2009 Honda Pilot

With so many midsize SUVs on the market, it's a miracle that shoppers manage to make any choices. Automakers face their own challenges: namely, how to capture a bigger share of that elusive market when it's time for a new or redesigned model.

2009 Updates

Honda's Pilot makes a fine example. Launched as a 2003 model, the Pilot faced a reasonable number of midsize-SUV competitors, including the Toyota Highlander and Nissan Murano. Nearly a quarter-million have been sold. In the ensuing years, the field has grown crowded, with recent entrants from Kia, Hyundai, Mazda, and other manufacturers making more effective stabs at increased market share.


Revamped for 2009, the eight-passenger Pilot has not changed dramatically in its second generation. Bolder styling touches are supposed to yield "SUV-rugged aesthetics," Honda asserts, as well as "more on-road refinement." Otherwise, revisions have mostly been subtle, yet they turn a competent crossover SUV into one that exhibits few significant flaws. (When the first-generation Pilot debuted, the term "crossover" was not yet commonly used to describe carlike, unibodied SUVs.)

Performance & Economy

Output from the 3.5-liter i-VTEC V-6 engine has increased by 6 horsepower, to the current 250. Torque output totals 13 pound-feet more than before, now rated at 253 pound-feet. Honda's next-generation Variable Cylinder Management system lets the V-6 engine run on three or four cylinders when conditions permit. As before the V-6 drives a five-speed automatic transmission.


Honda advises that the Pilot's fuel economy estimate has increased by 1 mpg for both city and highway driving. According to the company, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates 17 mpg in city driving and 23 mpg on the highway with two-wheel drive, dipping to 16/22 mpg with AWD.