foreign [Applause] [Music] after 45 000 miles on the road with this honda pilot i want to share how it has stacked up this video covers how this pilot has held up to heavy use all of the repairs needed and my long-term plans for it watch until the end for all of the details i purchased this honda pilot new in september of 2019 and although it is a 2019 model it was manufactured in late 2018. unlike the current market demands for new vehicles at that time this pilot sat on the lot among a sea of pilots anxiously waiting for a new owner for almost an entire year before we purchased it this was because there was a limited demand for the suv and the 2020 models had already started showing up on dealer lots this thing gets around 22 miles per gallon for me and i say this with a giant asterisk because with the roof box combined with these tires that eats up any hopes of the optimal 26 mile per gallon fuel economy rated it's just not happening [Music] so what features did this pilot have the two most important features that we wanted were the entertainment system along with all-wheel drive you probably consider apple carplay and android auto standard nowadays however in 2019 toyota was still experimenting with entune and some speculate thinking about bringing back the cassette deck in fact i think there is some variation of it still haunting toyota owners to this day but maybe that is a topic for another video [Music] the main problems with this vehicle have been infotainment system failures fuel pump replacement and hood latch replacement fortunately nothing has left me stranded but i have some concerns about the long-term reliability of the six-speed transmission which i'll get into later [Music] so back to honda's infotainment system i classify it as acceptable it's not bad but it's not great and early on we started having issues with static and the speakers and i'm talking about like am fm radio static even when the system was powered off so like any ordinary vehicle owners we began the journey to get the system repaired i did a little online research and tried to update the infotainment system by downloading a surprisingly easy to install firmware update but this had no impact on the problem so we made an appointment to get it looked at during the following oil change and they diagnosed the problem and did some kind of tsb which was another update and believe it or not this seemed to correct the issue at least in the short term a few months later the system had unexpected problems like the subwoofer stopped working or the various components were no longer recognized the specific issues were kind of random and so we scheduled another diagnosis just in time for the next oil change this resulted in the connections being replaced in the dash which did not fix the problem ultimately the entire wiring harness needed replacement so currently the system works if you are curious about how your infotainment system is holding up you can go into diagnostic mode and i'll show you guys in a second [Music] the vehicle is running and the only thing i have to do is hold the volume button and this light button and the home button so i'm gonna hit those two first the volume button i'll hold them for a few seconds and this diagnostic mode comes on once i get there i'm gonna go ahead and hit this and so even after i've been to the dealership several times to get this corrected now i have hardware errors software errors log data more errors i would clear them but it's honestly just a waste of time once you're done taking a look at it just hit return until you go back to the main menu hit the thumbs up button and don't forget to subscribe the oem tires were rated up to 50 000 miles and i am happy with the tread life but i recently installed new tires at around 45 000 miles if possible i prefer to change the tires at 4 32 of an inch i believe they could have made it the additional 8 000 miles before hitting the legal limit of about 2 30 seconds of an inch so this was purely a personal safety consideration we've had an intense winter with snowy and wet conditions and my replacements are the falcon wild peaks which i'm also satisfied with for their snow and wet weather performance in 45 000 miles i have made one cross-country trip from california to new york and a few trips up and down the east coast with the pilot fully loaded and hitting up on the gross vehicle weight rating of 5 842 pounds i have also towed a trailer weighing 1500 pounds for a few thousand miles this brings me to the reason for my second gripe the honda pilot squats and bottoms out under high loads this suspension was designed for comfort not really towing the independent suspension is not robust enough to support maximum weight conditions because the rear suspension has struts there is no place to add something like an airbag system this is particularly annoying at night because the led headlights are so intense that it frequently enrages oncoming traffic this occasionally happens even when driving with no load especially when encountering small cars for that reason i carry an extra long screwdriver to adjust the headlights when trailering [Music] something i keep under here is this green screwdriver super long i want to say this is uh 12 to 14 inches long and to adjust the headlights there's a hole right here and if you look at the symbol it says turn it this way your headlight will come up and turn it this way your headlight will go down and the screwdriver will fit all the way down in this hole the way it works is the screwdriver is basically like a cog in a gear and as you spin it you will spin another gear that will adjust the headlight up and down it's not very difficult from this angle i can just barely see the head of that of that nut right here the screwdriver is almost to its max length to hit the head of that [Music] a minor note is that the fuel pump was replaced as part of a recall so although i have not had any issues with it this amounted to a three-day loss of use of the vehicle additionally i had another recall completed at the most recent oil change for the hood latch i visually checked and i didn't have the cracking i wanted to confirm that my hood wouldn't fly off while cruising down the highway so as with any recall it was a maintenance priority so i want to show you guys what to look out for with this hood what i have here is this little metal plate around the latch for the hood and what happened was some vehicles around here there would be some cracking on this plate and eventually this piece will just pop off and then the hood would just fly away smash the windshield and cause a wild accident so if you have that recall outstanding make sure that you get it done [Music] the all-wheel drive system and 6-speed automatic transmission are sensitive to fluid maintenance at around ten thousand and thirty thousand miles i changed the rear differential fluid and was surprised how clean it looked but it gave me peace of mind for the thirty dollars cost to drain and fill per change at around 30 000 miles i started experiencing shutter in the transmission at certain rpms i initially suspected that something was going on with the fuel injectors and after a little online research i learned that the transmission fluid is susceptible to heat breakdown more frequently than other vehicles i then did three drain and fills which cost about fifty dollars each in transmission fluid both changing the transmission and differential fluid are easier than changing the oil but for some reason dealerships have insane labor costs if you pay them to do it i am worried about the torque converter's longevity in this transmission model the shuttering comes from the torque converter rapidly engaging and disengaging and can destroy a transmission if the fluid is not replaced quickly the final gripe i have with many hondas in general is the use of a timing belt using timing belts is a cheap trick many car manufacturers play to make minimal improvements in fuel economy that cost the buyer in the long run at around 100 000 miles you'll be surprised with a five to fifteen hundred dollar maintenance bill that if skipped could cost you an engine there are many high mileage older hondas in service with timing belts that have never been replaced and could snap at any time leaving you stranded in the long run i plan to keep this pilot i hope to see maybe two to three hundred thousand miles with proper maintenance before needing to replace it with another vehicle [Music] you