The 2010 Honda Pilots were a lot like the other model years made around this time and were able to achieve the same 4,500 lb. towing capacity, if certain requirements were met. If your vehicle was overloaded, then you would lose all of your available capacity, so you do need to look at the charts and study them in order to know how to get the most out of your vehicle.
Be sure to read through your owner's manual to familiarize yourself with your vehicle and make sure you adhere to Honda's requirements when it comes to anything regarding your vehicle.
2010 Pilot Overview
Overall Towing Capacity: The towing capacity for the 2010 Honda Pilots ranged from 0-4,500 lbs. It really boils down to whether you had a two-wheel drive model or a four-wheel drive model and the number of occupants in the vehicle.
Engine Options: Like all other model year Pilots, only one engine was available and this was the 3.5 L engine. This engine came in a V6 configuration and is the main reason why a lot of the model years have similar specs when we compare the data between the different model years.
Trim Levels: You did have the choice between four different trim levels, when it came to the 2010 models, but it had no impact on the weight ratings that we see in the charts. All trim levels had some tow capacity and other factors impacted the weight ratings instead.
Assumed Weight: There was an assumed weight that was specified by Honda and you can find this at the bottom of the chart that I have posted a little bit lower in this article. Honda makes the assumption that each occupant weighs 150 lbs. and has an additional 15 lbs. of cargo for occupant, which would give us a grand total of 165 pounds per occupant.
The Tow Chart:
The 2010 Honda Pilot chart was actually divided up into two separate charts, dividing the vehicle up into two-wheel drive models and four-wheel drive models. The charts essentially had the same type of data in them, with the number of occupants listed on the left-hand side and then you have your maximum trailer weight rating to the right of that and finally your maximum tongue load weight rating on the furthest right-hand column.
The four-wheel drive models had a 4,500 lb. maximum capacity, while the two-wheel drive models only had a 3,500 lb. capacity. Note how both of the charts list no capacity whatsoever if you had eight occupants in the vehicle and how the more occupants you had in the vehicle, the less capacity (overall) you had.
Tongue Weight Rating:
The maximum towing weight ratings were listed in the chart, like we already talked about, but I was able to find another tidbit of information that talks about what the ideal tongue weight rating should be on your vehicle and this is specified for boat trailers and all other types of trailers.
If you happen to be pulling a boat trailer behind you, then Honda recommendeds that 5 to 10% of the trailer's total weight should be on the vehicle's hitch and if you're towing any other type of trailer behind you, then that amount was increased to 8 to 15% of the total trailer weight.
Tongue Weight Rating
Trailer Brakes:
When pulling any additional weight behind you, you have to remember that your vehicle's braking system is only designed to handle the maximum weight that is specified for the vehicle, not the vehicle and additional weight. This is where having a set of trailer brakes come in and it is actually law that you have to have trailer brakes installed on your trailer if it weighs over a certain amount.
Honda specifies that trailer brakes are required on your trailer if it weighs 1,000 lbs. or more but your local laws may differ from those requirements, so I suggest you look into what those limits are and make sure you satisfy both Honda's requirements and your local law enforcement agencies' requirements.
Trim Levels:
There were four different trim levels listed for the 2010 Honda Pilots, which you can find in the brochure that I have linked to at the bottom of this article. These four trim levels were labeled as the: LX, EX, EX-L and Touring Editions.
I do want to note that the trim level that your vehicle came equipped with did not affect the maximum trailer weight ratings, other factors like the number of occupants in the vehicle and whether you had a two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive model were the two main contributors.
GVWR, GCWR and GAWR Figures:
GVWR: The gross vehicle weight rating was specified in the owner's manual and I was able to take a screenshot of what that was and posted it below. If we look at the image below, we can see that the four-wheel drive models had a gross vehicle weight rating of 6,096 lbs., well the two-wheel drive models came in at 5,952 lbs.
GCWR: The gross combined weight ratings were listed in a similar fashion and we can see that the four-wheel drive models were listed at 9,579 lbs., while the two-wheel drive models came in at 8,466 pounds.
There is a note that talks about higher elevation areas and how you must reduce the gross combined weight rating 2% for every 1,000 feet of elevation change. So, if you are planning on traveling somewhere that is 3,000 feet in elevation, you would have to reduce the overall gross combined weight rating metrics by 6%.
GAWRs: The gross axle weight ratings were also listed in the manual and they were specified for both the front and rear axles, which is typical. If we look at the two-wheel drive models, we can see that the front axle had a rating of 2,921 pounds, while the rear axle had a rating of 3,196 lbs.
The four-wheel drive models had the same front axle rating, coming in at 2,921 lbs., but the rear axle ratings were set at 3,362 lbs. for all models except for the LX model, which had a separate rating of 3,251 lbs.
Other Notes I Found:
I kept looking through the owner's manual seeing if I can find any more helpful information that I could add to this article, and I did stumble across a couple of different things that I thought would be helpful.
The first bit of information talks about pulling a trailer off-road and you will want to read through this section if you're planning on doing that because the maximum trailer weight rating was significantly reduced to 1,000 lbs. and the tongue weight rating was reduced to 100 lbs., among other things.
The other bit of information talks about how the 2010 Pilots should not use a weight distributing hitch when pulling a trailer because of issues that may arise when driving down the road from an improperly adjusted weight distributing hitch.
Helpful Links:
The two main resources I use in the research for this article came from the owner's manual, which I already mentioned many times in this article already, and from the 2010 brochure. The owner's manual is really what gave me the bulk of my information and it's where all of the images I have posted on this article came from. The brochure was also helpful and I like having different resources to look at when doing my research.
I wanted to link to both of these resources for those of you out there that may want to do a little digging yourself.