This is from the MDX site, they have the sane problems. One of the owner has it fixed by dealer.
"tsai_guy:
That sounds like the same problem I had. From what I understand, I think it is the early stages of the "THUD" that you will read about in other threads. Mine started fairly quiet and infrequent. After about 1000KM (600 miles), it was pretty consistent. I took it in to the dealer. They diagnosed the problem on the first trip, and fixed it after they had ordered some parts. They replaced the left and right struts (damper units). The noise is gone so far.
I recommend taking it in to your dealer. I couldn't have put up with the noise much longer, however quiet it is..."
"This is the same noise that the Odyssey has had and it is cause by a spot weld on the underside of the strut tower. It protrudes sightly so that the top of the strut does not sit flush. The fix is to remove the strut grind the weld flush, coat it with touch up paint, then reinstall the strut. I would have thought that Honda would have taken care of this on the Pilot because it has been on the Odyssey for a couple of years now."
I was faced with same decision couple of years ago. Wife did not want to drive SUV at all, though, but we needed hauling space, AWD for skiing, and a little sportiness and luxury. The A6 Quattro seemed to fit the bill perfectly (loved that big trunk, even though it was a little underpowered. In the mountains, though, it was surefooted and a pleasure to drive).
However, then the problems quickly followed: two broken power window motors, headlamp washer covers that popped off, two recalls (one for a fuel gauge problem that required me to deliver the car to the dealer with an empty tank), creaking in the suspension that could never be located by the dealer, a rattling in the engine that required a complete new fan assembly, etc. etc. All was covered by the warranty, but I was taking the car in every 2 months for something else, and being put in a geo metro rental for days at a time.
This was not even the first model year of the A6. If your looking at the new A4, all I can say is: beware. If your looking at the A6, maybe they've improved reliability in the last 1-2 years. Maybe. I have always been used to Japanese reliability, and it can't be discounted in your analysis -- to pay $30K+ and encounter reliability issues anywhere approaching this magnitude is unacceptable.
End of the story: we sold the A6, bought my wife another luxury (Japanese) sedan, and I bought a Pilot: gas mileage is good enough for my commute, I can haul bikes/camping equipment, etc. around on the weekend, my wife can swap with me if she wants to haul kids and their friends around, we still have a nice car to go out on Saturday night, and hopefully it will be long spells between trips to the dealer for repairs.
I wrote a review just after I'd purchased my Pilot. Over the weekend, I took a long drive to the mountain and lake, (Sierra Mountain and Lake Tahoe), and drove over 800 miles, here is more information:
Pros: 1. very comfortable seats, 2nd row middle seat is for my daughter's car seat, so no problem there. She loves her seat because she can now see much more through front and side windows, especially through the front windows because of high seating position and large space between the front driver and passenger seats. 2. transmission is very smooth. When going down hill, I shift to D3, don't need to apply break or gas at all, the car seems to have a "brain" of its own, controls the speed precisely. 3. good handling and drive experience in my opinion 4. no clicking or rattling noise at all so far 5. 22 mpg milage for the 2nd tank of gas, mostly highway driving. 17.6 mpg 1st tank in about 80% of local driving and break-in.
Cons: 1. road noise is very noticeable 2. not very powerful engine, need to pedal hard to get to 9000 ft elevation for this 4000 lbs car.
One big problem after the trip when I was wishing the car, I noticed "water spots" all over the windows, so tried to use Windex to clean them out but couldn't. After examed them closely, they were not water spots, but small circular crack lines all over the windows, especially on the 3 heavily tinted and front windows. I then used my finger nail to scrape on them, they were not smooth, and couldn't scraped them away either. One more thing, they were only on the outside of the windows, inside was smooth. Any of you Pilot owners notice this? Thanks.
I haven't taken the Pilot up to the mountains yet, but plan to take the thing skiing frequently from SF to Tahoe, so am concerned about power. Have only driven around town, etc. Can you give me more color on your experience in the mountains? Was it much less power than you thought relative to expectations from the test drive? Were you actually having to push the pedal all the way at times? Was this only for passing? Thanks.
> Can you give me more color on your experience in the mountains? Just need to pedal harder, but definitely not floor it all the way
> Was it much less power than you thought relative to expectations from the test drive? Relative to the sedan I had been driving, '95 Ford Taurus 3.8L V-6. Most Taurus for that model year came with 3.0L V-6, mine was 3.8L, and it had a lot of power for a lighter sedan, all relatively speaking.
> Were you actually having to push the pedal all the way at times? Not all the way down, but I had to push harder than I expected. Even I pushed hard, the climbing speed just maintained at ~50-60 mpg, not picking up fater, many big SUVs started to pass me. Since my Pilot was still new (only ~500 miles before the trip), I didn't want to floor it.
> Was this only for passing? No, climbing in general, I had no problem passing the 18 wheelers and smaller sedans. And I wasn't being aggressive with my new car. Again, this is all relatively speaking and expectation, others might have different opinions.
My wife & I just received our Pilot EX last week. What an awesome vehicle! Just one little thing, the fog lights wont work, the service guys say they will replace the relays under warranty so I'm not too concerned, Anybody else experience something similar?
After three and a half weeks the front leather seats look "stretched" or "loose fitting" where the posterior meets the seat. Kind of looks like they need a tummy tuck.
I noticed leather stretched after the 1st drive from dealer to home. How about other cars with leather, such as MDX, Ody, or more lux models like MB, BMW?
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The Pilot's owner manual said that to do oil change at 7,500 miles (or 22,500, 37,500 miles etc). Do I need to use synthetic oil in the future when I do oil change ?
If you trace back this forum, a few owners already reported they notice the tap tap tap noise from the front right driver side. Not everyone/every Pilot gets this.
I notice the noise on my way home when I took the delivery of the Pilot.
It mostly noticeable on hot suuny day, or when the car heated up during the day's driving.
When the temperture is cool in Toronto, it is not that frequent and loud.
I was too carried away when I found the resolution to my problems, and wanted to share with others in this board, but do not want to take the credit from other generious and kind owners.
I have not tried this yet, but few owners reported the same latch at the base of the headrest, all around the car, can be found on the base of the front headrest.
What you have to do is to push down on the top of the seat and feel for the latch at the base of the headrest.
But the original post futher stayed that only one detent in the supports and are quite short.
So the front haedrests are removeable (I do not recommend while drivring), but not much adjustable (in height).
I've had my Pilot for about 3 weeks now and have @750 miles on it. The only problem I've noticed is that I do have the clicking noise coming from the driver's side door as discussed by other posters.
My real problem is I am disappointed in the gas mileage so far. I don't know how much is attributed to break-in period or when that period should end, but I have yet to get to 16 mpg in mostly easy City driving. Alot of stop and go and not much highway driving but I have been extremely delicate on acceleration and braking the car.
Seems like I always need to stop for gas. Never gave it much thought before purchase, but it seems that the range for this car is out of whack. At 16 mpg, I can only go a max of 304 miles to empty. If this is the MPG I am going to get, Honda should have included a bigger tank to at least get a 350 city range (22/23 gal tank).
I love the Pilot but stopping for gas frequently is a pain. This is my first SUV and I'm coming from a 93 Civic which didn't use any gas which probably hurts my perception.
Planning a long highway trip @500 highway miles this weekend and I am eager to see how it does.
What has been everyone else's experience so far? Am I expecting too much too soon?
I am contemplating an LS Pilot, the body mouldings on the brochure list the color as BLACK! On looking at the College Hills web site, it shows them as a GRAY color!! Which one is right!!
I put down $500 dollars as I waited for my Pilot to come from the factory. When calculating the final price, the $500 was deducted after taxes were paid on the full price. In other words, I paid taxes on the final price (MSRP), and then the $500 was subtracted. Was that really right?
Unfortunately that was correct. Cash money for down payments are subtracted after the tax is calculated. Now if it is a rebate/incentive (if the dealership does it correctly) or a trade then that money comes off before taxes are calculated. When I buy a new vehicle every 2 years or so that is why it is vital that I find a buyer for my vehicle ahead of time and make sure the dealer will do a courtesy trade. Example: I have a buyer for our Accord for $16,800 which saves me $1008 on our Pilot coming in at the end of the month. It is only saving tax money, but $1000 is a nice chunk of change. Hope this helps.
Does anyone know why the silver has different color silver door jambs, under the hood and the gas cap (especially)? Also, is the silver the same as the MDX because I don't think so.
You are correct that the body molding is more of Gray than black. That's the reason I settled for the black LX instead of other color. It is dark gray and it blends pretty well with black body color. Also, if you install the roof rack and mud guard, they also blends well with black color.
So far I love my black LX which I bought at MSRP, except it's hard to keep clean.
Pilotman - Would you have noticed if someone on another forum hadn't pointed it out (or was that you over there)?
I haven't seen it, but, based on the descriptions of others, I sounds like the interior panels are not clear-coated. The lack of a glossy coat can change the hue. If that's the case, you can buy a can of clear-coat and add it rather easily.
I saw your posts concerning mileage and power going up hills. I recently took a long trip from San Jose to Los Angeles and back. I went over some very steep freeway inclines (Pacheco Pass and Grape Vine).
I was driving flow of traffic (80-85mph) on the freeway, plenty of city driving, and got 21.4 MPG over the 900 miles. Included were over 1 1/2 hours of stop and go due to accidents and a grass fire, a huge head wind on the return trip, and running the A/C the whole time (outside temp was about 95F). For me that was NOT BAD.
One thing I did noticed; you need to get just enough speed/power going to get the transmission to up shift to 4th or 5th, or the transmission will stay in 3rd gear. This is especially true if you driving "lightly". I noticed this only if I pay attention to the tachometer. Perhaps this will help your mileage.
As for power going up hill, the engine is tuned for torque in the higher revs and the transmission will down shift to 3rd when called for. I had no problem maintaining speed (maybe 70 or so) going up hill in 4th or 3rd gear.
I too did not want to be too hard on the new engine.
We've had our Pilot for 12 days and have already put almost 900 miles on it. We've been keeping track of our mileage since we got it, and we're averaging about 21.4 MPG. That's a huge mix of city and freeway driving, and quite a bit of aggressive acceleration after 600 miles. Also, just about all of our driving has been with the A/C (it's been well over 100 degrees for the last few days - yesterday it was 112 here in Sacramento!). I hope your MPG improves.
I know this subject has been discussed but is there anyone who knows of how to put an in-dash 6 cd-changer into an LX. There were discussions about being able to do it under the seat but I thought someone had posted about taking out the cassette player and then putting in the cd-changer. I thought they had posted a link to who was doing that. I went back and couldn't track it down in the discussion. Thanks.
I took delivery of my Silver EX yesterday and absolutely love it. So far I have no clicking or other annoying noises as others have reported. I don't notice any difference in color on the door jambs, engine comp, etc. It appears to be very solid and tight.
I noticed a bazillion posts about this strut clicking noise. In one or two sentences, can someone tell me what the fix is? I have read posts about replacement, posts about sanding off the burr, and even posts saying that the click has to do with the driver's side window moulding. Which is it, and what is the fix? Thanks all! This is a very informative site.
I've had my silver Pilot LX for 3 weeks already. Very impressive , but there has been some mfg problem. We had a whistling noise and it has been in the honda dealer for 3 days already trying to figure out what's wrong. Turns out that the whole lot is affected so they have to send an engineer from corporate. anyone had this problem??It really sucks to buy a 28-29k dollar car and something is wrong with it. They tell us that they will try to get a solution for this problem. ( they still haven't fixed the problem yet)
Thanks for your input. I too hope my MPG gets better.
I will be driving to Pittsburgh this weekend (all highway driving @ 500 miles. I can't wait to see how it does highway.
It's been depressing with the MPG because I haven't even driven it the way I want to yet. Haven't really had a chance to see what it can do as far as acceleration, merging and climbing grades yet.
I am jealous of you guys-- I would be happy to approach 18-19 MPG.
What vehicle number is yours (last 5 digits of VIN)? All silver I have seen have had paint issues. (8,xxx, 12,xxx and 13,xxx) Anyone else see it? www.honda-pilot.org has a section for it with pics.
At this point, I probably have more miles than anyone, hit 3000 miles on the ODO today. I feel gas mileage has been better than I expected 18-19 city... 18-20 towing hwy... 19-21 mixed driving... 21-23 hwy.
As far as mountain or hill climbing, I am very satisfied. I have found that downshifting to D3 while climbing will ensure steady climb rather than delayed shifting.
My only complaint with the Pilot has been the build/finish quality. Although better than my previous Ford/Mercury products, it is not up to what I expect from Honda and what I have experienced with previous Honda products such as my Accord. My complaints include: paint quality (already have several "dings" including a couple caused by the dealer during repair), annoying rattle in driver's door, random "clanging" coming from under the driver's floor area, random "jingling" coming from behind the passenger's dash, finish issues with interior plastic trim (some pieces didn't line up correctly, and terrible FM radio reception (thank goodness for XM).
Most things have been resolved with exception of the rattling, clanging, and jingling noises. Of course, these are the most annoying. What's worse, is they are not consistent (outside of the driver's door which is a bad seal), making it hard to trouble-shoot.
Despite these truly minor problems... the Pilot is awesome. I could never imagine preferring anything else.
I took my Passport in for an Oil change today and decisded to test drive the Pilot for a near-term upgrade for my Passport.
I drove the base EX and was very impressed with the standard features. Lots of storage room, luggage space, good standard features like CD, Tape, Power drivers seat, Garage opener etc. Upon driving I felt the engine to be sufficient for the heavy feel of the vehicle and it seemed well put together like any Honda.
However, I noticed that the steering was quite "loose" and it didn't provide that tight, comfortable feeling. Also, it made this buzzing noise when driving on the hwy at 60 mph. The Pilot I drove had 115 miles on it and was a new demo. Anyone else notice these issues on their test drives or on their new pilots??
found the section. Let me double check my blue Pilot.
Last night 1st time on freeway, the road/tire noise is on the high end side. Expected it would be noisy but did not know that it can be that high level.
You are the 2nd one complained road/tire noise. I reported this couple of times in my reviews, but nobody echoed, instead everyone said the car was quiet. One more problem that no one responsed is the "permanent" water spots on the windows, they are everywhere, more severe on the front and 3 rear heavily tinted windows. I used Windex to clean them with no luck. Asked my wife to clean them (because she made our house clean so she may be able to do a better job :-) She couldn't and said this was a problem. Anyone else see this? I'm going to call my dealer today.
You are the 2nd one complained road/tire noise. I reported this couple of times in my reviews, but nobody echoed, instead everyone said the car was quiet. One more problem that no one responsed is the "permanent" water spots on the windows, they are everywhere, more severe on the front and 3 rear heavily tinted windows. I used Windex to clean them with no luck. Asked my wife to clean them (because she made our house clean so she may be able to do a better job :-) She couldn't and said this was a problem. Anyone else see this? I'm going to call my dealer today.
Picking up my Pilot this weekend, and asked if I want clearcoat added (along with interior coating). First experience with this as an option. Does this do anything? Can I apply something myself that will do the same job for a fraction of what the dealer will charge (300+)? Thanks.
The car is come with clear coat paint. Do you mean the permanet shine or protection for the paint against acid rain etc... The interior coating, do you mean the fabric protection ?
I did both of the above and the rust protection, I think my final price is Cad$700 for the whole package.
The paint protection claim to last for 3 year, so that I do not have to wax the car that much. This is my 1st time to buy this too.Different dealer provide different products/names/protection, so make sure from your dealer, what you are buying. Black and white warranty about the product and protection. I got a certifcate.
The frabic protection for my leather interior, I think its worth doing, whether you buy the 3M Scotch Guard from supermarket or done by dealer. But if you do it yourself, you should wear protective gear, like mask, and do it overnight as it needs time to dry, and kind of toxic(not much,check the bottle description yourself).
I let the dealer did it, as the price is right, as I negociate the whole package with the car price, that's why I'm not too sure about the seperate price for this package. And my wife do not want me to mess up the (her)car and the garage.
So the Pilot is actually your wife's car? I read one of your earlier posts that your wife is a tiny person. Just curious how she finds the size (especially the width) of the Pilot when she's driving around town. Thanks.
I test drove a Pilot EX-L yesterday, and commented to the sales guy that the steering didn't feel very "crisp". I didn't feel well-connected to the road, and as I quickly moved the steering wheel from side to side as we drove along, the sway of the car seemed a bit out of synch with the steering wheel.
Perhaps this is "normal" for the Pilot, I don't know. It was unsettling for me.
You are right, it is wife's car, she is 5'1" and 103lb. As per my own observation on the passenger side, she drive faster than our ex-Volvo, as she is sitting higher.
She has more confident in parking as she can guess the location of front corners better than the Volvo, because of shorter hood. When you see her Pilot is parked squarly within the parking line, then you know. As I always joked to her "when you see a car parked at an angle within the parking line, it must be a short driver with long hood and sit low"
When she back out from tight parking spot, she does not have to guess the distance of cars behind, she just waits for the backup sensor to beep her, then stop. If Pilot does not have backup sensor as option, we will not buy it.
But when time we have to stop at the left turn lane between traffics,the kind that without any island. That's the scary time, as the car is too wide for my wife to make good judgement.
She does not like the ideal of running board, as it cost money and she does not like the complex look with the board. But I think she will be better with the board when getting out of the car. Right now she has to slide down the car.
So mostly it is better for her in compare with the ex-car.
Wow, after reading your post (number 3541), it makes me wonder if I should cancel my order! No kidding! Why did you make that long list, then say it was minor. Just wondering. Thanks.
Comments
"tsai_guy:
That sounds like the same problem I had. From what I understand, I think it is the early stages of the "THUD" that you will read about in other threads. Mine started fairly quiet and infrequent. After about 1000KM (600 miles), it was pretty consistent. I took it in to the dealer. They diagnosed the problem on the first trip, and fixed it after they had ordered some parts. They replaced the left and right struts (damper units). The noise is gone so far.
I recommend taking it in to your dealer. I couldn't have put up with the noise much longer, however quiet it is..."
The link is http://www.acuramdx.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1719
I will print this out, as of last time, and fax it to my Honda dealer. Then brings in my car with all these print out.
Ths link is http://honda-pilot.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112
Maybe the MDX owner did not know that they glided the strut tower before they reinstall the strut.
However, then the problems quickly followed: two broken power window motors, headlamp washer covers that popped off, two recalls (one for a fuel gauge problem that required me to deliver the car to the dealer with an empty tank), creaking in the suspension that could never be located by the dealer, a rattling in the engine that required a complete new fan assembly, etc. etc. All was covered by the warranty, but I was taking the car in every 2 months for something else, and being put in a geo metro rental for days at a time.
This was not even the first model year of the A6. If your looking at the new A4, all I can say is: beware. If your looking at the A6, maybe they've improved reliability in the last 1-2 years. Maybe. I have always been used to Japanese reliability, and it can't be discounted in your analysis -- to pay $30K+ and encounter reliability issues anywhere approaching this magnitude is unacceptable.
End of the story: we sold the A6, bought my wife another luxury (Japanese) sedan, and I bought a Pilot: gas mileage is good enough for my commute, I can haul bikes/camping equipment, etc. around on the weekend, my wife can swap with me if she wants to haul kids and their friends around, we still have a nice car to go out on Saturday night, and hopefully it will be long spells between trips to the dealer for repairs.
Hope that helps.
Over the weekend, I took a long drive to the mountain and lake,
(Sierra Mountain and Lake Tahoe), and drove over 800 miles,
here is more information:
Pros:
1. very comfortable seats, 2nd row middle seat is for my daughter's car seat, so no problem there.
She loves her seat because she can now see much more through front and side windows, especially through the front windows because of high seating position and large space between the front driver and passenger seats.
2. transmission is very smooth. When going down hill, I shift to D3, don't need to apply break or gas at all, the car seems to have a "brain" of its own, controls the speed precisely.
3. good handling and drive experience in my opinion
4. no clicking or rattling noise at all so far
5. 22 mpg milage for the 2nd tank of gas, mostly highway driving. 17.6 mpg 1st tank in about 80% of local driving and break-in.
Cons:
1. road noise is very noticeable
2. not very powerful engine, need to pedal hard to get to 9000 ft elevation for this 4000 lbs car.
One big problem after the trip when I was wishing the car, I noticed "water spots" all over the windows, so tried to use Windex to clean them out but couldn't.
After examed them closely, they were not water spots, but small circular crack lines all over the windows, especially on the 3 heavily tinted and front windows.
I then used my finger nail to scrape on them, they were not smooth, and couldn't scraped them away either.
One more thing, they were only on the outside of the windows, inside was smooth.
Any of you Pilot owners notice this? Thanks.
Just need to pedal harder, but definitely not floor it all the way
> Was it much less power than you thought relative to expectations from the test drive?
Relative to the sedan I had been driving, '95 Ford Taurus 3.8L V-6.
Most Taurus for that model year came with 3.0L V-6, mine was 3.8L, and it had a lot of power for a lighter sedan, all relatively speaking.
> Were you actually having to push the pedal all the way at times?
Not all the way down, but I had to push harder than I expected. Even I pushed hard, the climbing speed just maintained at ~50-60 mpg, not picking up fater, many big SUVs started to pass me.
Since my Pilot was still new (only ~500 miles before the trip), I didn't want to floor it.
> Was this only for passing?
No, climbing in general, I had no problem passing the 18 wheelers and smaller sedans. And I wasn't being aggressive with my new car.
Again, this is all relatively speaking and expectation, others might have different opinions.
Anyone else have this problem?
Steve
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Not everyone/every Pilot gets this.
I notice the noise on my way home when I took the delivery of the Pilot.
It mostly noticeable on hot suuny day, or when the car heated up during the day's driving.
When the temperture is cool in Toronto, it is not that frequent and loud.
I was too carried away when I found the resolution to my problems, and wanted to share with others in this board, but do not want to take the credit from other generious and kind owners.
What you have to do is to push down on the top of the seat and feel for the latch at the base of the headrest.
But the original post futher stayed that only one detent in the supports and are quite short.
So the front haedrests are removeable (I do not recommend while drivring), but not much adjustable (in height).
The link is http://www.hondasuv.com/forum_pilot/viewtopic.php?t=84
I reported my leather seats stretched after 3 days' driving.
But I am comparing it against with my ex-Volvo 850, not a fair competition.
My real problem is I am disappointed in the gas mileage so far. I don't know how much is attributed to break-in period or when that period should end, but I have yet to get to 16 mpg in mostly easy City driving. Alot of stop and go and not much highway driving but I have been extremely delicate on acceleration and braking the car.
Seems like I always need to stop for gas. Never gave it much thought before purchase, but it seems that the range for this car is out of whack. At 16 mpg, I can only go a max of 304 miles to empty. If this is the MPG I am going to get, Honda should have included a bigger tank to at least get a 350 city range (22/23 gal tank).
I love the Pilot but stopping for gas frequently is a pain. This is my first SUV and I'm coming from a 93 Civic which didn't use any gas which probably hurts my perception.
Planning a long highway trip @500 highway miles this weekend and I am eager to see how it does.
What has been everyone else's experience so far? Am I expecting too much too soon?
Thanks
On looking at the College Hills web site, it shows them as a GRAY color!! Which one is right!!
So far I love my black LX which I bought at MSRP, except it's hard to keep clean.
I haven't seen it, but, based on the descriptions of others, I sounds like the interior panels are not clear-coated. The lack of a glossy coat can change the hue. If that's the case, you can buy a can of clear-coat and add it rather easily.
I saw your posts concerning mileage and power going up hills. I recently took a long trip from San Jose to Los Angeles and back. I went over some very steep freeway inclines (Pacheco Pass and Grape Vine).
I was driving flow of traffic (80-85mph) on the freeway, plenty of city driving, and got 21.4 MPG over the 900 miles. Included were over 1 1/2 hours of stop and go due to accidents and a grass fire, a huge head wind on the return trip, and running the A/C the whole time (outside temp was about 95F). For me that was NOT BAD.
One thing I did noticed; you need to get just enough speed/power going to get the transmission to up shift to 4th or 5th, or the transmission will stay in 3rd gear. This is especially true if you driving "lightly". I noticed this only if I pay attention to the tachometer. Perhaps this will help your mileage.
As for power going up hill, the engine is tuned for torque in the higher revs and the transmission will down shift to 3rd when called for. I had no problem maintaining speed (maybe 70 or so) going up hill in 4th or 3rd gear.
I too did not want to be too hard on the new engine.
Hope this helps.
We've had our Pilot for 12 days and have already put almost 900 miles on it. We've been keeping track of our mileage since we got it, and we're averaging about 21.4 MPG. That's a huge mix of city and freeway driving, and quite a bit of aggressive acceleration after 600 miles. Also, just about all of our driving has been with the A/C (it's been well over 100 degrees for the last few days - yesterday it was 112 here in Sacramento!). I hope your MPG improves.
in-dash 6 cd-changer into an LX. There were discussions about being able to do it under the seat but I thought someone had posted about taking out the cassette player and then putting in the cd-changer. I thought they had posted a link to who was doing that. I went back and couldn't track it down in the discussion. Thanks.
Thanks for your input. I too hope my MPG gets better.
I will be driving to Pittsburgh this weekend (all highway driving @ 500 miles. I can't wait to see how it does highway.
It's been depressing with the MPG because I haven't even driven it the way I want to yet. Haven't really had a chance to see what it can do as far as acceleration, merging and climbing grades yet.
I am jealous of you guys-- I would be happy to approach 18-19 MPG.
Thanks
My overall average is 18.6 mpg.
As far as mountain or hill climbing, I am very satisfied. I have found that downshifting to D3 while climbing will ensure steady climb rather than delayed shifting.
My only complaint with the Pilot has been the build/finish quality. Although better than my previous Ford/Mercury products, it is not up to what I expect from Honda and what I have experienced with previous Honda products such as my Accord. My complaints include: paint quality (already have several "dings" including a couple caused by the dealer during repair), annoying rattle in driver's door, random "clanging" coming from under the driver's floor area, random "jingling" coming from behind the passenger's dash, finish issues with interior plastic trim (some pieces didn't line up correctly, and terrible FM radio reception (thank goodness for XM).
Most things have been resolved with exception of the rattling, clanging, and jingling noises. Of course, these are the most annoying. What's worse, is they are not consistent (outside of the driver's door which is a bad seal), making it hard to trouble-shoot.
Despite these truly minor problems... the Pilot is awesome. I could never imagine preferring anything else.
I drove the base EX and was very impressed with the standard features. Lots of storage room, luggage space, good standard features like CD, Tape, Power drivers seat, Garage opener etc. Upon driving I felt the engine to be sufficient for the heavy feel of the vehicle and it seemed well put together like any Honda.
However, I noticed that the steering was quite "loose" and it didn't provide that tight, comfortable feeling. Also, it made this buzzing noise when driving on the hwy at 60 mph. The Pilot I drove had 115 miles on it and was a new demo. Anyone else notice these issues on their test drives or on their new pilots??
Thanks
Let me double check my blue Pilot.
Last night 1st time on freeway, the road/tire noise is on the high end side.
Expected it would be noisy but did not know that it can be that high level.
One more problem that no one responsed is the "permanent" water spots on the windows, they are everywhere, more severe on the front and 3 rear heavily tinted windows. I used Windex to clean them with no luck. Asked my wife to clean them (because she made our house clean so she may be able to do a better job :-) She couldn't and said this was a problem. Anyone else see this?
I'm going to call my dealer today.
Will double check mind and let you know.
One more problem that no one responsed is the "permanent" water spots on the windows, they are everywhere, more severe on the front and 3 rear heavily tinted windows. I used Windex to clean them with no luck. Asked my wife to clean them (because she made our house clean so she may be able to do a better job :-) She couldn't and said this was a problem. Anyone else see this?
I'm going to call my dealer today.
Do you mean the permanet shine or protection for the paint against acid rain etc...
The interior coating, do you mean the fabric protection ?
I did both of the above and the rust protection, I think my final price is Cad$700 for the whole package.
The paint protection claim to last for 3 year, so that I do not have to wax the car that much. This is my 1st time to buy this too.Different dealer provide different products/names/protection, so make sure from your dealer, what you are buying. Black and white warranty about the product and protection. I got a certifcate.
The frabic protection for my leather interior, I think its worth doing, whether you buy the 3M Scotch Guard from supermarket or done by dealer.
But if you do it yourself, you should wear protective gear, like mask, and do it overnight as it needs time to dry, and kind of toxic(not much,check the bottle description yourself).
I let the dealer did it, as the price is right, as I negociate the whole package with the car price, that's why I'm not too sure about the seperate price for this package.
And my wife do not want me to mess up the (her)car and the garage.
Perhaps this is "normal" for the Pilot, I don't know. It was unsettling for me.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Enjoy!
-- Jim
As per my own observation on the passenger side, she drive faster than our ex-Volvo, as she is sitting higher.
She has more confident in parking as she can guess the location of front corners better than the Volvo, because of shorter hood.
When you see her Pilot is parked squarly within the parking line, then you know. As I always joked to her "when you see a car parked at an angle within the parking line, it must be a short driver with long hood and sit low"
When she back out from tight parking spot, she does not have to guess the distance of cars behind, she just waits for the backup sensor to beep her, then stop.
If Pilot does not have backup sensor as option, we will not buy it.
But when time we have to stop at the left turn lane between traffics,the kind that without any island. That's the scary time, as the car is too wide for my wife to make good judgement.
She does not like the ideal of running board, as it cost money and she does not like the complex look with the board. But I think she will be better with the board when getting out of the car. Right now she has to slide down the car.
So mostly it is better for her in compare with the ex-car.