Towing an Odyssey

Want to pull an Odyssey behind my motorhome. I checked a couple RV
Magazine sites and Odyssey was not in their list. But neither was the
Civic and I tow that just fine. I don't want to have to do any
modifications to it, nothing more than the run it for 3 minutes every
8 hours routine.

 

My dad pulls his Odyssey behind his motor home with out any problems. He had to
modify it some for a tow bar and he has added a braking system.

Go over to rec.outdoors.rv-travel for the group that can really talk about the
subject of towing cars behind RV's.

Regards
Dean

 

Pull the drive wheels off the ground.

With the Odyssey transmission issues that have abounded, you don't want
to take any chances. I wouldn't trust putting it in neutral and towing
it wheels down.

 

I participate on rec.outdoors.rv-travel, but we know less than you
give us credit for.

 

I used to lurk there from time to time, but during the recent US election season
it got more political than normal so I quit hanging for a few months.

I just called Dad and he told me that all automatic Hondas from 95 on can be
flat towed. Apparently they are designed so that the trans axle and
transmission use the same lubrication pool so there is no need to stop every so
often to run the engine. The procedure he follows is to connect the car to the
coach and put the transmission in each gear for a few moments. Starting in
park, reverse, drive, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, (or whatever the Odyssey has) and back to
neutral. Turn the ignition off, but not in the lock position, and go. His only
comments were that you have to go from drive to neutral, NOT reverse to neutral.
And if you let the car sit over night you should repeat the shifting process,
but again there is no need to do it if you are actively towing the vehicle.

I guess I could have posted the same thing over in rec.outdoors.rv-travel, but I
don't know what the OP level of sophistication is regarding RV's. The regulars
over there can help in the various issues that come from RV'ing. Though the
challenge over there is filtering the off topic static. At least this group
stays generally on topic.

Dean

 

Thanks for calling Dean. That's what I do with the Civic that I tow
now and it isn't on the list for the RV magazines. I checked further
and the magazines say they only include the vehicles the manufacturers
specifically say they have tested as towable. I have seen other
people pulling Odysseys but you don't now if they were modified.

 

If you're asking, is any special equipment needed, other than the towing
device; the answer is no. However; you MUST follow the transmission
preparation procedure, (as you have pointed out), and run the engine and
shift the transmission through the gears after 8 continuous hours of
towing.
The trans failure when these precautions are not observed, are very well
known, even by the dumb-assed dealers. So if you forget, it's going to
cost you big time. The choice ultimately, is all yours.

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