like the Red Sox and Yankees Coke and Pepsi and McDonald's and Burger King the
Toyota Highlander and Honda Pilot are the fiercest of competitors we spent a
week testing these SUVs and we're gonna tell you which one you should spend your
money on the pilot and Highlander we tested were surprisingly similar they
each earn the same top safety scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety they both had the same fuel economy at 22 miles per gallon combined
and the price was just a hundred and fifty dollars different car that comes
expert reviewers and guests in markets shopper drove the Highlander and pilot
on identical driving loops and assigned scores and categories including seating
comfort and all three rows cargo room visibility acceleration ride quality and
much more the Honda Pilot won our three row SUV comparison in 2016 and is
relatively unchanged since its previous win the Highlander didn't participate in
that test because the updated 2017 wasn't available at the time the 2017
pilot now includes apple carplay and android auto smart phone connectivity
standard on all trim levels except the base LX what we like about the Honda
Pilot is that visibility remains a strong point and our judges love to this
old-school safety feature of tall windows and little triangle windows in
each front door where most other SUVs have blind spot our test SUV also
included new school safety equipment with Honda sensing a package set
standard on this touring trim and includes forward collision warning with
automatic emergency braking adaptive cruise control and lane departure
warning it's not a package that standard across the board however the pilots
interior is a nice place to be with less wind and road noise of a Highlander and
this touring trim level also has a standard rear entertainment system to
keep kids entertained with a massive video screen and a number of video and
power inputs for a variety of devices where you really start to see the
difference between pilot and Highlander is what unique
access to that third row with one touch of a button the second row slides
forward and tilts to accommodate passage to the third row and once you're back
there it is a much more comfortable experience than the Highlander
what we don't like is how the pilot drove in this configuration the optional
9 speed automatic transmission in our test SUV exhibited hesitation while
trying to pass as it took a long time to kick down gears when he needed more
power the 9 speed comes on higher trim levels of the pilot including the Turing
but the lower trim levels have the transmission that we want the six-speed
Automatic the touchscreen and multimedia system also drew criticism from our
judges for having purely touch sensitive controls and not buttons dials or knobs
it's still fare better than the Highlander however because of its
inclusion of apple carplay and android auto that alleviate some of the
touchscreen interaction with voice controls the 2017 Toyota Highlander was
mildly updated for 2017 with a new engine an 8-speed automatic transmission
this is the first time we've tested this updated version against the redesign
honda pilot what we like about the highlander is the dashboard device trim
which is a crowd favorite Toyota made it into a shelf that can fit phones and has
a cord management system to keep charging cables neat unlike the pilot
the Highlander has its forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking
standard and that's on all trim levels while both of our test su of these had
the safety features it's optional on the pilot but every Highlander gets this
technology which also includes adaptive cruise control to Lane keep assist what
we don't like is that the Highlander is clearly the smaller SUV in this test
which showed up in cargo space behind the third row and second and third row
seating comfort judges complain you sit almost on the floor in the back of the
Highlander with your knees up and Headroom is severely limit
the captain's chairs didn't offer much support and the opening to get into the
third row is very small behind the third row there's just not enough cargo judges
noted it's hard to see how the small cargo area behind the third row would
ever be enough space for a family like the pilot the touchscreen and multimedia
system drew criticism from a review team mostly from not including the popular
smartphone connectivity of apple carplay and android auto it would be less of an
issue of the system worked good but the highlander screen is a low resolution
and the operation isn't very intuitive out of 14 judged categories including
safety features and child seat fitment the pilot won eleven of those categories
the highlander takes a few wins to know especially in front seat comfort and
powertrain performance where the highlanders 8-speed automatic
transmission was much more predictable than the pilots 9-speed they tied in
safety features but the pilot had the biggest spread in interior quality
second and third row comfort and cargo storage and for those reasons if you're
shopping between the highlander and the pilot we're going to lean toward
recommending the pilot
you