Complete transmission failure on the 2016 Honda Pilot
When complete transmission failure gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Honda Pilot report complete transmission failure at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 27th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 127,800 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.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,200 miles | 22,500 miles | 95,300 miles | 111,000 miles | 140,000 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 $2,800–$8,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 122,500 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 44; the 2016 has 15. 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.
On september 2, 2016 while ascending up a winding 2-lane highway (highway 18) to lake arrowhead, our year old 2016 honda pilot touring (with a zf 9-speed transmission) began decelerating rapidly from 55 MPH to 20 MPH. My wife was driving with our 4 children and was able to pull to the side of the road. She pulled over, turned the car off and a sheriff stopped. The sheriff recommended she try to continue to drive to get the car off the highway since they were in a very dangerous area. My wife started the car and proceeded to ascend to the nearest off ramp and when numerous warning lights came on and the car rapidly decelerated once again. This is the second time something like this has occurred. In december 2015, a similar issue occurred while driving straight up a hill on a 4 to 5 lane freeway from san diego to los angeles. In that case, the 2016 honda pilot jerked violently before decelerating. My wife immediately pulled the car to the side of the freeway and had the car towed to pacific honda. Honda determined that our pilot was unsafe to drive and needed an entirely new transmission and replaced the transmission in the 4-month…
While the car was in motion on a country road, warning messages came on stating that the car should not be driven, and then the engine suddenly shut off. Car coasted to a stop. Could not restart the car for 5 or 10 minutes, but it finally started again. After taking it to the dealer twice, the diagnosis was that coolant had mixed with transmission fluid, thus the transmission had to be replaced.
Vehicle mileage 12500 miles transmission replaced, but the new transmission is having the same problem as the first. Chirping and grinding when shift up or down from 3 to 4 or at 30 miles per hour while moving. *tr
Also reported on the 2016 Honda Pilot
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other fuel system problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 15 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 complete transmission failure happen on the 2016 Honda Pilot?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is complete transmission failure on the 2016 Honda Pilot?
15 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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