Car and Driver Magazine: 2016 Honda Pilot First Drive

by Joe Lorio of www.caranddriver.com

 

First Drive Review 

 

The advent of a second child in a couple’s life can mean many things: the demise of romance, the start of sibling rivalry, and the purchase of a three-row SUV. As the latter has all but usurped the minivan as the most popular kid-schlepper, the Honda Pilot has risen to become a go-to choice for frazzled parents. The Pilot is rarely seen without at least one magnet displaying allegiance to a school or sport—as well as those annoying stick-family decals—and its ubiquity is a testament to its competence, not its pleasantness.

Honda reliability, a roomy interior, and a practical shape are what sell the Pilot. Absent is any sense of style or indulgent luxury. The new 2016 Pilot seeks to amend that and, in so doing, take some of the drudgery out of parenthood—even as it delves further into its role as a minivan proxy.

Getting Off the Block

Always competent, the Pilot didn’t need a rethink, just refinement. For the third-generation model, that refinement starts with the styling. Honda tells us that the number-one reason SUV shoppers bypassed the old Pilot was its styling, and indeed, the previous model looks like it might have been designed using Duplo blocks. Whereas the old version tried to look tough, the new model prefers to be sleek, employing a unified side-glass area, swept-back corners on the familial Honda front end, and a friendly upkick at the tail end of the beltline. The front and rear are brightened with LED lighting, and 20-inch wheels are now available.

The new Pilot is slightly larger—by 1.8 inches in wheelbase, 3.5 inches in length—and yet its additional inches did not bring with them additional pounds. In fact, Honda claims the Pilot has slimmed down by as much as 286 pounds. Its weight of roughly 4100 to 4400 pounds (depending on equipment) are commendably svelte for this portly class. As busy parents know, family duty often is a recipe for packing on extra flab, so give the new Pilot a supportive round of applause for its weight-loss success. (As on The Biggest Loser, however, we’ll need to verify the lightening on a set of scales.)

A 3.5-liter V-6 again powers the Pilot, but this is a new, direct-injected engine. A variant of the unit in the Acura MDX, it makes 10 fewer horsepower here but runs on regular fuel. Its output figures of 280 horsepower and 262 lb-ft of torque handily beat the old engine’s 250 and 253. The previous five-speed automatic has been scrapped in favor of a six-speed in LX, EX, and EX-L models, while the fancier Touring and new Elite trim levels are fitted with the ZF nine-speed also borrowed from Acura. The nine-speed gets shift paddles along with the same, rather gimmicky, push-button gear selector Acura uses; the six-speed gearbox is actuated via a conventional shift lever.

With more power, additional gears, and less weight, the Pilot is said to hustle to 60 mph some two seconds faster than before. More important, it slurps less fuel. EPA figures increase from 17/24 mpg (AWD) to 18/26 mpg, as well as to 19/26 for Touring and Elite models, which in addition to the nine-speed automatic also come with auto stop-start (the latter deserving the lion’s share of the credit for the slightly better city-mpg rating). Front-wheel drive adds 1 mpg to the above figures. All-wheel-drive models get a choice of four powertrain modes: Normal, Snow, Sand, and Mud, which replace the previous VTM-4 Lock button. The AWD system also has a torque-vectoring function, which can apportion torque across the rear axle to aid cornering. AWD versions are rated to tow 5000 pounds, up from 4500, while FWD models can tug only 3500 pounds.

Nearly an Odyssey

One might expect a livelier powertrain and relatively light weight to make for a more engaging driving experience, but that’s not really what the Pilot is all about. On the narrow, winding byways of northern Kentucky where we previewed the crossover, the Pilot just felt large. The steering, now electrically assisted, is overly light at low speeds and doesn’t load up appreciably as you wind on more lock, making it less confidence-inspiring than it might be; the old model’s hydraulically assisted steering felt meaty and substantial by comparison. Nor were we enamored of the brake-pedal feel, as the first third of the pedal travel produces little braking action. Ride quality, though, is quite good, as the Pilot gets a redesigned multilink rear suspension and also gains amplitude-reactive dampers. EX-L and higher trim levels add acoustic glass to make for quieter cruising. Much more so than its predecessor, the overwhelming feeling from behind the wheel is that you’re driving a minivan—a plush, comfortable minivan, but a minivan all the same.

That impression comes not just from the dynamics but also from the packaging. The cabin feels much wider than before; the larger, more steeply raked windshield is farther away; and the hood is short. There’s even one of those convex, school-bus-driver mirrors in the overhead console. The towering center armrest has been ditched in favor of minivan-style flip-down armrests attached to each seat, which opens up elbow room. In the resultant space sits a low console with a tambour lid, which Honda points out makes a great perch for a purse or a fast-food bag (they know their market so well).

Whereas the old Pilot’s dashboard was a cliff-like hunk of industrial-grade plastic, the new one has been completely redesigned into a slimmer, more attractive interface, accented with either matte-gray or gloss-black trim, and padded surfaces abound on the dash and door panels. Unfortunately, the new Pilot also sees the installation of Honda’s ergonomically awful, touch-screen infotainment interface, which banishes all physical buttons and knobs. It’s standard on all models save the base LX whether or not you get the Garmin-based navigation system.

Safety is always a parental obsession, and the new Pilot is now onboard with the latest collision-avoidance technology, although some of it is reserved for the upper trim levels. Forward-collision warning with automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning, and lane-keep assist (which allows a measure of hands-free driving) are all new additions; they’re standard on the Touring and Elite, optional on the EX and EX-L, and not available on the LX. A blind-spot warning system is combined with rear cross-traffic alert, but they’re only on the Elite. Other Elite exclusives include a new panoramic sunroof, ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, a heated steering wheel, LED headlights, and automatic high beams. All that’s missing is the built-in cargo-area vacuum that Honda introduced on the Odyssey.

The Elite comes with individual second-row seats, which, surprisingly, were unavailable before. Some parents consider them essential to avoiding back-seat warfare, although they drop the official seating capacity to seven—or six in the real world, given that three across in the third row is pretty optimistic. To get at the standard third row, EX-L and higher trims have an easy-to-use one-touch button that scoots the second-row seats forward. Honda claims to have carved out greater access to the third row, but it’s still not an easy climb for grown-ups. Space back there is not bad, but the cushion is very low to the floor and flat. With all seats in place, luggage capacity is better than most, with room for a quartet of standard-size roller bags to stand up behind the rearmost seatback.

In all, the Pilot makes a fine minivan substitute for when that second kid comes along. And it looks better doing it—at least until you put those magnets and stickers on the back.

Source;
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2016-honda-pilot-first-drive-review-nearly-an-odyssey-page-1