Other powertrain problem on the 2016 Honda Pilot
5 crashes 1 injury 6 of the 138 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 powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Honda Pilot report other powertrain problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 77 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 82,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 79,591 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
40% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 miles | 22,000 miles | 45,000 miles | 65,000 miles | 82,091 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, 5 a crash and 1 an injury are 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 $400–$4,500 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 1,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
I write to you to convey my safety concerns regarding a new honda 2016 pilot. My attempts to resolve my concerns with american honda motor co., inc. Were met with tepid reluctance and a cavalier neglectful attitude. 1.at high speeds (55-75 MPH) the vehicle oversteers and during emergency avoidance maneuvers becomes unstable. Twice while avoiding dear on interstate highways, I have almost lost control and was seriously concerned about rolling the vehicle over. I own and have driven a 2003 pilot for over 180,000 miles and never experienced this sort of issue. I believe the suspension is incorrectly designed and that unexpected and unnecessary rollovers are imminent. 2.the 'auto idle off' feature turns the engine completely off at certain times and under certain circumstances. It takes between 900 and 1,300 milliseconds to recover power to the wheels when this happens. Unlike hybrid vehicles (from which this feature was taken), there is no alternative electrical motor to provide torque to the drivetrain while the engine restarts and as a result, there is delay in accelerating. In the vast majority of times, this is of no consequence…
Vehicle surges forward when 9-speed automatic transmission shifts during coasting or light braking. Surging routinely occurs at moderate speeds ( 35-45mph ) when coasting downhill on a secondary highway. Surging has also occurred at parking lot speeds, and has necessitated emergency braking to avoid collision. Honda motor company has acknowledged similar behavior in another model that shares identical engine and transmission with this vehicle ( aside from differences in tuning ), the 2016 acura mdx, and a software repair campaign is underway for that vehicle. At this time, no software repair has been announced for the 2016 honda pilot touring. Several repair attempts have been made by a local honda service department, with no improvement.
9-speed transmission in the "touring" trim level of 2016 honda pilot has an electronic push-button shifter. This shifter intermittently fails to respond to firm button pushes. This is especially problematic when shifting from forward to reverse or vice versa in parking situations. On several occasions, after coming to a complete stop and firmly depressing the shifter button to reverse direction, the vehicle has accelerated in the original direction upon release of the brake. This has necessitated emergency braking to avoid collision. No warning message or chime is generated during these failures, the vehicle simply fails to acknowledge or respond to the button press. Dealer service has been unable to replicate or repair the problem.
Also reported on the 2016 Honda Pilot
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other fuel system problem
Other body or interior problem
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 138 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 powertrain problem happen on the 2016 Honda Pilot?
Across 77 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2016 Honda Pilot?
138 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.7 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