2024 Honda Pilot

[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: Something has happened lately within the three row SUV category. If you watched our reviews, or just kept up with the industry in general, you'll know that we give one name in particular quite a lot of praise, the Kia Telluride. That Kia has won awards left and right, including our own Edmunds top-rated SUV award last year. And for good reason, it is the undisputed benchmark in this segment and a fantastic SUV. But between you and me, I'm a little sick and tired of talking about the Kia Telluride every single time a new three row SUV hits the market, like the 2023 Honda Pilot. So I made myself a little game. This is a swear jar. Every time I'm tempted to talk about the Telluride, I have to put a dollar in this thing, but that one didn't count. First one's free. Back to the Honda real quick because this is a total overhaul of the previous generation. There's new tech, a new engine, and a much improved offroad ready TrailSport version. So join me on this first drive review. We're going to wring this thing out on and off road and determine if it stacks up against-- well, you know what. Before we get to know the new Pilot, let me remind you to please like this video and subscribe to the Edmunds YouTube channel. And if you're looking for an offer on your used car, head over to edmunds.com/sellmycar. We first saw the Pilot a few weeks ago in the studio, and my good friend Bayan Wang did an in-depth exterior and interior walk around with that car. So if you're interested in that, that pop up banner is right there. But let's go over the highlights because this is a big deal, both for Honda and for anybody in the market for a family-friendly SUV. [MUSIC PLAYING] I don't work for Honda's design department, but I'm pretty sure the mission here was to toughen the Pilot up because the last generation looked boring and like a minivan too, if I'm being honest. This looks like a proper, tough SUV. It's a lot more boxy, a lot more upright. The one we have here is the Elite, and that is the top of the line trim. There are several others you can pick from as well, including that TrailSport, which we'll go over more in just a bit. The Elite means we're rolling on bigger wheels for Honda at least, 20-inch wheels here, and you get this nice chrome trim that traces around the grille and along the window sills as well. Let me show you my favorite design detail right here. This really chunky-looking C-pillar. I love it. It's almost like a throwback to Honda designs of old. Now, is this the best-looking thing with three rows of seats that I've ever seen? Not really, no. But at the same time, it is a huge improvement, and it's a design that is much more modern and in tune with the times. [MUSIC PLAYING] Family SUV, so we start in the back seat. It's a lot better than before too, I got to say. Honda did two major improvements. There's a little bit more legroom now, over 2 inches more legroom than before, and the second row reclines. It really actually does recline now. You can nap out in the second row all day long. The Elite also has some nicer features. You get heated second row seats. That's always a huge thing. A nice plug here so you can charge up your phone, two USBs in the middle. This middle seat, though, has a few different party tricks, one of which I'm about to demonstrate. But you start by pulling this tab down and you get a nice center armrest, two more cupholders in the middle too and a little storage area. But that's actually not the most important thing that this middle seat does. So I'm going to get back out of the car. We're doing this together. It's not the world's easiest thing to do, but it is a cool feature. This is a removable second row, so you can have either captain's chairs, or when you need the accommodation for eight people, you can sit three in the middle. You pull-- where is it-- this little tab right here and the seat folds up. And then you remember that you got a gym membership because this is not like-- SPEAKER 2: The only weight is about 20-25 pounds. As you can see, I can lift it out. I can lift it up over my head. Not too much trouble. SPEAKER 1: So the clever part is that there's actually a spot in the cargo area to put the seat. There's an area below, this little false floor right here, and the seat fits perfectly. So you can take out this thing. You do another Squat. Oh my God, hit the gym, kid. SPEAKER 2: I flip it up over my head. SPEAKER 1: And it fits in there perfectly. There's a little yellow straps. You can secure it too so it's not moving around. And then what you do, you just put this back over. And look, you have a normal cargo area. How smart is that? You can leave the seat in the car or you can take it out and leave it in the garage if you want to have the additional space. Speaking of additional space, there's more cargo than before. And there's now over 22 cubic feet or so space back here. The seats are not power folding, but you can pull these tabs and it folds down. And this is actually my favorite part. You have a nice carpeted area here because Honda likes to be smart with their thinking. It's reversible. So you flip it over. You have a nice hard surface that's easy to wipe off if you have something that's wet or muddy back here that you don't want to muck up the carpet with. How smart is that? And the other benefit of putting the seat back there in the cargo area is that we now get captain's seats in the middle row. You can crawl back here, pretty easy actually. You know that? Not too bad. I like that they put dedicated air vents in the third row. That is really important on a hot day on a road trip. There's also a USB port on either side. I think you can pull this tab and get a little recline too. Overall, not terrible. I'm 5 foot 8, so not the world's tallest human being. And I'd say anybody my height or below is going to do just fine back here. Your kids will like the improvements made to the rear sections of the Pilot, but at the Elite's price, second-row ventilated seats and even third-row heated seats would be nice things to have. [MUSIC PLAYING] Honda has been on a rampage lately debuting new vehicles. We had Civic, HRV, CRV, Pilot, and Accord all in the last few months. And you know what, they all look really similar to each other when it comes to the interior. That's not completely a bad thing. There's just not enough variation between this and then HRV which costs basically half as much. Pilot does have a lot of nice features worth pointing out, especially in the Elite, though. We have heated seats, ventilated seats. There's a heated steering wheel in front of me. If this interior isn't beautiful, it definitely is functional. This looks like it will stand the test of time with your family. No problem. Look at these cupholders, for example. Talk about family thinking they're huge. You can fit a swear jar if you wanted to. And then this my giant water bottle, my big stupid water bottle, almost every test car that I get into for Edmunds, this thing can never find a home. But it fits perfectly in the center console, and it actually has a cup holder in the door that fits as well. That's really clever thinking. I do have one big gripe to get off my chest, though, so sit back and grab a snack real quick. I'll grab a snack too I guess. My gripe has to do with the infotainment setup. Now, this uses the same tech as the other cars I've already mentioned. So it comes with a standard 7-inch display, and this has the upgraded 9-inch unit, which also has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In a Civic, what is in front of me right now is great. There's not really a big problem. But when it comes to a big three row SUV, this just feels small now. There's another competitor that comes to mind that comes standard with a 12.3-inch display. I know, I might as well said the name at this point. Honda actually agrees with me. The new Accord, which is coming out in a few weeks, has a 12.3-inch display, and it also has really cool built-in Google integration. It's a big tech step forward for the company, and the Pilot, for some reason, doesn't get any of it. [MUSIC PLAYING] So here we are on the road in the ridiculously pretty Sedona, Arizona. We're going to be off roading in just a bit as well, but right now we're going to stick it on road. The biggest talking point here, I think, is that Honda has put what they call an all-new six cylinder engine in the Pilot. It's still pretty similar, but they've made some changes. Normally, when a manufacturer says this is an all-new engine, they're doing it for a specific reason. You get more power or better fuel economy, maybe more capability with towing, but in the Pilot's case, it's not that clear. This makes five, count them, 5 more horsepower than the previous generation Pilot. It's a 285 horsepower now and 262 pounds feet of torque, so not huge power gains. In terms of fuel efficiency, this is actually a little bit worse than the old Pilot. It's down across the board on fuel economy figures. And then towing, it still tows 5,000 pounds, just like it did before. So the obvious question is, why? Why did they go through the trouble of building a new engine if there's no obvious benefit? And the short answer is emissions. Honda has really strict targets for how much its cars pollute. And the Pilot being a huge vehicle, needed to clean up its act a little bit. And the changes they've made to the six cylinder actually have done quite a bit. This car pollutes a lot less than its predecessor. So you're not getting a lot more power, but this car is kinder to the environment now, and that's important. Aside from all the numbers I just throw at you, what is this engine like on the road? Honestly, it's really nice, below 3,000 RPM when you're just cruising along. It's very quiet, very, very quiet. Only when you put your foot in it does it make its presence known, and it gets nice and loud when you need the power. Speaking of-- there's plenty of it. 285 isn't a crazy big figure, but at the same time, it's exactly what you need to get up and moving. There's a new 10-speed automatic transmission to go along with that engine. 10 gears is a lot of gears to shift through. I like the tuning of the transmission itself. It's very smooth and how it operates, but it seems like it's always hunting for the right gear to be in. And when you're accelerating, it's short shifts. So I'd like it to be shifting a little bit less just for everyday livability. But an SUV like the Honda Pilot has one main job, and that is to get you and the members of your family to a destination in comfort. When it comes to doing that job, this thing is awesome. They've done some really great work making some big improvements with how the Pilot handles itself on the highway. This is a truly comfortable, well-sorted-out car. Weirdly, what sticks out to me the most is these seats. They're fantastic. Honda says they did a little bit of work to improve the support, and it totally worked. They support your spine all the way up and down. You can sit nice and upright. You just get the feeling that you could be sitting in these things for hours on end without issue. The other great thing that's standing out to me is the ride quality. The thing that comes to mind, the word that comes to mind is it feels expensive, like a vehicle that's in the luxury SUV segment. Pilot just floats along the road, but it still feels connected. I love what they did with the ride quality in this car. When it comes to visibility, the view forward is really good. I'm not that tall, but even still, I have a great view forward. The car has a shorter front overhang now than it did before. And looking back, it's actually a really clear view as well. Those third row headrests, they don't obstruct too much of the rear glass. It's only that back D-pillar when you're looking over your shoulder to change lanes that becomes a little bit problematic, but in fairness, every SUV in this segment has that same blind spot. [MUSIC PLAYING] So we have swapped Pilots. We are now driving the TrailSport trim. We have also swapped tarmac for dirt road. We're out here on these trails in Sedona, and I got to say it's a little bit funny. So we're seeing a bunch of Jeep Wranglers and side by side, the things you expect to see on a tight trail like this. And the Pilots look a little out of place, but honestly, they're handling themselves quite well so far. Let's talk TrailSport for a second. So this car has some additional hardware to help it be better off road. So first of all, they're thicker, big skid plates at the front and over the gas tank. So the engine, the transmission are protected. There's an additional skid plate over the gas tank. We've scraped a few times so far, but no problems to report. There's also rolling on 18-inch wheels wrapped in an all-terrain tyre. It's the first time that Honda has put an SUV on an all-terrain tire. This one is a continental. In addition to that, there's some suspension tweaks as well. So there's a different damper. The control arms are a bit different. And overall, there's just slight tweaks to take this one a little adventures just like this. Initial impressions so far are that it's very easy to be gentle. And gentle is what you want to be when you have a car full of people on a trail this tight. The throttle is very easy to modulate. The brakes are not touchy. I appreciate how easy it is just to get in and drive. This is basically just low-speed crawling at the moment, but nothing is problematic in how this car handles itself. It's also a good time to mention that this Pilot has a much more sophisticated all-wheel-drive system. So the rear differential can handle a lot more the engine's torque, can send more of the power back there. It can also shuffle the power between each of the rear wheels independently for better traction. After a few hours on the trail with the TrailSport-- that's weird to say-- the Pilot really held its own. We knock the skid plates pretty consistently, but the engineers reassured us that they built them strong for a reason. My favorite feature was the trail watch camera system, which made it much easier to navigate ultra-tight sections of the trail. This is not a body on frame off road monster, but most people would be surprised by how capable the Pilot TrailSport is. [MUSIC PLAYING] The 2023 Honda Pilot is now on sale, starting in the upper $30,000 range for the base LX, just under $50,000 for the TrailSport, and about 53 grand for the Elite. For Honda loyalists, the Pilot is a much improved vehicle. If you buy one, we're sure that it will give you many faithful years of service. But in this ultra competitive segment, it takes more than small improvements to be the best. The Kia Telluride still feels like a luxury SUV for an affordable price. That's why for my money, it's still the one I'd rather have. Thanks for watching. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's going to take every brain cell I have to go through these trees and talk at the same time. OK, that was dicey.