Honda Pilot vs Toyota Highlander (2023-2026 vs 2020-2024): Which Should You Buy?

Toyota's Highlander scores higher on paper (reliabilityScore 8 vs. 7), but the honest answer depends on which Highlander you're cross-shopping. The hybrid and 2023+ turbo Highlander have cleaner documented records than the Pilot — no comparable hardware failure pattern — while the 2020–2022 V6 carries a real liability: its UA80 8-speed transmission has a documented pattern of hesitation, harsh shifts, and shudder serious enough to draw a class-action lawsuit, with worst-case repairs of $2,500–$9,000. The Pilot has nothing that severe on record — its problems (a stall-risk FI-ECU software bug, an unstaked brake pedal pin, a fuel filler neck leak) are all factory mistakes with free recall fixes, and the worst out-of-pocket item logged is a $180–$400 12V battery — but that's partly because the 4th-gen Pilot is only three years old, versus the Highlander's longer, more-tested run since 2020. Buy the Highlander hybrid, or a 2023+ turbo with the ECU reflash confirmed, ahead of either the Pilot or a 2020–2022 V6 Highlander; if you're choosing specifically between the Pilot and a V6 Highlander, test-drive the transmission hard — a UA80 failure is far more expensive than anything documented on the Pilot to date.

• •The Highlander isn't one reliability record — it's three. Hybrid (A25A + eCVT, no belts/clutches) is the standout; 2023+ turbo (T24A-FTS) looks clean so far; the 2020-2022 V6's UA80 8-speed is the one documented weak spot in the whole lineup, so 'buy the Highlander' really means 'buy the right Highlander.'
• •The Pilot's entire documented problem list is recall-covered (25V-031, 25V-391, 24V-900) — $0 to the owner if the recall is done. The Highlander V6's transmission risk is not recall-covered; it's a class-action/TSB pattern the owner can still get stuck paying $2,500-9,000 for.
• •Reliability score gap partly reflects data maturity, not just build quality: the Highlander generation has been on sale since 2020 with real 150k-mile-range reporting behind its score, while the Pilot generation is three years old and its new J35Y8 V6/10-speed have no long-mileage track record yet.