Dec 24, 2011

Opening Honda Pilot's Rear Hatch with a dead Battery

The other day my wife called me at work asking me to return home immediately as our 2009 Honda Pilot wasn't making even clicking sounds when she tried starting it. I knew right away that little Nyle must have checked out all the switches in it and left a couple of lights on overnight. Well, the Mr. Know it all wasn't worried at all, he had stowed away a pair of jump cables away in the storage space at the back of Honda Pilot. All That was required was to go home, take the cables out, and jump start. What Mr. Know it all wasn't prepared for was that the rear hatch wouldn't open with a dead battery. Hmmmmmmmmmm............ not to worry, Mr. KIA knew there's always Google to go to for getting advice on solving any problem in the world, he had stopped following the well established rule of RTFM (Read The Manual). Well. any help forum MKIA Googled were filled with people complaining about Honda not having an option to open the rear hatch with a dead battery, and the jump cables could not be taken out unless the rear hatch was opened. Luckily, deep buried inside one of the forums was a comment about the solution being on page 93 of the vehicle's user manual, however the very next comment mentioned that the user manual showed how to replace batteries in the key fob. That dampened any hopes I had, but then I realized the link provided by the original poster was pointed to page 90 and not 93, and there it was on page 93 showing a two step process of opening the hatch without using electric power. It involves just opening a small plastic panel on the inside of the hatch and manually unlocking using a convenient lever provided by the wonderful Honda engineers. Unfortunately I couldn't find the posting again (will update whenever I find it again), however, Google comes to the rescue again and here's the link to 2009 Honda Pilot User Manual, you will find the solution on Page 145 instead.