Now that you want a Pilot (see the other excellent reviews in this section), I’ll try to give you a rationalization for buying one instead of the minivan you actually need.

This review may be useful to you if you’re doing the Pilot-versus-minivan dance and need some reasons to make sure you buy the Pilot, which is what you really want. It doesn’t contain feature descriptions and comparisons with other SUVs. I’m offering it because I found the other reviews helpful; I hope a few people might find this helpful. In other words: this is what worked for me; your mileage may vary.

With the Pilot, Honda was aiming squarely at me: age 40s; a third (and final!) child on the way; can afford some choice in vehicles; and most importantly: I just couldn't pull the trigger on a minivan. That's my problem, but apparently a few others share it.

I really didn’t want a minivan. When I got married, this was one of the private marriage vows that my beloved and I shared, knowing that we intended to have children: no minivans. Something about keeping the whole spirit of our wild, madcap singlehood and courtship alive—I forget the specifics, but there was definitely a part about no minivans.

I also didn’t want an SUV—feeling that, for most people, they’re overkill, plus unsafe, poor mileage. I figured: Subaru Outback, that’s for me—the unofficial Car of Seattle, where I live. My parents, in-laws, and brother all have them, and they really are nice cars. But suddenly, somehow, I have a third kid on the way. And the Subaru won’t fit three car seats. And even if it did, you’d never have room for an additional kid passenger, let alone an adult.

So, reluctantly, I began to feel I would have to swallow my pride because, really, what non-SUV was big enough to carry three car seats and provide an extra kid seat or two? Despite our vows, we actually almost bought one—a used Odyssey—and were saved only by the lousy trade-in the dealer offered on our 1998 New Beetle (yes, we’ve used the Beetle as primary transport for our two kids). So instead of signing, we walked. Meanwhile, my brother (no minivan lover, he) said: check out a Pilot. A what, I said.

So to make a long story short, here are the critical reasons in rough order of importance that resulted in me (well, my wife) driving home a Pilot:

1. It’s not a minivan. And we must try to be true to our marriage vows, right?

2. It’s not a minivan, and so therefore I wouldn’t wake up every day hating the thing on which I’d just spent $25K. That would make me grumpy for a few years.

3. Headroom: I’m 6'2" and kind of longish on top (built like a 6'6" guy but with shorter legs), and there are lots of cars I just can’t fit in—any Acura, for instance, and most importantly the Dodge Caravan. This eliminates a whole line of minivans, and that’s great. (“Gee, I’d like to buy a used Caravan for $15K instead of twice that much for a new Pilot, but I just don’t fit in the Caravan. Law of physics, and all. Sorry.”) (The New Beetle, by the way, has GREAT headroom and is a gas to drive, especially now that the child seats are out and it’s become “my” work car.) Anyway, the Pilot has almost 42” of headroom up front—more than most any minivan—or a lot of SUVs, like the Toyotas. I need over 40”, and so in the Caravan I basically formed an additional roof pillar, which wasn’t comfortable, especially driving over speedbumps and potholes.

4. Seating arrangement: By the time we were as close as we’d get to buying a minivan (which was shockingly close), we’d decided on the Odyssey. But then I realized that with three kids we would always have the third row seats open. Why is this important? Because one of the selling points on minivans in general and the Odyssey in particular is the disappearing (or removable) third row of seats—great for trips. But the second row on the Odyssey and most others only fits two car seats, which means that the third row must always be open. And that negates the whole cargo advantage. You’d actually have to put all the kids way back in the third row and then remove the second row seats and leave them at home to get maximum cargo space, and that’s dumb.

The Pilot beats this in two ways—first, the second row can accommodate three child seats, because the Pilot is w-i-d-e. So with three small kids, the third row can be folded flat for cargo storage. Second, both the second and third rows split 60/40—which means that, even if you do need to put a passenger (a friend in child seat; or one of your child seats when you want to haul a grandparent or two) in the third row, you still get 2/3 of the storage benefit. (Important note: The new 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan has a disappearing third row that splits 60/40. Do not tell your co-decision-maker about the new Toyota Sienna!)

I can’t overstate how important the seating issue is for winning the Pilot—I pulled my child seats out of the Beetle and put them into the Pilot (full of the muck and crumbs and who-knows-what embedded in them by my kids) to verify how this would work, and then pointed to the Odyssey and said “You can’t do this in that.” My advice: if you have three kids, grab this point and hold onto it for dear life.

5. The Pilot really is a minivan, but better. I mean, it’s got the same engine and chassis and almost the same mileage as the Odyssey, but you get 4-wheel drive and a better seating configuration, it’s not tarted up like some of the he-man SUVs (e.g., Exterra), plus you don’t wake up hating it every day (see #2 above). In fact, you might like it. A lot. And life is short. Too short for minivans.

6. Skip the leather. See, you can rationalize everything compared to the minivan on practical grounds—just want the best value, dear—but the leather option is pure luxury. So to avoid cognitive dissonance, I got the cloth seats, which I like just fine but I realize it’s a personal choice. I’m just saying.

7. Skip the video DVD. See above point. Plus you can add one in the aftermarket for less than the $1500 Honda wants. Also, if you need the optional backup camera that’s available with the video system, maybe you might consider another (smaller) vehicle altogether. I know I’d feel safer if you would.

8. Cost: OK, this is a tricky one. The dealers are trying to give you the shaft by marking up $2500 over MSRP. I don’t know how much this helped me, but I waved cash—I told the dealer I’d give them $14K in cash today if I liked the deal, and was pre-approved for the rest (which allowed me to negotiate a better interest rate with them—better than my pre-approval rate). I ended up paying “just” $500 over MSRP. They’d asked $2,500 over sticker; I’d offered sticker, and $500 is what they picked my pocket for. In Honda land, that’s the small “victory” they might let you walk away with, and I don’t know if the cash helped, but I don’t suppose it hurt. Fine, I’m a sucker. So what? I got my Pilot.

9. I didn’t get the LX, which is the stripped model, because I don’t think any actually exist. Either do the dealers—nobody’s ever actually seen one, it seems—about as rare as Bigfoot. They’re a myth created for the sole purpose of making you buy the next better thing, which is the EX. But really, the stuff you get for the EX price bump includes some stuff that you probably want anyway—the roof rails, the keyless entry, security system. Plus stuff that’s OK if Honda insists that you take it, like a better stereo and extra pockets and cupholders. Plus stuff that’s purely esthetic, like the wheels, trim, etc. And if you want leather or the DVD (which I didn’t)—game over, you have to get the EX. And remember, the dealer will still stiff you with the surcharge for an LX, particularly if they have to order one—forget about negotiating. So the net difference in final cost might be pretty low or close to non-existent if you add back things that are standard on the EX like roof rails, etc.

10. Oh—we looked at some other non-minivan alternatives. In short: VW EuroVan—can’t place child seats in the rearward-facing seats of the MV model, which is what we liked—even the dealer didn’t know this—we found out from another owner who had to trade down to the GLS. Plus the headroom is bad for me, and the front wheel well protrudes into the driver’s left foot area—why doesn’t this bother anyone but me? Volvo V90—can’t seat small children in the third row. Plus cost and reliability are both bad. Any others? Not that I know about.


So there you go. One final word: with the Pilot, even though you may have paid a lot more than you set out to pay when you thought you had to have a minivan, you won’t have buyer’s remorse. With a minivan—shudder—about the best I could think of saying was: well, it’s cheap. Which the good ones aren’t and the cheap ones—well, I don’t fit in a Caravan. With the Pilot, no remorse. Guilt, maybe, for giving in to your desires. But you can live with that.


Amount Paid (US$): 30,270
Condition: New
Model Year: 2003
Model and Options: EX, cloth seats