2003 HONDA PILOT — Complaint #1837536
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:SOFTWARE filed August 31, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1837536 (ODI reference 11482224) concerns a 2003 HONDA PILOT and was filed on August 31, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 24, 2022. The vehicle had 89,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Alabama based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:software, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: yes, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same HONDA PILOT cohort independently describe similar electrical system:software failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2003 HONDA PILOT shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owned a 2003 Honda Pilot. The contact stated she was informed by her daughter that the inside passenger side of the vehicle was on fire. The contact extinguished the fire with water. The fire department arrived afterward and informed that the electronic software was the cause of the fire. The contact was unsure if a fire report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed. There were no injuries or medical treatments needed. The contact notified a local mechanic regarding the failure and was informed of the same information which the fire department provided. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 89,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1837536 |
| ODI Number | 11482224 |
| Date Filed | August 31, 2022 |
| Failure Date | August 24, 2022 |
| VIN | 2HKYF18483H |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.