Home · 2017 Honda Pilot · Complaints

What 896 owners told NHTSA about the 2017 Honda Pilot

These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.

All (896)Crash / fire / injury (14)Engine (451)Electrical system (259)Fuel system (136)Transmission & drivetrain (121)Speed control (28)Brakes (25)Driver assistance (20)Body & structure (15)Visibility & wipers (15)Seat belts (14)

1 of 896 complaints match · Transmission & drivetrain · crash/fire/injury only · clear filters

Dec 4, 2021Transmission & drivetrainCrash

When slowing down to stop at a light, or pull into a parking space, the vehicle rather than braking and stopping, accelerates violently on its own, and there is no way to stop it other than putting the vehicle in park immediately, or slamming on the emergency brake. This is an intermittent problem. It happens once every few months, however last night it occurred and I did not put it in park quickly enough, and I was close to another vehicle while parking, that I slammed into the other vehicle doing extensive damage. Obviously, this is a very dangerous situation that could kill or maim myself or an occupant of another vehicle; the police officer who happened to own the other vehicle said I should not drive my vehicle until the problem is solved, which, of course, makes sense as my vehicle at present is unpredictable and dangerous. I have now taken the vehicle into the dealer, but I've found in the past these intermittent problems are difficult to diagnose. Should it not be diagnosed and fixed--I noticed that others have had this same vexing and dangerous situation, and it was not fixed or resoved to their satisfaction--I will no longer drive the vehicle as it is too dangerous. There seems to be a glitch with the drive trains/engines of the 2017 Honda Pilot and this needs to be fixed and the vehicles recalled before serious injury occurs, if it has not already. Owners of these vehicles should be compensated, or receive a comparable vehicle that is road worthy.

NHTSA ODI 11442681

Working with the data? Download all 896 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 7, 2026

How to use these: a complaint is one owner’s report, filed voluntarily and published unverified. Patterns matter more than any single story. If several owners describe the same failure at similar mileage, put that system at the top of your pre-purchase inspection list. Back to the full 2017 Honda Pilot verdict →