2026 Honda Pilot Elite AWD Review: Family Road Trip Beach Vacation

Throw a beach vacation with a five-plus hour drive on either side at a three-row SUV, and you quickly find where it falters.

Comfort and space immediately become factors you openly question or comment on (albeit usually to no one in particular), all while efficiency and highway prowess (in both the traditional sense as well as stop-and-go traffic) whittle their way into your very fibers of being.

The Honda Pilot has always been praised for meshing easily with the lives of people who need a vehicle capable of what the Pilot offers, and we recently put a 2026 version of the Elite AWD trim to the test against our annual week-long family getaway—eager to see how it compares to the minivans, luxury SUVs, and full-size body-on-frame SUVs we’ve tasked this trip with in the past.

What’s New for 2026:

Following its 2023 model year introduction, Honda lightly reworked the fourth-generation Pilot for 2026. This brought with it a large grille, new colors, a 10.2-inch digital gauge cluster, and a 12.3-inch touchscreen, which is standard across the board. There’s also wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility, new interior finishes, added insulation for NVH, and the addition of the Post-Collision Braking system.

Honda also added a Trailsport package available on the Pilot for 2026, but ours was the Elite trim, which focuses on luxury over adventure. For those interested, the Trailsport gets all-terrain tires, slightly heavier-duty suspension, tow hooks, a standard trailer hitch, additional drive modes for time spent on the dirt, retuned EPS, and other cosmetic and comfort additions.

Powertrain and Fuel Economy:

All 2026 Honda Pilots are powered by a 3.5 L J35Y8 V6 good for 285 horsepower and 262 lb-ft of torque. Transmission duty is handled by a 10-speed automatic. Gas mileage rings in at an EPA-rated 19/25/21 MPG city/highway/combined. We saw as high as 26 MPG on long highway stints.

Much like Honda's Passport, our time with the Pilot and the V6 shared between the two never left us wanting for more power or torque. It accelerates easily and happily from a stop or a roll, and it is more than happy to cruise at left-lane New Jersey highway speeds. Ask for any more oomph from the engine and the gearbox is happy to drop down a gear or two, and then you’re back where you want to be as far as the powerband goes. 285 horsepower isn’t a ton, but the Pilot only has to carry around a light-by-2026-standards ~4,500 pounds.

Honda engines almost never disappoint, and this is no exception.

Handling and Drivability:

Handling, in a three-row unibody CUV/SUV, is hardly a focus point with this class. The MO is to make it competent enough to hold its own on a back road, but more importantly, just be a comfortable way to get from place to place.

Well, mission accomplished. The Pilot is supremely easy to drive, and its handling (though uninspiring) is adequate enough for the vehicle in question. It also is just a car that’s happy to fade into the background and be a good support vehicle for whatever you want it to do. Bring the whole family home from dinner? Check. Get everyone to and from the beach? Check. Cruise the avenue with the windows down so you can take in the salty sea air and focus on life? Check.

It is also worth noting that as far as drivability goes, we put the Pilot to the test on our annual family vacation, which involves long highway slogs and slow beach traffic alike. It handled this flawlessly, and more importantly, the Pilot was simply excellent against the monsoon-esque rain storm we drove through on the way home.

Through high winds, constant torrential downpours, flooded roadways, and more (the storm produced three tornadoes, we later found out), the Pilot couldn’t have been more sure-footed if it tried.

Ride Quality and Comfort:

The Pilot’s ride quality is good, albeit not great (you need to step up to an Acura for that qualifier). There isn’t anything specific that you can point to in order to find points of criticism; it’s just that the whole suspension setup feels like it could be better. There are some unwanted body motions when hitting larger bumps, and the body does move some when this happens.

Still, it’s plenty comfortable. You can easily spend six hours in the Pilot without getting fatigued (like we did on the aforementioned drive home), and there’s just enough space in the cabin to make it usefully large without making for a massive vehicle on the outside.

Honda, as always, also found clever ways to make the interior more useful. Things like multiple door cupholders and a multi-use center seat in the second row that can be a seat, cupholder/armrest, or be removed completely to make captain’s chairs. Brilliant stuff from Honda, as always.

Interior Style and Quality

Honda’s interiors as of late have been very solid. Following the well-received eleventh-generation Civic’s interior motif, Honda has worked towards standardizing the design of the dashboard across their vehicles (at least those which are new or have been refreshed since 2021). It works, though the focus is almost entirely on function over form. We appreciate the ergonomic priority here, yet we wouldn’t hate a little color splashed around the interior or seats to brighten things up. Thankfully, the panoramic sunroof can do that at the touch of a button, but will only slightly appease anyone sitting in the tight third row.

We’re also not fans of the shifter, which remains less-than-intuitive. Prospective buyers should also know that while this is a three-row SUV, it’s not a full-sizer. At 200” long, it’s plenty big for day-to-day use, but a family packing for vacation might have to play some creative Tetris-esque packing games to get everything to fit.

As far as the quality of the interior goes, it is undoubtedly high, with durable materials and excellent build quality abound.

Technology

Though not a technological powerhouse, Honda has thrown a fair amount of tech at the Pilot for 2026. The 12.3-inch infotainment screen’s operating system has Google built-in as well as WiFi hotspot capability, and the unit is intuitive and easy to use both when stationary and driving alike. Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard, and there’s a phone charging pad that will hopefully work (we didn’t try it) instead of just superheating the phone as others do.

You also get (on the Elite specifically) a multiview, 360-degree camera, the Honda Sensing Suite for driving aids, automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition, and 8 airbags.

Our one technological qualm with the Pilot is the same as that with the Passport: No native SiriusXM. So should you want to listen to music via the ubiquitous streaming service, it has to be via your phone (and subsequently Bluetooth, Android Auto / Apple CarPlay, or corded connection to the vehicle) or by buying a standalone SiriusXM receiver like it’s 2005. And if you hit a spot with no cell signal, you’re going to be listening to your own thoughts.

Value Dollars and Sense

Get in the door with the $42,395 Sport, and the Pilot’s pricing structure tops out with Black Edition at $55,195. Our tester was an Elite AWD model, which starts at $53,945 and tallied $54,990 as-tested.

Major benefits to the Elite-and-up spending realm are niceties like adding ventilation to the already-heated seats, outboard heated seating for the second row, rain-sensing windshield wipers, Heads Up Display, and so on.

Though we usually don’t lean this way, our Pilot money would in fact be for the Elite trim. It adds quite a bit of kit on top of the Touring (which is only a few thousand dollars less expensive), and those buying a three-row SUV are likely expecting to spend a lot of time in it, so you might as well have the available luxuries if you can stomach the price. Even so, the Sport and EX-L models down the rung are still very solid.

Looking at the competition, the Pilot is still a very strong option. Honda reliability and packaging brilliance help sell the car, though we do wish there was a hybrid option available. We would easily pick the Pilot over the Explorer and Ascent, but the picture is a bit murkier when you look at newly introduced or heavily-revised vehicles like the Hyundai Palisade, Kia Telluride, Toyota Grand Highlander, and Volkswagen Atlas. Each of those has its own high highs and low lows, but the Pilot is just a good car through and through. Simple as that.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention and give a shout-out to the minivans out there, though, which cost roughly the same and offer even more practicality. More than once on this trip we pined for the sliding doors of an Odyssey, as getting kiddos in and out of the Pilot in a tight parking spot is more difficult than in a minivan. Different strokes for different folks, we suppose.

Final Thoughts:

It’s hard to get truly excited about a three-row unibody SUV, and the Pilot doesn’t necessarily change that.

Yet it is an excellent companion for family duty whether running errands or going on a week-long beach vacation. The 2026 Honda Pilot is an example of what Honda does best: allowing a vehicle to make everything it’s used for easier. It isn’t the most exciting option, but the Pilot is just a good choice through-and-through.

(The manufacturer provided insurance and a tank of fuel for this loan. - RB)