stuck at the stop sign in the middle of a busy intersection because the car wouldn’t restart after the auto-idle engaged. After about 10 minutes, the car was able to start and I was able to drive it home. Prior to this, I have had some instances where the auto-idle would engage and when I went to drive again, all the lights would flash and it would delay in starting. The code reader read zero codes. Previous inspections from the deal found no errors as well. We are replacing the battery, but there are no other indications the battery was dead, dying or faulty and would cause this issue.
1. The problem is linked directly to the Auto Start/Stop capability. The Car is available for inspection upon request. 2. Car shut down electrically in the intersection of the road and caused traffic and police presence, semi trucks rolling through were frightening 3. Honda West Dealership in Las Vegas inspected the problem but had no resolution to fix it. 4. No warning lights indicated a shut off was emminent.
The contact owns a 2017 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that alarm on the vehicle would activate erroneously. The contact stated that after deactivating the alarm, the alarm sounded again hours later. The vehicle was not taken to be diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 100,000.
The auto start/stop on my vehicle doesn't always work. I come to a complete stop, the vehicle turns off and when I pick my foot up off the brake to restart the car sometimes it will stall. There is no warning message or indication whether or not the car is about to stall, it just happens randomly. We cannot consistently replicate the issue. In order to restart the car I have to hit the start button, wait for the car to completely shut off and then turn the car back on creating a huge safety issue especially if I'm in the middle of an intersection waiting to make a left-hand turn. This is an accident waiting to happen. I brought my car to a Honda dealership approximately 6 months ago and brought the issue up to them. They told me they could find no issue with the car, couldn't replicate it and told me they had never heard of it before. It wasn't until I did an online search a few days ago that I realized that I wasn't the only one having this issue. I drive my children in this car and would be willing to allow anyone to inspect my vehicle to try to get to the root of the issue. This is a huge safety issue for what is supposed to be a safe family vehicle.
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