We are here with the refreshed 2019 Honda Pilot in sunny Southern California and
we don't normally get that excited about a mid-cycle refresh is but the Pilot might
be an exception to that because it seems that Honda has directly addressed some
of the issues that we had with the Pilot and we're hoping that it makes it much
better. We also had a chance to test out the Pilot in some new environments so we
got to tow with it and take it off-road for the first time.
Three-row SUVs continue to grow in popularity which means that automakers
are paying more attention to this segment than everr before and that makes it
very difficult to stay on top. The Pilot is the perfect example of that. In 2016
it won our Three-Row SUV challenge but just one year later in 2017 against new
competitors it slipped all the way to third. Now we have some consistent gripes
with the Pilot since 2016 and that would be powertrain, the multimedia system and
the third row. Now one of our big gripes will be Pilot has been it's 9 speed
automatic transmission and we found it to be laggy and unresponsive both from a
stop and while you're trying to pass someone. So for 2019 Honda has made a few
changes to the transmission in order to address those things. It's got new
hardware on the inside and they've also changed up the programming. So for
example the Pilot now will launch in the second gear rather than first gear in
most circumstances. Honda has about halfway fixed the problems with the
transmission. The Pilot is definitely more confident from a stop. It has very
linear acceleration from low speeds but if you're trying to accelerate past
someone the transmission still has trouble picking the right gear. Does it
shift more fluidly? Maybe but since the transmission can't seem to make up its
mind and pick a gear for you there's a noticeable lag between when you hit the
accelerator pedal and that actually translates into forward motion.
Our second gripe with the Pilot was it's multimedia system. Now it used to have
the same multimedia system that you would find in
the current generation of a Honda Civic. That system was kind of miserable to use.
It was overly complicated, it had too many menus and a poor structure and it
also had no physical knobs for volume or tuning and an over-reliance on capacitive
touch buttons around the screen. Now in the Pilot though you'll get a brand new
multimedia system that's also found in the new Accord in the new Odyssey and
the first thing that it does very well is it simplifies the menu structure so
you have these large icons that allow you to switch between different
functions and you can also add them as shortcuts to the top of the screen for
easy access and they're easier to grab especially when you're driving. You also
get a physical volume knob which we really appreciate. The system doesn't do
everything perfectly though it is a little bit tilted too far back for my
taste and it makes it hard to reach from the driver's seat so you have to lean
forward to reach the right side of the system and the navigation app is still
not the best. It's a powered by Garmin and it's a bit laggy when you're doing
things like pinching and zooming or moving the map around. Our recommendation
would be that if you're going to use the screen for navigation is to plug in a
phone and use either Android Auto or Apple Carplay. Those integrations are
pretty seamless compared to this map. Our final gripe is with the Pilot's third row
and that hasn't really been addressed. Since this is only a refresh and not
really a redesign which would give Honda more of a chance to change up the
wheelbase of the platform. Do something could kind of expand the third row to
add some space. Now the Pilot's third row still does have decent headroom here and
decent leg room if you're able to negotiate with the second row passengers but the
problem is that the floor on the third row is still super high and what that
does is it pushes your knees and legs off the seat and it makes it not very
comfortable to sit back here for more than 10 or 15 minutes. The third row also
lacks some of the convenience features that you find in newer vehicles. Mainly
that there are no USB charge ports or 12-volt ports back here to charge
devices for passengers. The Pilot was about 50% successful in
addressing the previous problems that we have with the vehicle but at this event
we also had a chance to try out the Pilot in two new environments: towing and
offroad. Now for towing if you equip the Pilot
with a towing package that adds a trailer hitch and a larger intercooler that
bumps up towing capacity to about five thousand pounds. We had a chance to tow a
four thousand pound trailer that came complete with a Honda Civic Si race car
on the back. The Pilot towed much more confidently
though I thought it would. The powertrain didn't seem taxed even with that large
load in the back and sometimes the suspension on vehicles like this can get
a little bit tricky or a little bit confused when you're towing that much
weight but it still rode well at highway speeds and I had enough
acceleration to pull out into traffic confidently. In addition to towing I was
also pleasantly surprised at how well the Pilot performed off-road. Let's talk
for a little bit about Honda's all-wheel drive system. So we are here on an
off-road course and this is actually the first time I've taken a Pilot off road
which kind of speaks to how the car is viewed. It is you know mostly seen as a
family type crossover that doesn't really have much capability and Honda
wanted to kind of change that perception so here we are on an off-road course. Now
there are a few things that make the pilot a more viable off-road vehicle
than you would think starting with this all-wheel drive system. It's one of the
only cars in this class that I believe comes with a true torque vectoring
system that's not brake based so it actually has an electronically
controlled limited slip differential and what that
does is it's able to send 100% of the torque that goes to the rear wheels to
the left or the right. So the system overall can send about 70 percent of the
power to the rear and then a hundred percent of that power can either be
split left or right depending on conditions. One of the things that I like
about this system is that it's actually pretty aggressive. You get this kind of
handy display in the instrument panel that shows you exactly where the torque
is going and which wheels are being used and it's fairly aggressive even like in
street driving as well as out here on an off-road course. It does a very good job
of moving power around two wheels that have it. Now we have run into this system
before it's pretty much the same one that you'll find on the Honda Ridgeline
and when we've driven that car off-road we've been very impressed by its
traction control in the way that it moves power around to the wheels that
you know are gonna drive the car and the same thing is definitely true about the
Pilot. The Pilot is still a unibody crossover. It's still only got about
eight inches of ground clearance and you know not a ton of suspension
flex so you're not gonna be able to do things like crawl over big rocks or go
over really kind of robust trails where you need the suspension to flex a lot.
But like a dirt road or anything like this it does very well and it's very
capable. I think it would actually surprise most people how capable this
vehicle is. The 2019 Honda Pilot is unquestionably improved. The multimedia
system is a big leap forward and the improvements to the powertrain are
noticeable. However to fully fix the vehicles issues it seems like it's going
to need a full redesign that expands third row space and includes a new
automatic transmission. The 2019 Honda Pilot is on sale now and for more
information about it head over to Cars.com.