There are 6 owner-reported brakes complaints for the 2024 Honda Pilotin NHTSA's database. These are unverified consumer reports and may not reflect confirmed defects.
My Honda Pilot automatically applied the brakes 2 times while traveling on the interstate at 60 mph when there was no one in front of me and no one even near me. Both times it applied the brakes automatically and suddenly for no reason. It could have caused a bad accident. I was fortunate no one was behind me. Honda denies anything is wrong because it didn’t do it for them when they took it for a drive.
While driving the car flashes a BRAKE warning on the dash and then automatically begins emergency style braking attempting to bring the car to a STOP, but this happens while driving at highway speeds which is dangerous for rear approaching traffic. This has happened before and the dealership could not reproduce the action. This is the third time it has happened.
I was driving down a residential road at about 40 mph. There was no car or other obstacle in front of me, but my car suddenly slammed on the brakes. It brought the car to an abrupt stop for no reason. If a car had been behind me, they would have slammed into me. It was so abrupt, I felt like I had whiplash. It was terrifying. I had taken the car into the dealership to due to the brake pin recall just 3 days ago. They inspected and said the pin was fine. When I called them to report this experience, they said it was unrelated to the recall. I am bringing my car into them tomorrow to inspect what happened with the automatic braking system.
The contact owns a 2024 Honda Pilot. The contact stated while driving approximately 5 MPH in a drive-through and depressing the brake pedal, the brake pedal was stiff and the vehicle failed to respond on two occasions, and rear-ended the same vehicle twice. The contact stated that both vehicles sustained scratches. The air bags did not deploy. There was no injury sustained. No police report was filed. The contact was able to drive to the residence. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where the recall inspection for NHTSA Campaign Number: 25V391000(Service Brakes, Hydraulic) was performed, and the dealer informed the contact that the vehicle had passed the inspection. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and sent an engineer, who inspected the vehicle and informed the contact that no failure was found. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 25,000.
I believe that there is a safety issue with the design of the adaptive cruise control on the 2024 Honda Pilot. The vehicle applies the brakes at about 1 mph over the selected speed. It is especially aggressive when topping a hill. The gas lets up, but due to the vehicle inertia, the car slightly accelerates, then braking. I believe that this action is unsafe for several reasons. It slows the vehicle several mph below the set speed causing cars behind me to swerve or come close to me. No human driver would apply the brakes in that situation. It also appears to irritate those same drivers. I’m glad that none of them has a weapon so far. It also applies the brakes going downhill on the interstate highway. This occurs at any speed below 55 mph. This also makes it look like the driver is continually tapping the brakes, when no one normally would. I suspect that there may be extra brake wear. My family asks what is going on with the car because of the aggressive braking. I previously owned a 2018 Honda Pilot with adaptive cruise control. It used transmission downshifting to slow the vehicle. I admit that there were some over speeds, but nothing serious. The 2024 Owner’s Manual states that downshifting is also used, but I’ve only seen the brakes used for over speed control. There are no user selectable adjustments to the system. I am getting used to this (feature, not a bug) by clicking off the cruise control whenever the conditions are close for a brake activation. This causes me to pay more attention to monitoring for those conditions, rather than the actual driving and traffic scan. I suggest that the system use downshifting followed by brakes after a 3 or 4 mph excursion from the set speed.
Today, while I was driving, the vehicle information display suddenly started flashing warnings indicating that the following systems were experiencing errors, leading to potentially reduced brake performance. I was advised to take the car to the dealer for diagnosis and immediate remediation: Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) Hill Start Assist Lane Departure and Correction Assist Brake Hold System However, when we stopped and attempted to turn off the car in the usual manner, it wouldn't shut down. It took two attempts to finally turn off the car. The indicators began flashing again when the car was restarted, but after turning off the car again and waiting for 10 minutes, then restarting it, the warning messages disappeared. I managed to take pictures of at least two warnings as they were displayed on the vehicle information screen: Hill Start Assist and Anti-lock Braking System (ABS). This is a brand new car, and it's concerning to encounter such issues with only 1,215 miles on the odometer. I request that the NHTSA investigate this matter with Honda’s manufacturing to ensure these problems are clarified and rectified before they lead to any accidents.
Complaints are unverified consumer reports submitted to NHTSA. A high complaint count may reflect vehicle popularity, not defect severity. Data sourced from NHTSA public records.
Data synced from NHTSA on May 4, 2026