Other engine problem on the 2012 Honda Pilot
1 fire 1 of the 33 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Honda Pilot report other engine problem at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 300 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles, from 24 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 43 miles at the tenth percentile to 45,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 46,283 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
79% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43 miles | 275 miles | 5,500 miles | 23,600 miles | 46,326 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 2,500 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 485; the 2012 has 33. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
2012 honda pilot - does not start consistently. Consistently has a rough start, and often stalls. Within days of owning my brand new 2012 honda pilot, the car stalled when I attempted to start it in my garage. I immediately brought the car into the dealership. The dealer's service department could not find a problem. They kept the car for the day, then reported to me that honda of america is aware of the problem and trying to fix it. They promised to keep me posted on the status of the honda of america engineers progress on the issue. Six weeks went by, and the problem persisted with intermittent calls from my local service manager. I was told not to bother to bring it in for service each time it stalled because they were waiting for a recall/fix from corporate. After six weeks, multiple stalls, which were all reported to my dealer as requested, I was then advised, by my dealer to contact honda of america myself get some results. I spoke with honda of amercia's nice, but useless customer service representative for two weeks, and got fed up with her inability to do anything other than agree that my problem was unacceptable. Then I…
The pilot cranks, but the engine intermittently fails to start. Honda recognizes problem, but offers no solution or time frame for a fix. Car was bought new, but honda will not provide alternative safe vehicle. *js
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 honda pilot. While traveling 45 MPH, the contact noticed that the vehicle had suddenly shut off without warning. The vehicle was taken to the dealership where the camshaft assembly was replaced. The current and the failure mileages were 5,000.
Also reported on the 2012 Honda Pilot
Other brake problem
Other speed control problem
Other powertrain problem
Other fuel system problem
Other electrical problem
Paint peeling or clear coat failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 33 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2012 Honda Pilot?
Across 24 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 300 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2012 Honda Pilot?
33 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed