AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 2 owner reports

Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2013 Honda Pilot

Only 1 report for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 2
With an odometer reading 1
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $300–$1,600
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 33rd

When airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault gets reported

There are 2 reports of airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2013 Honda Pilot, 1 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 33rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 1 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 12,342 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

Putting it right typically runs $300–$1,600 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 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 60,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 120,000 miles.

By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 36; the 2013 has 0. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

On 06/28/2014 the front passenger airbag sensor indicated that the airbag is off when a passenger is seated in the seat. My 12 yr old son (114 lbs.) was the passenger at the time of failure.we have documented/photographed the airbag light initiating a sensor as being off while the seat has an occupant and while the vehicle is being driven. This constitutes a significant public safety hazard for all front seat passengers of 2013 honda pilot vehicles and any other honda product that uses this same sensor.findlay honda, 7494 w azure dr, las vegas, nv 89130 , 702-982-4200. Findlay service has inspected the vehicle on 06/30/2014, they advised that they had reset the "circuits" to the airbags and that the vehicle was ready to drive. Our 2013 honda pilot manual indicates this sensor will turn off airbags if passenger is less than 65 lbs. My son is 114 lbs. When the airbag disarmed. We picked it up late on 06/30/2014 and discovered the same issue and left it at the dealer service again for review today, 07/01/2014.I brought my son in with me to findlay dealership service this morning to replicate the issue in front of findlay dealer two…

12,342 miles NHTSA complaint 1084172 filed 2014-07-08

Also reported on the 2013 Honda Pilot

Other engine problem

57 reports median 3k

Other powertrain problem

37 reports median 1k

Other body or interior problem

30 reports median 36k

Other brake problem

29 reports median 28k

Paint peeling or clear coat failure

18 reports median 80k

Sunroof failure or glass breakage

16 reports median 65k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 2 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 2 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 airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault happen on the 2013 Honda Pilot?

Across 1 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2013 Honda Pilot?

2 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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