Top 5 Problems Honda Pilot SUV 1st Generation 2003-08

Hey, friends. It's Len here from 1A Auto. Today, in the studio, we have a first-generation Honda Pilot. I wanted to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find. So let's get started. Now, for our first problem, we're going to talk about throttle body issues. Now, first, we're going to locate the throttle body. If you were to follow your air intake system underneath this cover, you're going to be able to find your throttle body. Now, the purpose of your throttle body is to electronically regulate the amount of air getting drawn into your engine to be burnt up inside of your combustion chamber.

Symptoms of if you're having an issue with your throttle body could potentially be you have an issue with accelerating. Maybe it seems a little slow or even lagging when you try to accelerate. Other than that, maybe you have a poor idle. Maybe a very low idle. Or maybe even when you try to rapidly accelerate, the vehicle actually turns off or stalls. Now, common reasons why this might potentially happen is if, of course, you were to take off your inlet tube and look inside, you might see that there's a lot of debris that's located inside of this area.

If you happen to see this little bit of debris, go ahead and remove it fully from your intake system. And then look at the backside. If you see that it has a lot of carbon buildup like this, well, then you know that you found an issue. Now, for fixes for this, of course, you're going to want to have to know what's supposed to happen with the actual throttle body. There's supposed to be an electronic impulse that comes through to this, and it's going to power up an electric motor on the inside.

As the electronic motor gets powered up, it's going to in turn this butterfly so it either opens or closes. The amount that it opens and closes is going to regulate the amount of air getting drawn into the system. So if you have a lot of buildup like this, or even worse like this, well, then, of course, you're going to have a restriction with that butterfly and even the amount of air that's getting drawn into here while it's in the idle position.

Now, when it comes time to fixing this, what I would probably do is try to clean it out first. Essentially what I want to do is get off any of these black crusties that I can see on both sides of the actual butterfly area itself. The only problem with that though is you want to make sure that while you're cleaning it, you, of course, remove it from the car, because if you leave it in, you're not going to be able to get to the backside first of all. And then, secondly, of course, any of the detergent/throttle body cleaner you spray along the front is going to get pushed into the engine, which, of course, will be very bad.

Other than that, once it's off, what you're going to want to do is take a nice soft brush, toothbrush, an old one, of course, and then get inside here with some throttle body cleaner and try to clean this out. Something that I want to mention to you though is you definitely do not want to try pushing on this butterfly. If you push on the butterfly at all too much, you could potentially damage the calibration of the gearing that's located inside of this, in which case the computer is not going to know where the throttle body butterfly is at. So it's not going to know exactly how much fuel to add to the mixture. What you're probably going to notice in that case is a severe runnability issue.

Now, if you tried cleaning the throttle body, and you put it back together with a brand-new gasket, and you find that you still have a runnability issue, you're going to have to just go ahead and replace your throttle body. Now, for our second problem, we're going to talk about both low beam headlamps and off at the same time. All right, so let's go ahead and get the hood up. Now, one of the first things you want to do is go ahead and get right behind your headlamp assembly and remove the headlight bulb itself.

Once you have it out, you're going to want to take a peek inside and look at those filaments. If it looks like something's burnt, you're going to want to replace that bulb. But, overall, if you find that both headlamp bulbs don't work on the low beam, and for some reason, the filaments still look good, it usually comes down to an electrical issue. Something else you might happen to find that's a little bit more serious might be a little bit of smoke coming from your steering column and this funky smell that smells like wirings burning.

And the most common reason why this is going to happen is due to your multifunction switch. Now, obviously, this isn't the actual multifunction switch for this particular car. But it is an electronic multifunction switch that I can show you and talk about. If you were to get inside of your electronic multifunction switch, you're probably going to see that there's going to be a lot of circuitry and wiring that goes on. I'm just going to go ahead and try to pull this stuff out of here.

So, as you can tell, there's going to be circuitry that comes along like this. And what goes on inside of this particular one on this particular car is that the circuitry itself starts to get a little bit corroded. You're going to see some white crusties building up. And, typically, they're going to go across from one terminal end to another. And when this happens, it's going to short circuit.

Now, the most common fix for this particular issue is to, of course, go ahead and replace the defective multifunction switch. As you're doing that, you're going to want to make sure that you check the wiring that leads to it as well, because if, of course, the circuitry went bad inside the multifunction switch, it's going to be building resistance. Resistance equals heat. Overheating wires could potentially be an issue as well.

So, now, for our third problem, we're going to talk about dome light issues. Obviously, your dome light is going to be located in the center of your passenger compartment, right up in front of the driver and the passenger. As you go ahead and open up your door, that dome light is supposed to turn on that way there as you get in, it's going to be nice and lit up, and then you can see exactly what you need to do with your key. Unfortunately, it's a very common problem on these particular vehicles for the dome lamp not to work the way that it's supposed to.

What you might tend to notice though is if you reach up here, and you go ahead and power them on, they do turn on. So why did they turn on this way but not turn on when you open and shut the door? So now diagnosing this problem could go one or two different ways because there's multiple things that could potentially cause this. One of the ways, of course, would be if you open up the driver's door the dome light up there doesn't turn on. But if you were to notice down here, your switch, as you push it and pull it, this light right here does actually turn on and off. That would essentially tell you that your switch right here isn't actually the issue.

But if you happen to notice that you push this button or even release it, this right here doesn't function, and that up there doesn't function, then that overall kind of tells you that you're having an issue with the switch itself. Another way to check this just to ensure that this switch is actually the issue is to go ahead and open up any of the other doors. If the dome light up there turns on, well, then you know it's the switch. More commonly for this, in this particular issue, any of the doors that you open up, the dome light still doesn't turn on. We need to talk about that.

So, now, once you've confirmed that none of your doors turn on the dome light when you open up the door, you're going to actually have to get up inside this area right here. You can do that by, of course, pulling off any of the paneling that comes around here and then removing the screws. Once you get it off, and you look at the other side, you're going to see that there's some circuitry and, of course, a couple of different switches. The reason why there's going to be a couple of different switches, of course, is because you need to be able to turn on and off the lights like this. And, of course, when you open up the door, those switches are supposed to be able to send power to this and turn it on separately.

The most common fix for this if you find that none of your doors turn on your dome light would be to go ahead and replace this unit itself. Now, for our fourth problem, we're going to talk about water on your floorboards. Commonly, when you're going to notice that you have water on your floorboards might be after a heavy rain or even after you go through the carwash. The reason for that is because down along the windshield here you're going to have a nice area where it's supposed to be semi-sealed. That's going to help prevent the water from making its way down inside here.

Once it makes its way down past here, it's going to work its way down inside this area and then down along your firewall. Another symptom that you might happen to find is that you have electrical issues. And that's due to the fact that there's going to be water running down along the backside of your fuse box. So if you're having an issue on your passenger side, you're going to come over and remove the wheel. Once you do that, go ahead and get this right out of the way. And then we're going to pay attention to these three areas right up along here.

As you can tell, a lot of crud kind of makes its way down inside this area, and it's going to accumulate. So what happens is is water makes its way from up top and then comes down along this way. You're going to have some areas where lines and wires make their way into the passenger compartment. All these areas should be sealed so that no moisture can make its way inside. But as you can tell, some of them aren't necessarily soft rubber. This one is a hard plastic, so, obviously, it's not going to make a good seal. And, of course, if water was to make its way inside of any of this loom, it's going to make its way right past this seal as well.

Other than that, this one right here looks like it's in pretty good condition. But, of course, there is a little bit of a gap where, of course, moisture could make its way in. Another area that could potentially be a spot, just in case you happen to notice that those didn't seem like they were an issue, is right along this seam right along this. If there was an issue where this wasn't sealed up properly, you're, of course, going to have moisture making its way into the passenger compartment. And right behind this area right here is exactly where your fuse box is.

So, now, obviously, we're going to want to talk about some fixes for this. What I would do, of course, is to clean up the area and then seal up any of the areas that you can see that look like they might leak. If I was to push on this, you can see it makes a nice big gap right there where, of course, moisture could make its way in. So go ahead and seal up any of these areas. Use a little bit of caulking or even a gasket maker, and you should be good to go. And, of course, if you had water on your floorboards, you're going to want to make sure you get all that up and out of there. You want to dry it out as much as possible. Any moisture that remains on your carpet or even underneath the carpet is, of course, going to build mildew and even mold and potentially be very hazardous to your health.

Now, for our fifth problem, since we're already inside the wheel well area here, I want to talk about lower control arm issues. Your lower control arm is going to be a very integral part of your car's suspension. If it's in poor condition or not functioning properly, you're going to notice that you have issues driving down the road. Some of the symptoms that you might happen to find if you're having an issue with your lower control arms might be clunking over bumps. You might also happen to notice a very loud clunking noise under hard braking circumstances, or even you happen to find that you have squirrelly-feeling or even loose-feeling suspension while you're driving down the road.

Maybe you hit a couple of bumps, and it just kind of feels like the car just shimmies around a little bit. That's because the front end isn't being held as tight as it should be. So your lower control arm is going to have two bushings. It's going to have a forward bushing area right up here. And then as you make your way back towards the back, you're going to have a hockey-puck-looking bushing. This is the one that typically goes bad on these.

So, now, we're going to talk about fixes for this. Obviously, you're going to take a look at your lower control arm. You want to look at both of those bushings, the forward one and the rearward one. You want to analyze it and take note if you see just little minor cracks on it, like dry rot or something like that. That typically isn't going to be very bad. But if you see large cracking like this one right here or even separation, you know that you have to replace the lower control arm.

Typically, when you do this, it's a good idea to go ahead and do them both at the same time, because if one side is rotted or even cracked, more than likely the other side is not too far behind or even the same. After you go ahead and replace them, you're definitely going to want to make sure that you get yourself a four-wheel alignment.

Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for you for top problems that we've come to find on a first-generation Honda Pilot. If you like the video or you learned a little something, go ahead and smash on the like button. For me, it would mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe, ring the bell, and click on that share button. That way there you and all of your friends can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.