REDESIGNED SUV TAKES FLIGHT
Easier on the eyes and better on the road, Honda’s big Pilot receives top marks,
My neighbour loves his trusty Honda Pilot. He says he’ll keep it till it dies.
That might not be for awhile. It’s 10 years old with 280,000 trouble-free clicks on the clock, and it shows no sign of slowing down. Even so, Andrew Harvey was happy to take a test drive in the 2016 Pilot I parked in his driveway the other day.
This is the new third-generation Pilot, completely overhauled for this year to smooth out the angles and edges of the previous boxy edition. It’s also been totally updated to offer all the latest technology that Honda says its potential owners are looking for.
It helped that the Pilot in his drive was also the fully-loaded Touring edition, which sits at the top of the SUV’s eight available trim levels.
This means it retails for $50,490 compared to the basic two-wheel-drive LX edition that starts at $35,490, or the basic four-wheel-drive LX that’s $3,000 above that.
All trim levels share the same 3.5litre V6 engine that’s taken from the highly-tuned Acura MDX. It’s good in the Pilot for 280 horsepower — up from 250 found in the previous edition, which was itself a smidge above Harvey’s 244 horsepower first-generation SUV.
Only the costly Touring edition, however, comes with the nine-speed, paddle-shifted automatic transmission that’s also taken from the MDX. It’s too bad buyers must pay such a premium for this transmission over the six- speed boxes that come in the other trim levels.
The nine is smooth, strong and efficient, especially in urban driving conditions where it’s more often at the most effective engine speed.
Both transmissions come with pushbutton selectors on the centre console, like some Acuras, which add space to the cabin by eschewing the gear shifter.
The whole interior is clear of clutter, with most convenience controls operated through either virtual buttons on the large dashboard touchscreen or physical buttons on the steering wheel. They’re fiddly to use on the screen and even something as simple as adjusting the radio volume is a chore. I used the steering wheel buttons as often as possible.
Claimed fuel mileage for the basic four-wheel-drive Pilot LX is 13.0 L/100 km in the city, while the Pilot Touring returns 12.4. Both see 9.3 on the high- way. The official combined average is 11.0, while I saw an overall figure of 11.4.
That all sounds pretty thirsty, but don’t forget this is a large SUV with three rows of seating and towing capacity at a hefty 2,268 kilograms (with the optional transmission cooler). All trim levels except the Touring seat eight people — it’s a squeeze to fit three in the very back, but not impossible.
The Pilot is a very viable alternative to a Honda Odyssey. Not that Harvey was complaining as we barrelled down the back roads and hummed along the highway — the new Pilot is not only more powerful than before, but also lighter and larger.
Overall, there’s more than 3,000 litres of space behind the front seats when the two back rows are folded flat. That’s a lot less than the 4,200 litres in the Odyssey, but a generous size for any SUV, which sits higher from the ground.
We drove on dirt and tried the different settings now available for sand, mud, and snow, without noticing any difference in traction. We drove on asphalt and tried the Sport and Eco settings, which tighten or relax the transmission and throttle response. We realized we were chatting away at a normal volume — we’d have been shouting to each other over the road noise in Harvey’s old Pilot.
We even tried driving with no hands on the wheel for a while. The new Pilot offers Honda Sensing, which includes a warning against possible collisions, adaptive cruise control, and active lane-keeping assistance. It’s quite good at all that too, but it freaked Harvey out to feel the SUV correcting itself.
When we returned, Harvey declared the new Pilot to be his next vehicle — if his old one ever dies. Although he has not driven the competition, he doesn’t care. There are very capable three-row SUVs out there with similar features and good value for money. But Harvey loves his Honda and spends very little time and money on service. What more could a driver ask for?