2017 HONDA PILOT Engine Problems

Many times over the past few years, my car has stalled out at a light or stop sign when the auto start-stop has been engaged. I noticed this happens more in the summer than winter. I have to disengage this function when driving, however, with no permanent way to shut off this feature, I often forget to shut it off every time I start the car. As a result, I frequently have to deal with the stalling. I have always been able to restart the car after a minute or so, but it's obviously a safety issue with cars stuck behind me. No warning lights come on before this happens, and I have no taken the car to a dealer or repair shop.

When at a stoplight, auto idle causes car to completely stall and shut down and won’t restart unless car turned completely off and try to restart again. This has caused me to be placed in some dangerous situations where I have almost been rear ended from behind. Dealership says that it’s the battery but from hearing from multiple people, this has not fixed the problem. It seems like it’s something electrical with auto idle stop feature.

My 2017 Honda Pilot does not want to start after the auto idle comes on. For example. When my Pilot comes to a stop and the auto idle system shut the engine off. The vehicle does not want to start when I take my foot off the brake. I thought it may have been my battery, it the problem still happened after I got a new one.

The auto stop/start feature does not always restart the car when I release the brake after stopping. Mostly in town at stop signs and red lights but recently it happened while I was in stop and go traffic on an interstate. At all locations I was blocking traffic (flashers on of course) and hoping no one hit me while I sat for a few minutes trying to restart my car. From experience I have found that I have to release the brake and push my engine start button a couple times to completely turn off everything then push the brake and button to start the car. A few times it I had to do that cycle several times before it actually restarted. Meanwhile I am in the middle of the road completely blocking traffic. My dealer was “unable to replicate” so my solution has been to turn off that feature....

On several occasions, the automatic idle and restart system has failed. While setting at a red light with a breaking engaged the engine goes off. When releasing the break the engine does not restart automatically. Sometimes it restarts easily and sometimes not taking two to three attempts to do so while traffic is backed up behind me at a stoplight

stop/start functionality stalls the engine, forcing me to restart it

Vehicle will stall out at an intersection, or stop sign after the auto restart shuts the car off. When I lift my foot off the brake for the gas peddle, the entire car stalls and I get a series of warning lights and messages about shifting the car into gear before restarting. Despite attempts to restart the car, I'm generally stranded for 1-2 mins. I brought the issue up to the dealership last time I brought the car in. After 1 test drive they claimed to have found no issues, and that if it happened again I should "film it happening with my phone". This is now the 4th time this has happened within the last 6 months.

In January 2021 our 2017 Honda Pilot Battery was replaced by the dealer, Anderson Honda, in Hunt Valley. In February we started experiencing problems when Auto Idle is engaged (as it is when you start the car). We were sitting at a red light and the car shut off (as it is supposed to with auto idle). When the light turned green the car was off and wouldn't turn on for about 8 minutes we were stuck at the light with no abiltiy to turn the car off or move the car. This happened repeatly, the car does not start again for many minutes. We took the car to the dealership numerous times with no solution. It is very dangerous to be blocking traffic with an immobile car.

My 2017 Pilot has a "feature" where the engine will turn itself off when fully stopped and in drive. Sometimes the car won't restart when you remove your foot from the brake, and sometimes it struggles to restart. I have been stuck at an intersection before and had to restart it myself manually. When this happens, it also gives me a warning that one of the safety features has a problem (I'm not sure which one, maybe collision warning?) I've started to simply turn off this "feature" when I start the car, but sometimes I forget and then it happens again.

The auto Start / Stop feature that shuts the engine off while stopped at stop lights has failed to restart the car dozens of times over the last year. While stopped at a light, the engine shuts off as expected. Then when going to release the brake pedal to pull away from the stop light, the car fails to restart. The method to restart requires putting the car into park, applying the brake, pushing the start/stop button, and then putting the car back in drive. All while traffic behind me is trying to move forward. This is a very scary situation in a busy intersection. After many instances, my wife and I are very fast at the restart procedure, but we get nervous anytime someone else drives the car. Replacing the battery seemed to help for a few months, but did not stop the issue. The issues seems to happen...

My car shuts itself off at stoplights to save fuel. There have been 4-5 times where I couldn't get the car to restart when the light turned green. It is a scary situation to not be able to restart the car in traffic or when I'm in another city away from my home. I have heard this is happening to others too. Please investigate.

Malfunction with the auto start/stop function on my 2017 Honda Pilot. When the car was in the first 40K miles, sometimes I would notice a longer than normal pause for the car to restart and engage the engine. It happened occasionally and I noticed it most often when pulling into traffic and needing to do a fast acceleration. This felt unsafe because I didn't feel like I could reliably pull out into traffic with speed and immediate timing. At approximately 40K miles I started having issues when my engine would die when pausing at a stoplight, a stop sign, or a round a bout. One particular time I had my children in the car, was in rush hour traffic turning left (so was in the intersection). As I tried to make the left turn at the yellow, the engine went into neutral and my car was unsponsive and would not...

Periodically, while using automatic engine idle stop, when I release the brake to restart the engine, the engine will shut off and not turn on. Only pushing and holding the start button will restart the engine after about a minute. Also, more often, when the engine restarts, all electronics will flicker off then on.

The automatic start/stop sometimes fails to restart and car stalls. The car must be shut off and turned back on. At other times, the engine shuts down immediately upon stopping, such as at a 4 way stop or in traffic. I must pump the breaks to restart. These are intermittent problems that sometimes go away on their own and it has not been able to be replicated when in the shop. No warnings or engine lights appear as a result of this problem. Because it is intermittent and can happen in traffic, it is dangerous. This problem has been recurring for months.

The engine won’t restart on its own from a complete stop, have to disable the auto engine shutdown due to concerns of car not re-starting.

Engine fails to start when idle stop is active. The June 2018 date was the first incident. There has been multiple incidents since.

Multiple times the vehicle has shutoff when the it has reached a complete stop at a traffic light and has not restarted on its own. Took it to dealer but they could not recreate it supposedly. In addition fuel pump issues and the Honda dealer is not able to obtain parts to the fix the vehicle. Feels like a lemon vehicle.

Problem: Malfunction of the auto engine idle feature. Multiple (five to ten) occurrences have been observed in this vehicle since 2021. When gas pedal was pressed to start the car moving forward after idling for traffic conditons, instead of driving forward, the car automatically engaged neutral gear. In order to place the car in drive gear, the driver had to power off the car and then power back on. This problem was observed while traveling in stop-and-go interstate traffic and also while stopped at stop signs. This is a safety issue because restarting the car immobilized it for about 20 seconds of time each incident, while in traffic that was trying to move at posted speeds. Because this has been an intermittent problem so far, it was unable to be replicated by the dealer’s service technicians. There have been no indications of any problem prior to each stalling incident.

On numerous occasions when engine has automatically stopped, it has failed to restart to allow continued driving.

Auto on/off issue. Vehicle did not restart after auto shut off. Luckily not in a place where it caused a traffic problem. After a minute or so of being off the vehicle being completely off it started up again. After it sputtered a few more occasions, I have been turning off the feature manually each time I start the car now. Honda doesn’t allow you to permanently turn it off. It has to be done each time.

I have taken my car 5 times to the dealership due to it stalling at red lights or when stopped. This happens with the idle engine is engaged. It has almost caused wrecks due to shutting off and not turning back on. In addition, we are now having to replace the keyless access control system due to electrical issues that caused a severe crackling, alarm sounding, immobilizer activated. the only way the car wouldnt alarm was if it is unlocked.

When parked, the car begins to try to turn on. The interior lights flash, systems fire and the battery drains. Twice I was left stranded having to rely on tow trucks, replacing batteries that were still functional and running car continuously in order to not drain it since it is my only car and I needed reliable vehicle to get to my kids. I could have been stranded in unsafe areas, thus impacting the safety of myself and family. There was no warnings before this happened the first time. Then, after changing the battery, it went another week without issue and then randomly happened again, without warning or indicators. It was looked at by 2 mechanics, the first (Christian brothers automotive) could not find a problem. The second (Honda dealership) diagnosed it as “body control module failure-code b12d3”. They were not able to fix my car after diagnosing the problem...

The auto Start-Stop function is not working properly. In several occasions when the engine stops at a red light the engine will not start again. This has caused many dangerous situations as we got stuck in the middle of an intersection. The dealer has not been able to identify the problem. Also linked to this electrical problem is at time all kids of electrical warning messages appear in the cluster. I expect this to be an electrical/battery related problem.

For the past few months, I have been having issues with my vehicle stalling. This issue occurs while stopped at red lights, stop signs, and while sitting in stop and go traffic. My vehicle is equipped with the Auto Start/Stop feature, and while stopped at a stop sign for instance, the vehicle will auto stop but fail to auto start when taking my foot off the brake and hitting the gas. This has happened on numerous occasions, putting those in the vehicle and those in other vehicles around my vehicle at risk. I brought my vehicle to my local dealership, at which point they checked it and found nothing wrong with the vehicle. They also stated that they, and the vehicle manufacturer were aware of the issue, but have no solution for it. The first time I brought the vehicle in, the dealer told me that a possible fix was...

Vehicle randomly does not automatically restart after the auto engine idle stop engages when in stop-and-go traffic or when stopped at an intersection, resulting in a stalled vehicle in the middle of traffic. Takes multiple attempts of hitting the start-stop button to restart the vehicle. Have taken the vehicle to the dealer numerous times and each time told they can't figure out what causes the problem, but they replaced the battery at a cost of $500...didn't fix the problem. No warning indicators before the vehicle stalls, the engine simply doesn't start again after the brake is released, which should disengage the auto idle.

Our 2017 pilot tries to turn on by itself, with the electronics in the dashboard starting and engine compartment relays firing, along with the exterior lights turning on without any driver being present or attempting to start the car. It happens even without the keys being present. As a result, the battery drains while the car is parked. We took our car to the dealership where we bought it and they confirmed the issue and stated we needed to replace our keyless access/TPMS unit to start and that we may need to a new start/stop switch. It cost $190.83 with tax to access. The car is serviced at Klein Honda in Everett, WA. The R/O number for the service visit is 652453/1. Instances of other Honda owners experiencing similar car issues can be found here: https://www.piloteers.org/threads/control-unit-problems.168522/ I noted that the 2016-2017 honda pilots have a recall/service bulletin for the start/stop...

Driving into work, busy road/heavy traffic, the auto-stop engine function engaged. It shut down the entire car and would not restart after releasing the brake. I had to put on flasher, and then restart the car as normal. Component failure: Auto-Stop Safety issue: Could be rear-ended, or worse if this happened in an intersection Vehicle will be inspected tomorrow by Honda. This problem has occurred before.

The contact owns a 2017 Honda Pilot. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the emission system, transmission, and Collision Mitigation Braking System warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle then lost motive power. The contact was able to pull over and park the vehicle. The vehicle was towed to the dealer and diagnosed with an oil rocker arm error code within the VTEC system. The dealer informed the contact that a non-OEM oil filter was used, which might have caused the failure. The dealer performed an oil change; however, the failure recurred. The vehicle was towed back to the dealer and diagnosed with oil rocker arm spool valve failure. The dealer informed the contact that the oil rocker arm spool valve needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired and remained at the dealer. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure but informed the contact...

atomic breaking systems kicks on almost caused accident 2 times, and the engine shot off while driving, please investigate before death happen

This is a random issue that has now happened 3 times in the past couple of months. When the auto idle system is engaged and going to restart, the car stalls. You are stuck in an intersection, at a light, etc. You then have to figure out how to restart the car, which isn't easy, the start button has to be pushed multiple times as you are trying not to panic.

Traveling about 70 mph on the interstate using cruise control. I don’t think there was a change in steepness/grade, but if there was it was mild. Suddenly, the rpm’s were erratic and the engine and gears seemed out of sync. Pressing the gas pedal didn’t seem to effectively accelerate the vehicle. I don’t believe the brakes were affected. The “D” for drive indicator kept blinking on and off. Multiple warning lights on the dash display: transmission system problem, all wheel drive problem, and interestingly, blind spot monitor problem. The last indicator to show was emissions system problem, and this indicator remained on the screen. I exited the interstate. Shifted to reverse, then parked the car and turned engine off. After a few moments, I restarted the engine and the only anomaly I observed was the warning indicator light on the dash read: emissions system problem. There was roughly 1/4 to...

On my way to work yesterday, I took my exit and stopped at the light where the idle engine function enabled and then my car completely shut off on its own. It took multiple tries to restart the car. Meanwhile, the light turned green, multiple cars were honking at me, and could have most certainly rear ended me. If it was the next street over, it would have been quite a dangerous situation as it is a super busy area. Upon taking it to the dealership today, they cannot figure out the issue.

Auto engine stop does not restart when releasing brake pedal. This causes safety issues when stopped at lights as it takes time for the car to go into park in order to be manually started. Only solution is to turn off Auto engine stop every time car is started so that it won't automatically turn off when brake pedal is fully pressed. Honda needs to recall and provide a solution that permanently disables the auto engine stop.

On multiple occasions over several years the car will shut completely down when accelerating from a stop light or stop sign. The car has to be restarted and it is not safe. Most recently it happened twice in 1 week and the car will not restart immediately because you have to get it into park. It's very dangerous and the dealer is useless as they "can't get the issue to duplicate"

issue is when the car is stopped and the auto engine idle is on, when I lift the brake to press the accelerator, the car shuts off the engine completely, puts itself in Neutral. So when I’m at a red light that turns green, when I attempt to go by lifting the brake my engine quits, that i have to wait a few and restart the whole thing,

In my 2017 Honda Pilot Elite the auto idle stop feature has more frequently failed to restart the vehicle when stopped at a traffic light. This leaves the car stalled in traffic instead of restarting after I take my foot off the brake (which is when the system should be restarting the engine). This failure occurs whether I press the gas pedal or just take my foot off the brake. It began happening around the 30,000 mile mark and the vehicle now has 56,000. I notice it most often occurs when the auto idle stop function engages at the first traffic light after a period (approx. more than 20 minutes) of freeway driving. The only way I have found to recover from the stall is to place depress the brake, place the car in Park, press the engine Start/Stop button twice (once to shut off the car then again to...

While driving, the vehicle suddenly stalled then began to jerked and was unable to accelerate above 2000 RPM. If pushed above the 2000 RPM, the car would continue to violently jerk. At this time, all the dash warning lights came on, but no warnings or driving issues prior to the incident. From the manufacturer (dealer inspected), error code P0369-CMP Sensor and this issue applies to a service article A180101 from January 2018 which notes that the camshaft thrust cover roughness out of spec and damaged camshaft position sensor. Concerns for this is that without warning the vehicle stalls out regardless of speed for a vehicle after owning for only 4 years.

Engine does not restart after “auto idle”. The car cannot be turned off because it is shifted in to drive and won’t shift to park until the engine comes on. This leaves you stranded when driving if you’re at a busy intersection causing an extreme safety hazard.

Car stalls at idle when you take foot off of brake in preparation to accelerate. Error lights and warnings flash on dashboard, car automatically shifts to neutral and it takes over a minute to restart. Inconsistently happens and Honda service technicians report there are no error codes. This is happening to MANY people with the same make/model. This is a serious safety and drivability issue. Please investigate.

The auto idle stop feature on the vehicle poses a significant safety hazard. On multiple occasions, the engine doesn’t re start after lifting your foot off of the brake. We’ve had the dealer assess several times, but they simply say they can’t repeat the problem. In the most recent instance, we were stopped at a red light and the auto idle stop engaged. When the light turned green, I took my foot off of the brake and the car did t re start. I had to shift from drive to park, and tried to re start the car a few times before the engine re started. I was fortunate I wasn’t rear ended, as cars were coming up behind me in excess of 40 miles per hour. Thankfully, they saw my hazard lights and moved over before hitting me. This problem has been reported in multiple forums, to include here:...

Keyless start system malfunction.

Vehicle stalls after trying to return to normal idle after the idle-stop system has been engaged. Vehicle may take up to 5 minutes to restart. Vehicle has a fly-by-wire push button transmission so the vehicle cannot be placed into neutral and pushed out of harms way without the engine running (which it isn't since it stalled and won't restart). Dealership "fixed" the problem in 2019 by installing a new battery which was warrantied for a bad cell. Problem returns in 2021. Dealership declares the battery good and claims that they cannot replicate the problem, nor have they heard of this issue previously. And possibly related to all of the above: Vehicle ran normally (i.e., engine running normally) until all indicator lights came on and remained on. Dealer claims a new camshaft and associated parts are needed to fix this "new" problem.

A known a reported issue by others, the auto idle engine function has caused our car to completely shut off at various times requiring us to put the car back in park and restart the engine. This is a clear safety concern as it has happened at stop lights, on the road, etc.

When stopped long enough to engage the auto idle function the car does not always recover immediately to drive. The car completely shuts down and usually restarts. This has occurred a few times in the past couple weeks and I have been trying to capture it on video to show the dealership. Yesterday it shut down and did not restart. It took many seconds (20-30) to be able to turn it back on and put it back into gear. We were stuck with cars behind us honking. When this happens all the lights on the dash light up so there is not one warning that indicates what the problem is. A car randomly failing to function is a safety issue. Especially since there is nothing the driver can do to remedy the situation. We have not taken the car in to a mechanic yet as this happened over the weekend....

The car stalls out at traffic lights and stop signs due to a failure of the automatic idle start/stop feature. It appears this is a common issue that there is no known repair for. It creates for an unsafe driving situation when the car does not go when the light turns green. I am waiting for the day I am rear ended by someone not paying attention.

The engine auto stop/ START feature turned the car off while I was stopped at traffic light. I attempted to disable this feature by pressing the Stop/ Start button which turned the vehicle completely off. I made several attempts to start the vehicle. First, I tried pressing the start button with my foot on the break. Second, I shifted the car into park and pressed the break pedal down and then pressed the start button, still didn't start. I then opened the door and quickly closed it and repeated the last process over again and it still wouldn't start. At that time the display instructed me to press the start engine button twice. By this time the traffic light cycled once which really pissed off everyone behind me! (THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME 2 TIMES AND TO MY WIFE 6 TIMES IN THE LAST 18 MONTHS)

Idle engine-off system on several occasions has failed to restart engine while stopped during normal driving. Car remains in drive and engine stalls. Auto must be completely shut off and restarted for engine to restart. This is extremely unsafe as it has occured while stopped at lights in busy intersections.

On 25 July 2021, I was in stop and go traffic on I-5 South when my start stop function on my 2017 Honda Pilot Elite failed to restart. All the lights lit up on my instrument cluster. My vehicle was unable to restart for about 1 minute as i was frantically trying to shut off my vehicle and restart it repeatedly. I was worried about a vehicle slamming into me with my family in the car. Since that day it has happened a few more times where the start stop function has failed and the engine failed to restart at traffic lights or busy intersections. Today I was able to catch it on video. If you would like me to send you the video from today, please let me know the email address. I have an appointment on Saturday but when I went by the Honda dealership today, they tested...

The Auto Idle Stop feature was enabled at the time. We came to a complete stop on the interstate highway due to traffic. When traffic cleared and I attempted to resume driving, the engine died completely and pressing the Start button would not re-start the engine. We were stuck with a dead engine in the middle of the highway for about a minute before the engine finally restarted. This happened three additional times since the original incident. I've taken the car to the dealer but their service technicians were unable to replicate the issue or diagnose the problem.

When using the auto idle stop the car will sometimes completely shut down. We could be rear ended if somebody behind us doesn’t realize that we are stopped. Honda has looked at it multiple times. They say they can not duplicate it so they can’t fix it.