2019 Honda Passport Engine Problems

04/10/2026 at around 8am and 04/14/2026 at around 7pm - At both times, car stopped at red light. Auto start-stop shut off car engine. When light turned green and stepped on gas, engine shut down and warning lights came on. Car was still in “drive.” Had to push “park” button and then started engine.

TIMING BELT TENSIONER - started leaking at only 31K miles. Honda has denied the request to fix this for free of cost. Dealer is demanding $2000 to replace the 6 Cyl Timing Belt Package. Per the link below, this is a common issue with Honda cars (94,000 card recalled so far): [XXX] . I am [XXX] with limited driving needs, and my 2019 Honda Passport Touring is not drivable now. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

On 10/16/2025 at 1:30 AM, I was driving home from work on the I-94 freeway in Wisconsin from my work in Franklin, WI to my home in Union Grove, WI. I was driving at the speed limit, which was 70 Mph. I started to hear a ticking sound coming from the engine, and then the check engine light started to flash. The car then began a rapid speed decrease. I started to move from to the right-hand side of the road when the car stopped ticking and the check engine light went out and began to accelerate again. The sudden deceleration and acceleration on a major highway that had many other vehicles around me was very dangerous. I drove the car to my home since it seemed to be working again. I then had it towed to Zeigler Honda in Racine, WI, on the morning of 10/16/2025, to find out what the cause of the incident was. The Authorized Honda dealership (Zeigler) inspected the car and found that the crank bearing for the second cylinder had failed. They said the engine was not repairable. Before this incident, the car had no other problems. All required Honda maintenance was performed on the car, which I purchased new. The week before the incident, I had a routine oil change done at the Zeigler dealership with a passing inspection on the car during the oil change on 10/10/2025.

The Idle-Stop system engages as expected when the vehicle comes to a stop, but the engine fails to restart when I release the brake pedal. This leaves me stranded in traffic and vulnerable to collisions, especially in high-traffic areas like intersections. The car has completely stalled and remains frozen for at least 3 minutes. Instrument panel lights up and says to depress pedal fully and press the start button. Another message says something about being in neutral and then to put it in park. I'm doing what it says and I cannot get the car to start. I have a green light and I'm stuck in an intersection where opposing traffic has a green light as well. People are honking at me and nervous because of the unpredictibilty of my car. - Frequency: This occurs at least 1x/month for the past 65 months (lifetime of the vehicle) - Conditions: Occurs during normal driving conditions, typically in stop-and-go traffic. - Impact: This issue has resulted in significant delays and near-misses with other vehicles, posing a clear safety hazard. The vehicle has been evaluated by a Honda dealer regarding Idle-Stop system malfunction specifically on the following dates October 1st, 2020, February 2nd 2023, March 16th, 2023 May 11th 2023, November 7th 2024 and January 9th 2025. The vehicle was found to be in normal working order and multiple times I was told to disengage the auto idle stop (press the button) to prevent that from happening. There was a recall for idle-stop software update which failed to repair the issue. This has been a persistent problem and the above dates by no means reflects the only times that the engine fails to restart after auto-stopping.

This issue has happened three times. The first two times, I attempted to accelerate while driving on the highway and the engine momentarily lost power. I would say the events lasted 3 - 5 seconds. The third time, the engine lost power while I was driving on the highway and the vehicle never regained enough power to go over 26 miles an hour - with the accelerator depressed to its maximum limit. Fortunately, I was near my exit, so I exited the highway and drove the car 4 miles to my destination. This is the only time out of the 3 instances a flashing "Check Engine" light came on. I shut the car off, went to my appointment and then restarted the vehicle approximately 30 minutes later. No other issues were noted on the 3 hour return trip. This last event happened on [XXX]. I took the car into the service department at Ken Vance Honda, in Eau Claire, WI on January 29, 2025 and they were unable to find any stored codes in the computer related to the issue. The service advisor said he has heard of this issue several times. The estimate to fix the issue was roughly $850.00 with parts accounting for $501.74 I researched this issue online and found several references to it. The first is a post from a online group for Honda Odyssey owners. One post in that thread leads to another thread for Honda Ridgeline owners. The first website: [XXX] and the post on that site that has a link to the second and more damning site. MtMan 124 posts · Joined 2017 #4 · Jun 22, 2024 Been a nagging problem on the Ridgeline since 2019 on cold winter days. [XXX] There are several other references to similar issues on the Internet and Honda is obviously aware there is an issue. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

The 3.5 engine is ticking (knocking hard from 1-2 rpm same engine that is in all the recall on pilots and other Honda cars! My car has 65k miles on it . Honda has it for a week they can’t figure it out and say it’s normal. I know my car and a loud tick is not normal! Honda knows these engine have issue and don’t want to fix it. I’m now out of warranty and they don’t want to do anything basically they want me to get stranded when it breaks down or I’m in an accident if my engine breaks.

Auto Stop feature will engage when I stop the car at a light, and then the engine will fail to turn back on when I take my foot off the break. I then have to try and get the car to turn off so I can restart it. I’ve taken it to Honda and they did a system update and also had the battery replaced. It was better for a while, but has now happed again twice in the last couple months.

The contact owns a 2019 Honda Passport. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds, there was an abnormal sound coming from under the hood, with the engine temperature gauge rising. No warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer and was left for further investigation into possible internal engine failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 49,092.

The contact owns a 2019 Honda Passport. The contact stated that while stopping at a red traffic light, the vehicle inadvertently lost motive power, after which the vehicle was able to be restarted. After restarting the vehicle, the vehicle returned to normal functionality, but the failure became a regular occurrence. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who was unable to determine the cause for the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 60,000. The VIN was not available.

The vehicle does not restart after entering 'Auto Idle Stop' even with latest software update by Honda. About 2 month ago, my car started to act weird and stopped restarting during traffic stops, causing dangerous situations. (I was waiting in the intersection to make left turn and the vehicle was stopped in the middle) I went to Honda dealership for repair, and they explained that its known issue and can be solved by software update. They promised that it won't happen again, but starting few days ago, it is doing it again. I went to the dealership again, and they are now saying that they have to replace the starter. I don't think it is a safe approach to let customer "test" the software and replace problematic part depending on the test outcome. I feel like Honda should update the software AND replace starter.

This happens intermittently since I have owned vehicle. When car is stopped for a light or stop sign the engine idle stop engages. Then the car will not start up again when foot is taken off brake. In fact car automatically switches into neutral and care will not start. I been stranded on busy roads and almost hit twice because of this issue. I also had to purchase a new battery as I was told this is what was the issue by dealership and my battery was out of warranty

The auto engine idle stop malfunctions on this vehicle. Instead of restarting when I move my foot to the accelerator at a stoplight, the engine shuts off and I have to shift to Park and use the push button to start the car. More than five times this has occurred. A couple of times while in the middle of an intersection yielding to oncoming traffic before turning, this has occurred.

Sometimes the engine stops and the engine does not turn back on when you let go of the break to continue driving. Most of the time you don't realize the engine has completely shut off until the street light turns green and the driver lets go of the break and you don't hear the engine turn back on. The safety of the driver, passengers, and those in other vehicles are at risk because when the street light turns green the driver of the vehicle and other vehicles are expecting the car to go, therefore the other vehicles could press the gas on their vehicle and crash into our car. The car has not been inspected by Honda. I have an appointment in a week to get it looked at. We only receive a quick message right after the engine turns off and does not turn back on after letting go of the break. The message we get on the dash says put the car in "N", Hold break, and press Start Engine. Sometimes following those steps turns the engine back on but sometimes we have to open the driverside door and then follow those steps before the engine turns back on. This is very dangerous since we are usually in traffic when this happens.

The vehicle has auto idle stop and we have had several incidents where the engine would not start again after the idle stop and it required putting the vehicle in park, shutting off the ignition and then restarting the car. We have had a close call with a vehicle having to swerve around us after the red light turned green and we were needing to totally restart the car.

Auto engine idle stop function doesn’t work right sometimes. Sometimes when it tried to start the engine again from stop, engine had hard time start again and sometimes it is almost die. One time engine died in the traffic stop and go situation and Honda dealer said the battery was bad and they replaced it but it didn’t solve the problem. When I took my car ti the dealer again, they said ‘when the temp setting was set to lo, idle start/stop function will not work.’ But even though temp setting was not low, idle start/stop function doesn’t work well.

When stopped and the idle off feature shuts the engine off, the vehicle does not restart when foot is removed from brake. Vehicle shifts itself into neutral and the dash reads something to the effect of "shift to park to start vehicle". Amazed I have not been rear ended yet.... This happens randomly and not every time at idle off. Dealership could not reproduce in the 5 minutes they took to look at it. Additionally, there is a similar issue when I use remote start. After entering the vehicle with the engine running from remote start, the start button is pushed and the D/S button pushed, the gas pedal is pressed and the vehicle goes into neutral and a message appears on the dash "Transmission System Problem". The message remains for a few seconds and disappears. Then the D/S button is pushed and the vehicle operates normally.

The auto start/stop was the component that malfunctioned. I was at a stop light, and when I went to accelerate the car would not go. It automatically shifted into neutral. I then could not shift to park or drive. It would not let me shut the car down. I was in the middle of traffic when this happened. It caused a safety issue for me and others who had to go around me. I had to put my flashers on and continuously kept trying to shut the car down. I'm not sure what caused my car to restart or allow me to shift into drive, but eventually I was able to do so.

When the automatic idle start/stop feature is enabled, the engine would properly shut off when stopped at a traffic light. However, the engine would not re-start when the brake was released leaving the car stranded at the intersection. After pressing the auto idle start/stop enable/disable button several times and the engine start stop button several times, the engine would eventually start again. This has happened numerous times. Upon taking the car to the Honda dealership for evaluation, we were told the battery was bad and needed replacing. Since a new battery is $400, we decided to have the battery tested independently and the battery, which is rated at 650 CCA, tested to have 651 CCA. Additionally, the battery was tested for holding a charge and passed that test too. Upon returning to the Honda dealership with this information, the service advisor then stated the starter was bad and needed to be replaced for near $900. As we have had no problems with the battery or the starter up to this point, other than when the auto idle stop engages at a traffic light, we did not replace the starter. Since leaving the dealership, approximately 2 months ago, the car has continued to start as expected when manually starting. However, the auto idle start/stop feature contiues to fail intermittently. We urge you to hold Honda accountable for recalling and repairing this defect that creates a serious safety hazard for Honda owners as well as other drivers on the road. Honda's current public response that the auto idle start/stop feature can be disabled by pressing the off button is not acceptable as the feature is automatically enabled each time we start the car. Forgetting to disable this feature is a safety hazard. Thank you!

After exiting interstate and sitting at traffic light on off ramp, car cut off due to auto stop/start system. We normally push the button to turn this off as we do not like the feature, however, we had forgotten to do this when we first started driving. While sitting at the light and after car engine cut off, I pushed the auto stop/start button to start the engine and cut off the function for the rest of our trip. As soon as I pressed the button, the car made a noise, the brake locked up, and A notification came up on the dash that had an exclamation point said something about system. I could not restart the car because the brake was frozen. After about 5 minutes, the brake release and I was able to start the car. We were in a panic because of the backed up traffic we were causing. Plus we were about 6 hours from home. I took it to the dealer and he could find nothing wrong.

The contact owns a 2019 Honda Passport. The contact stated that on several occasions while coming to a stop at a stop light, the vehicle lost motive power and the transmission shifted into neutral(N) as the crash mitigation warning light illuminated. The contact stated that she was able to restart the vehicle after turning off the vehicle. The contact shifted into park(P) and then back to drive(D). Additionally, the contact stated while driving approximately 45 MPH and depressing the brake pedal, the vehicle lost motive power and the transmission independently shifted into neutral(N). The vehicle was able to restart. The vehicle was then taken to a local dealer however, the mechanic was unable to duplicate the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 47,000.