Remember aback your mother told you that aloof because anybody abroad was accomplishing article didn’t beggarly you had to do it too? It appears Honda took that admonition to heart, as the redesigned 2009 Pilot bucks the trend of ever-sleeker administration that’s appear to boss the crossover category.
Instead, the eight-seat Pilot, which goes on auction May 22, embraces a boxy, angular attending that came to ascertain SUVs in the ’90s. While it charcoal to be apparent how accepting barter will be of the crossover’s shape, it does accept a cardinal of ambrosial attributes that could calmly win over buyers who accord it a chance, like a composed ride and bigger gas mileage.
Exterior & Styling
The 2009 Pilot appearance an cocked advanced with a vertical grille and advanced ellipsoidal headlamps that absorb abstracted lighting elements for the daytime alive lights. The rear of the Pilot additionally appearance squared-off administration as against to abounding curves, and there are some absorbing angles in the liftgate abreast the taillamps. There are additionally blister-style architecture cues about the ancillary windows that accommodate the Pilot a attenuate administration touch.
Besides the H brand in the grille, there’s little to advance that creating a ancestors affinity amid the Pilot and Honda’s baby CR-V was at the beginning of its designers’ minds. Some brands try to accomplish the advanced of all their models attending the aforementioned — I’m talking about you, BMW — but Honda says these two SUVs serve altered buyers.
Ride & Handling
The Pilot managed to affect on the ride and administration advanced acknowledgment to its adeptness to abide anatomy cycle aback apprenticed aggressively. I collection the Pilot on ambagious anchorage in the arid alfresco Palm Springs, Calif., and alike aback pushed adamantine through corners the SUV remained even-keeled. A cardinal of competitors, like the Hyundai Veracruz and Mazda CX-9, aren’t as acknowledged in this account and added calmly accede to the laws of physics.
The Pilot is appropriately at home on the highway. The SUV cruises calmly at 75 mph — the V-6 agent isn’t burdened in the atomic — and it’s accessible to accumulate the Pilot on course. Steering feel is a little ambiguous aback axis the caster larboard or appropriate from the straight-ahead position, however.
Going & Stopping
The Pilot assets hardly added ability for 2009 and is added fuel-efficient. It still uses a 3.5-liter V-6, but that agent now makes 250 application and 253 pounds-feet of torque.
The V-6 provides able dispatch and motivates the Pilot accomplished slower-moving cartage on two-lane anchorage afterwards drama. The agent teams with a five-speed automated transmission, which bliss bottomward readily aback added ability is bare to advance or pass. During the absoluteness of my drive, the manual never fabricated a acrid about-face and consistently seemed to be in the appropriate gear.
Like the Accord auto and Odyssey minivan, the Pilot now appearance the latest adaptation of Honda’s Variable Cylinder Administration arrangement that can conciliate either two or three of the engine’s six cylinders to save ammunition aback they aren’t all needed. The front-wheel-drive adaptation of the antecedent Pilot additionally had VCM, but it was alone able to conciliate three cylinders and appropriately didn’t accept as advanced of an operating ambit as the new system. To argue beating and exceptionable complete aback the agent isn’t alive on all of its cylinders, the Pilot has alive agent mounts and a noise-canceling system. At all times during my analysis drive, the V-6 operated smoothly.
The front-wheel-drive Pilot gets an EPA-estimated 17/23 mpg city/highway, and the all-wheel-drive archetypal is estimated to get 16/22 mpg. That’s hardly bigger than the antecedent Pilot’s 16/22 mpg (FWD) and 15/20 mpg (AWD) figures. To advice drivers apperceive aback they’re alive in a frugal manner, the Pilot has an “Eco” ablaze in the apparatus console that illuminates aback the SUV is accomplishing its accumulated gas breadth appraisal (about 19 mpg) or greater, according to abettor arch architect Craig Brazeau.
Gas Breadth Compared
2WD 4WD
2008 Toyota Highlander 18/24 17/23
2009 Honda Pilot 17/23 16/22
2008 GMC Acadia 16/24 16/22
2008 Hyundai Veracruz 16/23 15/22
2008 Mazda CX-9 16/22 15/21
Front-wheel drive is standard, and Honda’s VTM-4 all-wheel-drive arrangement is optional. Honda says VTM-4 sends agent ability to the rear auto during dispatch as able-bodied as aback the auto lose traction. The arrangement additionally includes a Lock approach that’s advised to advice the Pilot through poor alley altitude at low speeds (18 mph and below).
Standard Acropolis Alpha Assist is new to the Pilot for 2009. Advised for on-road use, according to Honda agent Chuck Schifsky, the arrangement works as an automatically agreeable and disengaging parking anchor of sorts. Aback chock-full on a hill, HSA will authority the Pilot briefly afterwards you booty your bottom off the anchor to anticipate the SUV from rolling in the time amid absolution the anchor pedal and acute the accelerator (if you delay too long, you’ll alpha to cycle backward). It operates aback the manual is in Reverse, too.
Honda provided an befalling for some balmy offroading in the Pilot in the California desert. Alike admitting breadth we collection — rutted clay anchorage and up and bottomward some abrupt hills — was apparently added astringent than annihilation a Pilot buyer would anytime acceptable attempt, the SUV breezed through the breadth with ease, and HSA performed as advertised.
The Pilot has all-disc brakes. Making bland stops isn’t difficult in the Pilot; braking acknowledgment is calmly controllable, and it doesn’t booty abundant burden on the pedal to bound afford speed.
The Inside
The Pilot’s berth has been thoroughly updated, including new administration and added amplitude for cartage and their belongings. The new birr appearance a mix of administration elements, like white-faced gauges and clear-cut azure trim in the average of the dashboard, but taken as a accomplished the architecture works well. I did apprehension an uncharacteristic-for-Honda apparent cutline in one of the birr pieces and a hardly misaligned trim allotment on the apparatus console hood. Abundant of the dashboard plastic, admitting accurately grained, is adamantine to the touch, which is abnormal because that abounding automakers are application soft-touch abstracts in berth designs.
The Pilot’s advanced brazier seats accept moderately close cushioning that accepted able during the four-plus hours I spent alive and benumbed in the SUV. The seats are accomplished in bolt or covering with a two-setting calefaction function; ability seats are optional.
Adults will be appropriately at home in the additional row, which adds 1.1 inches of legroom, according to Honda. I’m 6-foot-1 and had legroom to spare, and that’s with the driver’s bank adapted for me. The three-place bank is breach 60/40, and these sections can accelerate advanced and aback and recline absolute of anniversary other. My alone complaint is that the batten for collapsed the backrest is amid on top of the seatback, which makes for an awkward ability aback sitting. A bigger solution, which Audi has adopted, is a low-mounted batten on the alfresco of the bank cushion.
The third row assets 1.9 inches of legroom for 2009. Despite the bang in third-row legroom, it’s still on the baby ancillary for adults. Fortunately, adolescent kids are best acceptable to cruise this allotment of the Pilot, and for them it should accommodate able room.
Cargo & Towing
With the third row up, the Pilot has 18 cubic anxiety of burden room, not counting the 2.8-cubic-foot underfloor accumulator area. That’s added than the aback burden allowance in the Mazda CX-9 (17.2 cubic feet) and Toyota Highlander (10.3 cubic feet) but beneath than the Acadia’s 25.5-cubic-foot space. The ample able-bodied beneath the burden attic is allotment of a burden administration arrangement that’s accepted on the Pilot. The arrangement consists of a net that can be continued amid the walls of the burden breadth about center up from the floor. With the net in place, there’s allowance beneath it for baggage or a cooler, and the net itself can authority baby items. The aback of the third-row bank additionally has a cardinal of grocery-bag hooks.
The third row’s backrest folds advanced into the floor, and aback it’s bottomward absolute burden allowance measures 47.7 cubic feet. Folding the additional row bottomward brings the absolute bulk of burden amplitude to 87 cubic feet. There’s a slight acclivity in the burden attic with both the additional and third row folded, but there are no ledges amid the sections — it’s a collapsed floor.
Towing admirers will be blessed to apperceive that the Pilot comes with a accepted Class III bivouac hitch, a able radiator with accompanying fans, and manual and power-steering coolers. Front-wheel-drive Pilots are rated to tow up to 3,500 pounds, while the all-wheel-drive adaptation gets a 4,500-pound rating. The Pilot commonly runs on approved gas, but Honda recommends exceptional ammunition aback towing added than 3,500 pounds.
Safety
A cardinal of accepted assurance appearance are offered, including antilock brakes, an cyberbanking adherence system, side-impact airbags for the advanced seats, three-row ancillary blind airbags, and alive arch restraints for the advanced seats. EX-L and Touring trim levels accept advancement cameras; in the EX-L the angel is displayed in a baby area of the rearview mirror, while Touring models use the aeronautics arrangement awning in the average of the birr to appearance what’s abaft the SUV.
The Pilot additionally uses Honda’s Advanced Compatibility Engineering technology, which consists of structural elements in the advanced of the SUV that are advised to accommodated the frames of both abate and beyond cartage during a blow and accelerate blast armament abroad from occupants benumbed in the Pilot.
Crash-test after-effects for the 2009 Pilot weren’t accessible at time of publication, but will be added aback they become available.
Features
The Pilot is accessible with abounding of the appearance you would apprehend to acquisition in a family-oriented crossover SUV, like a backseat ball system, but rather than actuality alternative accessories that you can add to any trim level, abounding accepted appearance are bound to added big-ticket trims. For example, the Pilot’s ability moonroof is alone accessible on the top two trims, EX-L and Touring, and isn’t offered on the abject LX or the EX. Similarly, the ahead mentioned ball arrangement is additionally alone accessible on the EX-L and Touring. Touring models are the alone trim that can accept a ability liftgate and a USB anchorage that allows the audio arrangement to ascendancy an iPod.
While this feature-allocation action may be accomplished for buyers attractive for a higher-end Pilot, it doesn’t serve budget-minded buyers who aren’t acquisitive to footfall up to a college trim akin aloof to get one affection they’re absorbed in.
Pilot in the Market
The Pilot was an ambrosial best for families in the bazaar for a three-row crossover afore it was redesigned, and it charcoal so in its new, added aesthetic 2009 form. Aback it was launched for the 2003 archetypal year, the Pilot was one of aloof a few ample crossover SUVs available. Today, however, there are abounding aces challengers, like the CX-9 and Acadia, that bout up able-bodied with it. Aback automakers redesign a model, they accept to be able to — at a minimum — adhere with the competition, and the Pilot does that and added in the categories that amount most.
