Quick note on why I did this:
Since the purchase of my wife’s 2016 Elite Pilot we have struggled to like the auto stop/start feature. With her and the kids always running around she sometimes forgets to manually disable it but when it shuts the car down she hits the button and moves on. I thought it was kinda cool at first, and so did my wife...until a few weeks ago. My wife the other day called me after she picked up the kids from summer camp and was in a panic. She was very upset after the engine auto stop feature turned the car off while she was in traffic. That’s not the issue, the problem was that the “START” function of the Auto Stop didn’t work!! It tried but then all power to the vehicle turned off. She then had to quickly shift into park, place foot on brake, push the start button, and shift back in drive while everyone behind her was honking and peeling out around her.
I started thinking, what if a car was about to T-bone her and the kids and that damn setting prevented her from attempting to get out of the way! That’s when I was determined to find a way and have this possibly deadly feature permanently disabled.
This is an easy, reversible (won’t void warranty) , way to have the feature disabled every time the car starts!
Disclaimer: This was my 2016 Pilot Elite with 9-speed trans...I have absolutely not idea if this will work for your pilot.
Let’s get into it!!!
Step 1 - Remove 2 screws under the rubber pad in front of the shift buttons
![Image]()
![Image]()
Step 2 - Open the center console storage compartment and pull up just in front of where the console latches, it should be pretty easy its held with just those little pressure clips
![Image]()
Step 3 - Once removed look under the cover and find the attached wire harness
![Image]()
Step 4 - On my pilot the wire is YELLOW it was next to the red wire, this wire is grounded unless you press the button then you will see 12v. You can test with a multimeter if you have one.
Step 5 - Use something small and flat to wedge in the white wiring harness to unclip the YELLOW wire. Basically this connector just has a flap that flips down to hold the pin in place. If you are familiar with Swiss Army knives I used the tweezers and it was perfect.
Step 6 - Constant 12v is the GREEN wire, Honda made the pins large enough to conveniently fit 2 in these ports... so lets take advantage of that! Take the YELLOW wire and slip it inside the green pins hole, kinda the way we disconnected the yellow wire. This will make the yellow wire have 12v anytime the car is on... which tells the pilot to turn off the auto start stop!!!!
![Image]()
![Image]()
![Image]()
Wrote this on my iPad and didn’t have a great way to format it, may come back to update it next week.
Special thanks to Hondaguy92 for providing some input on this in another post I read
Since the purchase of my wife’s 2016 Elite Pilot we have struggled to like the auto stop/start feature. With her and the kids always running around she sometimes forgets to manually disable it but when it shuts the car down she hits the button and moves on. I thought it was kinda cool at first, and so did my wife...until a few weeks ago. My wife the other day called me after she picked up the kids from summer camp and was in a panic. She was very upset after the engine auto stop feature turned the car off while she was in traffic. That’s not the issue, the problem was that the “START” function of the Auto Stop didn’t work!! It tried but then all power to the vehicle turned off. She then had to quickly shift into park, place foot on brake, push the start button, and shift back in drive while everyone behind her was honking and peeling out around her.
I started thinking, what if a car was about to T-bone her and the kids and that damn setting prevented her from attempting to get out of the way! That’s when I was determined to find a way and have this possibly deadly feature permanently disabled.
This is an easy, reversible (won’t void warranty) , way to have the feature disabled every time the car starts!
Disclaimer: This was my 2016 Pilot Elite with 9-speed trans...I have absolutely not idea if this will work for your pilot.
Let’s get into it!!!
Step 1 - Remove 2 screws under the rubber pad in front of the shift buttons
Step 2 - Open the center console storage compartment and pull up just in front of where the console latches, it should be pretty easy its held with just those little pressure clips
Step 3 - Once removed look under the cover and find the attached wire harness
Step 4 - On my pilot the wire is YELLOW it was next to the red wire, this wire is grounded unless you press the button then you will see 12v. You can test with a multimeter if you have one.
Step 5 - Use something small and flat to wedge in the white wiring harness to unclip the YELLOW wire. Basically this connector just has a flap that flips down to hold the pin in place. If you are familiar with Swiss Army knives I used the tweezers and it was perfect.
Step 6 - Constant 12v is the GREEN wire, Honda made the pins large enough to conveniently fit 2 in these ports... so lets take advantage of that! Take the YELLOW wire and slip it inside the green pins hole, kinda the way we disconnected the yellow wire. This will make the yellow wire have 12v anytime the car is on... which tells the pilot to turn off the auto start stop!!!!
Wrote this on my iPad and didn’t have a great way to format it, may come back to update it next week.
Special thanks to Hondaguy92 for providing some input on this in another post I read
