AtWhatMileage
Adas · 21 owner reports

Cruise control failure on the 2017 Honda Pilot

Only 5 reports 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 21
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $200–$1,400
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 10th

When cruise control failure gets reported

There are 21 reports of cruise control failure on the 2017 Honda Pilot, 5 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 72,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 10,000 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 $200–$1,400 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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 400 miles, and latest on the 2006 at 95,000 miles.

By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 61; the 2017 has 21. 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.

The adaptive cruise control system is defective and dangerous. Slams on the brakes when approaching vehicles inside considered safety zones. Slows vehicle from 75-80mph on the freeway to less than 60mph. Vehicles behind forced to brake to avoid collision. Changing lanes the vehicle failed to resume highway speeds in a acceptable manner potentially causing vehicles in that lane to brake to avoid collision. In traffic the system is so jerky it can't be used. The system also fails to recognize an open lane and resume speed. The system also responds to vehicles to the driver's side lane and slows down and won't resume speed. In left or right turns on the freeway at freeway speeds the system reacts to vehicles across lanes and slows the vehicle to less than a safe operating speed causing a potential danger to not only the car we are in but to cars following behind . The collision avoidance system also malfunctions by the "brake" warning light comping on for seemingly no reason.

4,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1409268 filed 2017-09-20

If I set cruise control and go down a hill or incline it does not maintain the cruise control and continuously gains speed up to 10-15 miles over what it is set at. Could go higher, but I notice it and hit the brake which shuts it off. I brought this to the attention of the dealer where I purchased the car and they say this is normal and there is nothing wrong with it. I disagree and see this as a safety issue.

10,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1419033 filed 2017-10-28

The adaptive cruise control system is dangerous. The vehicle slams on the brakes when approaching vehicles ahead and the vehicle behind me then has to slam on their brakes. This has happened multiple times. So far I have avoided an accident, but there have been times that it was a very close call. The vehicle behind me had to swerve to another lane to avoid hitting me. The system is very jerky, speeding up and slowing down when following a vehicle ahead. It will speed up by 2-3 MPH and then slow down and speed up again. I have made sure that the windshield is clear to allow for the camera to see the vehicle in front of me. I had a previous ford motor vehicle and their adaptive cruise control worked wonderfully.

1,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1441207 filed 2018-01-18

Also reported on the 2017 Honda Pilot

Other engine problem

308 reports median 43k

Other electrical problem

195 reports median 42k

Other powertrain problem

81 reports median 34k

Other fuel system problem

72 reports median 38k

Fuel pump failure

36 reports median 88k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 21 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 21 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2017 Honda Pilot?

Across 5 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 cruise control failure on the 2017 Honda Pilot?

21 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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