2011 Pilot cranking without key in ignition
 

Recently my 6 year old got a hold of the car keys and went into the garage to get a toy out of our 2011 Pilot. Next thing we know, she’s running into the house yelling “Run for your life!!” and we can hear the car’s engine cranking in the garage. She said she was trying to manually unlock the driver’s door with the key when the engine starting cranking.

Of course I didn’t believe her, but after everyone was in bed I was messing around with the key in the driver’s door and discovered that if I turn the key counter clockwise and then back to the upright position 3 or 4 times rapidly, the lights all come on and the engine starts cranking. The engine doesn’t actually start, but will crank for 2 or 3 seconds and then stop, and then crank again and stop, over and over. The only way I can make it stop is to then get into the car and put the keyin the ignition.

I looked through the owner’s manual and couldn’t find anything about this. Is the car supposed to do this? Is it supposed to actually start the engine if you do this? It’s odd to me that there would be a “feature” that would just crank a cold engine repeatedly.

I called a local Honda dealer who said that this was impossible and that I was probably just hearing the window motorrunning so I don't have a lot of faith there.

I also made a video of myself doing this, which is here:


Thoughts?

welcome to the forum. try the same thing with another key and no fob near by the car. if it still does the same thing possible wiring.