Saturday after 4+ hours of driving gf's Pilot in 90+ heat Check Engine light with check emissions system came on at same time as VTM4 (AWD & traction control) light came on.
No rough idling, misfiring, or anything else odd.
Pulled over to first safe spot turned off car and checked gas cap and looked under hood didn't see anything obvious.
Restarted car and VTM4 light was off but Check engine light stayed on, rest of the day of driving the VTM4 light would come on after ~20 minutes of driving.
When we got back home stopped at O'Reillys (auto parts store) and only trouble code shown is P0404 which is likely EGR related.
Emissions Check engine light stayed on even after the reset at the parts store.
From various sources online it looks like the VTM4 light will come on and system will be disabled if it senses various engine issues.
Also found this TSB https://www.tsbsearch.com/Honda/13-103 via Honda forums but oddly that TSB doesn't show up on NHTSA list for 2013 Pilot or on https://www.autocodes.com/tsb/search...404&make=honda latter shows TSB for Honda Odyssey
I don't consider myself a full mechanic but I was assistant manager at auto parts store when younger, and prior to my pain issues did all regular maintenance on my own cars.
I've got buddy in town that is a mechanic, former Ford Dealership mechanic now senior mechanic at independent shop but its a holiday weekend and I probably won't hear back from him till maybe next weekend. Schedule wise it might take weeks for him to have the time to work on this outside of his day job (ie far less $'s), I know Garage he's working at is running 2-3 weeks out at best for opening to work on anything and any place else I trust around here would be similar.
Additionally this coming week is very busy for both of us since its start of school year and we are working school related jobs.
Few questions I'm trying to get reliable answers to:
I know on older cars EGR/emissions stuff not likely to damage engine or anything if you need couple weeks or more to get it fixed, but I'm seeing conflicting information about this generation of Honda Pilot. Is it okay to drive it loaded full of stuff for few weeks with this issue or not? Girlfriend uses it for her part time Craft business selling crafts at various shows and has big show coming up next weekend that she's already paid for and its a big money maker for her. My car is optimized for MPG not cargo capacity since we have her SUV.
Anyway short of going to dealer to see if this Pilot has received the update mentioned in the TSB?
Not clear to me if the update should be done before or after replacing EGR, the TSB lists it as last step but my understanding of the potential issue is the software can cause damage to the EGR in some situations, and IDK if Covid related price hike but the EGR is $235 (I checked several cheaper online sources the listed about hundred less but they were all out of stock) so don't want to have to put two of them in.