rev up your engines now people are always asking me what kind of SUV should I buy
well they're often asking about the Honda Pilot I got one I'm gonna show you
the truth about Honda pilots the good the bad and the ugly
and as usual nobody's paying me to make this video I'm just using my 52 years
experience of working on cars to chaya the truth from a mechanics perspective
somebody who actually works on them I can tell you the truth now pilots were
originally made in Canada no they may come in Alabama so we got the good old
Alabama boys building them now if you would have told somebody decades ago
that Alabama boys are gonna be building Japanese sports utility vehicles what's
the world come to and they make a decent vehicle it has its pluses and it's minuses
it's like any other vehicle let's go to this particular one which is a 2012 as
you can say it was made in Alabama got 115 thousand seven hundred and sixty
nine miles on it it's got a lot of bells and whistles any modern car has dual air
conditioning systems i screen on it don't feel either seats and when we got
on the back the heck up a lot of room for seats and things you can carry if
you fold them down as we let it open itself up you can see things got a
lot of space there's no arguing that you can fit a lot of people in one of these when this
thing was new in 2012 it had the best epa gas mileage for an eight passenger
vehicle with three row seating that was sold in the United States now you got to
take something in consideration there this particular one in town gets whopping 16
miles a gallon it's just about in 2012 when you had three row seating and ain't
passenger vehicles right they didn't get such hot gas mileage specially in town
but let's face it that's not what you buy a big vehicle like this for you want
comfort you want long range now under the hood a reliable Honda v6 engine not race
worthy by any stretch of the imagination on this having vehicle and
that's where the transmission itself are a little bit weak I even asked my
transmission expert he said well Scotty when you get 130 hundred and
forty thousand mile a lot of times you start feeling the
shifting get a little jerky you can rebuild it and fix it of course but he
also said they might go well over 200 thousand they'll still go down the road
but they just won't shift quite as well when they get that higher mileage these
are not the same clunkers if they put it in the Honda Odysseys they had all those
problems were Honda had to replace a lot of transmissions for free these are
really reliable five-speed automatic transmissions up to a certain point this
particular 2012 is especially good the way it's set up because it's only
two-wheel drive it just has drive shafts in the front the back wheels just free
will so this is a front-wheel drive now they do make all-wheel drive versions
but I advise people not to buy them because my customers who did many of
them had automatic transmission problems and if you got a repair an automatic
transmission on an all-wheel drive vehicle price just gets astronomical
because of all the extra stuff that has to be taken off because it's all-wheel
drive so if you're thinking about getting a pilot my advice stick the
front-wheel drive now the downside of this car is a lot of people complained
that the handling and ride wasn't exactly what they wanted that it was a little
snobby handling and it's ride was a little rough but a comparable vehicle
the Acura MDX which rides a lot better has more power
take it 2020 Acura MDX they started at forty four and a half thousand dollars
same company max from Honda makes acura where 2020 Honda Pilot it starts $31,500
now that's a $13,000 difference do you really want that little bit extra power
and a little bit better handling and a little bit smoother ride but you're
gonna spend $13,000 for not old Scotty I'm too cheap for that sort of like in the
olden days people would say oh I'm gonna buy a Lincoln and I'd say why don't you
buy a Ford it's the same company they just charge more money for the Lincoln's
they got a little bit extra chrome and a few fancy things but it's the same basic
car made by the exact same company so let's say you're looking for an eight
passenger three row seating SUV I'd go for a pilot before I go for the acura
it's the same company and I'd say the $13,000 difference myself of course I'm
so cheap oh and I knew either one I'd wait till they got
older by use one and pay less than $13,000 an old car not just save $13,000
now if we go to the reliability one of these pilots they're pretty reliable
vehicles there's no arguing that like I said I wouldn't mind all wheel drive
version because they can lead to some very expensive repairs down the line but
I do have to say I every single customer of mine that bought a Honda Pilot the first
hundred thousand miles I mean the only thing I would do to change the oil and
filter maybe the brake pads and maybe a fan belt that's about after they're well
made vehicles now yes this is a heavy vehicle it's over two tons the weight is
like 4,500 pounds so they're not white vehicles you're not gonna get fantastic
gas mileage you're not gonna get perfect handling you want something to take
eight people all over the country in hey you might think about one of these and
if you take the non Honda competition tour like let's say a Toyota Highlander
these things they handle better and ride better than the Highlanders do just like
people who often want a sports sedan they'll get an Acura car that handles
pretty sporty but it's still a four-door sedan well people that are looking for
kind of a sports SUV and they want to go lower price pile it's a decent choice
sure the Acura MDX is a lot more fun to drive that's a lot more horsepower
handles better but like I said they started $13,000 more than these babies
do in all honestly I have to say I'm a single customer that ever bought a new
Honda Pilot and didn't like the car they were all pretty happy now used most of
my customers are still happy with the used pilot they bought the exception of
a couple of them that got all-wheel-drive ones and the
transmission went out and it cost them a fortune and one poor soul that didn't
have me check out the car before they bought it and it turns out they bought a
car that had been flooded out and had one of those stupid salvage titles you
can call it salvage it can say reconditioned they got a lot of thanks
for but that means it was totaled by an insurance company in a case of my poor
customer I started doing some research and found out that that car had been
flooded up and hurricane sandy of all things and some evil
wine took it from New Jersey and retitled it through different states and
sold it in Texas and they didn't know what had happened to it until it was too
late and I do I have to say that I would have
found out it was a flooded car if they would have paid me to check it out
before they bought they bought it from this really sleazy guy on Craigslist
then when they called them back he never returned the calls and it was just a
cell phone yeah they couldn't find out who owned the stupid thing and the title
wasn't even in the guy's name it was some guy he originally owned it in New
Jersey when it was flooded out in hurricane sandy so have a guy like me
check out a used car before you buy it don't trust anybody except the mechanic
who's testing it out for you and even then make sure it's an honest guy
because say you're looking at a Honda if the only thing the guy works on are
Honda's you might have ulterior motive oh he's gonna buy that I'm gonna
make a whole bunch of money tell you a car is good when it is I think I like
meat it works on all kinds of cars can tell you yeah that's a good car no look
somewhere else we'll tell you the truth about them mechanically and
electronically so you can make your own decisions so now you know the truth
about Honda pilots and why you might choose this over say in MDX it costs
$13,000 more or maybe you don't care about the $13,000 and you're buying MDX
or buy a Lexus SUV that's even a little bit higher it's your money you can do
whatever you want with it I'm just telling you the truth about all the
different vehicles so you can make a real decision based on the money you
want to spend the attribute you want to get and the longevity that you expect
from your car and here are some bonus questions and answers all right and Ford
says that they have sold out their 2021 Ford Mustang Mach E first edition now
realize that that's the first edition one which is the special one it's
supposed to be the fastest one which would only make sense people are gonna
buy the fastest one first but there's a real caveat here it's a big caveat
bananas they're not telling you how many of them that they're making they're
estimating that they're gonna make fifty thousand of the Mustang Mach E the
first year but they're not saying how many first editions they're making so
the kind of hedging their barrier and they're not releasing the figures of how
many of the half saw it sucked if you ask me this is kind of a tongue-in-cheek
thing oh look we saw them all out yeah well but my first edition ones and we're
not telling you how many we're making I mean come on now that's kind of a that's
kind of real sales gimmick now have no idea what it even means
who knows when they're making 50 hundred, or a thousand they said they're saying
they're making fifty thousand of the regular ones but they're not including those
are all sold they're saying that the mach E first edition ones are sold so
more advertising hoopla thrown out to the American public, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell