The Highlander appeals more to me than the Pilot from a styling perspective, but the Pilot appeals more to me from a mechanical perspective. I own two Honda V-6s engines. The timing belt job and valve adjustment job due every 100k miles takes a Saturday in the garage. Every 100,000 miles. I can handle that. To me, this is a non-issue. If you won't do this work yourself, you will have to factor that in to the cost of ownership. I owned a 2011 Camry, and it seems that they went out of their way to keep a DIYer from maintaining that car. The bit about the special tooling required to check the fluid level in the transmission is an excellent example of that. I prefer designs that are easier for me to maintain myself.
What bothers me the most about the Pilot is the unknown of the VCM. My folks have a mechanically similar 2014 MDX. The direct injection and VCM and engine mounts all seem fine so far, with 50k highway miles on it (and the highway miles are supposed to be the worst for this design). That SUV really hauls, and the SW-AWD is simply fantastic. The Highlander won't hold a candle to the Pilot (with its similar-to-Acura iVTM-4) in terms of handling if you're looking at AWD models.
Have you looked also at the GM Lambda vehicles (Chevy Traverse, etc), the Ford Explorer, or the Dodge Durango? Those all have three rows as well I believe. The Jeep Grand Cherokee is two rows only.
If you have stroller age kids, I second (or third, or fourth, ...) the notion to look at a van. We really enjoy our 3-row MDX (after owning two minivans), but you cannot get a stroller behind our third row. There's room for suitcases, but not one of these big modern strollers. You could get a few umbrella strollers back there, though. Fortunately, we got our MDX after our kids were out of the large strollers, so it works for us. If you just don't like the styling of the vans, however, then that's fine. You really don't give up much in the way of fuel economy with a modern SUV if comparing like drivetrains:
2016 Pilot: 19/27
2016 Odyssey: 19/28
2016 Highlander: 19/25
2015 Sienna: 18/25
As you can see, the fuel economy numbers are nearly identical between FWD SUV and FWD minivan. And the AWD models don't suffer too much. In fact, they return better economy than the only AWD minivan offering out there:
2016 Pilot iVTM: 18/26
2016 Highlander AWD: 18/24
2015 Sienna AWD: 16/23
The takeaway to me: confidently buy what you like. The small difference in rated fuel economy, in my opinion, is not enough to lose sleep over.
What bothers me the most about the Pilot is the unknown of the VCM. My folks have a mechanically similar 2014 MDX. The direct injection and VCM and engine mounts all seem fine so far, with 50k highway miles on it (and the highway miles are supposed to be the worst for this design). That SUV really hauls, and the SW-AWD is simply fantastic. The Highlander won't hold a candle to the Pilot (with its similar-to-Acura iVTM-4) in terms of handling if you're looking at AWD models.
Have you looked also at the GM Lambda vehicles (Chevy Traverse, etc), the Ford Explorer, or the Dodge Durango? Those all have three rows as well I believe. The Jeep Grand Cherokee is two rows only.
If you have stroller age kids, I second (or third, or fourth, ...) the notion to look at a van. We really enjoy our 3-row MDX (after owning two minivans), but you cannot get a stroller behind our third row. There's room for suitcases, but not one of these big modern strollers. You could get a few umbrella strollers back there, though. Fortunately, we got our MDX after our kids were out of the large strollers, so it works for us. If you just don't like the styling of the vans, however, then that's fine. You really don't give up much in the way of fuel economy with a modern SUV if comparing like drivetrains:
2016 Pilot: 19/27
2016 Odyssey: 19/28
2016 Highlander: 19/25
2015 Sienna: 18/25
As you can see, the fuel economy numbers are nearly identical between FWD SUV and FWD minivan. And the AWD models don't suffer too much. In fact, they return better economy than the only AWD minivan offering out there:
2016 Pilot iVTM: 18/26
2016 Highlander AWD: 18/24
2015 Sienna AWD: 16/23
The takeaway to me: confidently buy what you like. The small difference in rated fuel economy, in my opinion, is not enough to lose sleep over.
