Hi All,
Please pardon my ignorance, but could you please put the relevant years next to each generation category. I'm sure there are more members who are not exactly sure which generation Pilot they own. Thank you.
I have a 2005 which I believe is 1st Generation. Mine was purchased new here on Long Island, NY and currently has about 90,000 miles on it. I have owned Hondas since my first '79 Accord and have had several Accords since then. I currently own the 2005 Pilot, a 2016 HR-V, and a 2009 S2000. The cars have always been reliable, comfortable and easy to work on so that's why I have stayed with Honda. In the "old days" when I was commuting to work, I would easily get over 150K miles with just regular maintenance.
When we bought the Pilot in 2005, my wife and I owned a preschool so we needed an SUV capable of hauling lots of "stuff". The Pilot seemed to have an almost unlimited cargo capacity and was still comfortable to drive. My wife liked the fact that she was higher up and could see the traffic ahead more easily. Since she is only 5 feet tall, the running boards were a welcome addition to the car.
I joined this forum back in 2005 and although I have not been very active, I learned a lot of useful information about the car and enjoyed the various off-topic conversations. This is definitely one of the better forums available; thanks to all who have made it so good.
A big mistake that I made was not checking in regularly for a few years and missing all the comments and warnings about the dreaded 2005 transmission cooler line problem. Last year mine failed at about 90,000 miles. Fortunately I happened to be across the street from the garage that does my annual inspections so they just pushed the car in and replaced the radiator. I was lucky that the transmission was not damaged but I could have done the work myself and saved a few hundred dollars if I had been paying attention to this forum. Other than that incident, the car has been trouble-free. Next up for the Pilot is a timing belt change that I'm not looking forward to (first one for the Pilot, #6 for me).
Anyway, that's my story. Love my Hondas and this forum.