Honda Pilot vs Toyota Grand Highlander: Interior, performance, and more

Last year, five models of large (and very large) two- and three-row SUVs sold very well. Combining the Toyota Grand Highlander and Highlander, the Honda Pilot, Kia Telluride, and Hyundai Palisade, you’re looking at large crossovers in the $40,000 to $500,000 range.

FYI: The Hyundai won our Buzz Award for Best Family Car, largely because the value game is exceptional. Despite the model-year change for the Palisade, Hyundai had a record year selling that vehicle. Telluride sales increased, even though the new Telluride had just arrived. Toyota’s picture is a little more nuanced. Toyota discontinued the slow-selling Highlander last year and is now making the Grand Highlander, a roomier version, with combined sales down just under 20 percent in 2025.

And the pilot? There was a decline in sales last year. But I would argue that Honda takes a pretty good middle ground in terms of price and performance. It doesn’t win on any one metric, but after driving it for a week, it’s very nice in a subtle way, and there are certain types of buyers who should probably look at the Pilot who might be overlooking this Honda.

base trim engine

3.5-litre V6

base trim transmission

10-speed automatic

base trim drivetrain

Front-wheel Drive

Base Trim Horsepower

285 hp

base trim torque

262 B-feet

Make

Honda

Sample

pilot

Section

midsize suv

It looks better than the Grand Highlander

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

I’m well aware that when you’re shopping for a family rig, beauty comes 15th on the list of priorities, but I think the Pilot looks great, and even if you’re all about taking the kids to school, band practice, and everywhere in between, you’ve got to love a beast of burden, um, piloting. This Honda not only accomplishes those tasks, but also looks great down the road.

faster than inside

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

those are digging shots elite trim pilotThat will leave you with a painful $55,000. But the pilot’s basic goodness is not that cruel. Pricing for the Sport starts at $43,690 with destination, and comes with heated leather seats, wireless phone pairing, wireless charger, and Honda Sense (a suite of safety tech). The latter includes emergency braking, lane keeping if you start drifting off the road and a low-speed function for later, during and after use of cruise control (which is adaptive). This enables cruise control to be used easily not only on the interstate but also in the city, as you can re-engage the system with a simple throttle tap from a stoplight. The safety suite also prevents merging into your blind spot and includes a backup cross-traffic monitor as well as automatic high beams.

Does anyone have kids at Honda?

The pilot has double-decker cubbies on the second row doors. On the way back, there are dual cupholders for passengers outboard. No, I doubt your kids are that thirsty, but with 12 cupholders spread across this cabin, their toys, action figures and food can all find a happy home in this cabin. (Yes, you’ll definitely murder the vacuum cleaner at some point, sucking up one of those toys too).

But the bigger picture is that the Pilot is extremely practical, and the execution of each storage space, and the buttons you reach for as a driver, all feel a little more clear and understandable. Nothing is playful, delicate, or “gem-like.” This isn’t a Bentley, this is a Honda, so you can stuff a giant, 40-ounce water bottle in a door pocket in the middle of a trip and have it swallowed whole.

Where Honda falls short

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

I don’t mean this as a joke, I mean it literally. Take a look at this extremely information-dense table and find out the moderate cargo capacity behind the third row and also see how the Pilot compares to the Toyota on total cargo capacity. Here, the Honda is very close to both the Hyundai and Kia in terms of space, but the Toyota, whether you get the hybrid or not, remains ahead of the competition in the fight to carry stuff and people together.

The Hyundai Palisade I recently tested is exceptionally quiet, with standard acoustic glass on the front doors and windshield. And all 2027 Kia Telluride models get standard acoustic glass at the front. The Pilot I tested seemed at least as quiet as the Toyota Grand Highlander in my recent test drive, but I’m giving the nod here to the Palisade, which has an almost luxury refinement that Toyota and Honda can’t match. (Note: I’ll be buying the new Kia Telluride soon, but if I were in the market, I’d definitely cross-shop that family rig, too.)

Short on a standard technical feature

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

I don’t have your kids; You do. And they may be too small to care about USB charging, but unless you move up to the EX-L trim ($46,190) or above, you’re limited to four USB ports. Spend more, and that increases to six USBs. Meanwhile, the base Telluride and base Grand Highlander each get Seven USB port. More is definitely better in our device-charging-starved era.

Smooth transmission gives Honda the edge

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

While the Pilot isn’t exactly fast, Honda has equipped it with a 10-speed gearbox, which gives it better power delivery, especially compared to the base (non-hybrid) Toyota and Hyundai Palisade. In fact, the only issue I encountered while testing the Hyundai was that the transmission seemed to “hunt” when climbing steep hills. The Honda faces zero gear-change challenges, and I’d add that the shorter wheelbase and excellent damping enable better, more agile handling.

TopSpeed’s Tech

TopSpeed ​​| michael frank

In my book, the biggest reason to prefer a Hyundai or Kia over a Honda is that the Telluride and Palisade get more standard safety tech. Base safety includes pedestrian detection, parking distance warning, lane-centering cruise control, and 10 airbags, all at the entry price, and you’ll have to move up the trim (and price) ladder to get these features from Honda.

Importantly, beyond the technology, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gives the Honda Pilot its second-highest Top Safety Pick rating, but the Palisade beats it out with the Top Safety Pick+ award. The outgoing Telluride, FYI, had a Top Safety Pick+ rating, but that’s for 2025, not the redesigned 2027 model that hasn’t been rated yet.

Given all this, the Hyundai we chose for our Buzz Award still feels like a strong competition against the Honda. That said, I’ll still test both. That’s because the family-friendly features and layout of Honda’s interior are so impressive. Then again, I’m not you. You might want to prefer the Toyota among all these options because of its extra spacious space, and I can’t fault that choice.