We are considering buying a used 36' Foretravel. Would like to use a tow dolly for our Odyssey. We enjoy bicycling and use the Odyssey as a garage for our recumbent tandem. Does anyone tow a van on a dolly with their Foretravel?
Al
Kulpmont, PA
I have read that owners have flat towed their Odysseys. Have a friend that just set his up to flat tow last year.
Welcome, Al. Check out Store : Remco (http://www.remcoindustries.com/Towing/Store.php) to find out whether you can flat tow your Odyssey.
The advantage of flat towing is that there is no trailer or dolly to deal with once you are unhooked. The disadvantage is that you absolutely cannot back up while hooked up. If you get into a spot that requires backing up you must unhook the toad.
If you already have a trailer that can safely carry the Odyssey and don't mind having that trailer with you wherever you go that would be the cheapest route.
Check the weights carefully. If the difference between the Gross Combined Weight Rating and the Gross Weight Rating of the coach is close to the weight of the Odyssey (and trailer, if you go that way) a trip to the scales is necessary. If there is plenty of room then you won't have to worry as much.
Al, I have a 2004 Odyssey that was owned by a friend who towed it successfully for 6 years. It had 204K miles on it when the tranny failed. Honda offered him 3500 in trade in BUT wanted to charge him 4400 to replace the tranny. At this point I traded him a Saturn that I had and had the tranny repaired locally for 2400. In my opinion these Honda's are bulletproof, the 99-04 models have known tranny problems but they can be repaired.
FYI, I have sold my FT and I have the BlueOx baseplate off the 04 Odyssey for sale. If you can use it drop me a PM.
Gary B
David,
That about describes it. Flat towing makes you have to plan ahead a bit but unhooking should go fairly fast. Vehicle gets a little more wear flat towing but saves on weight and expense. A dolly with it's short length, might be difficult to back up and also to unhook and move the dolly/car combination. The trailer with a fairly long tongue is the easiest to back but eliminates a lot of campsites where you are stuck with the RV, a trailer and the car once it's off the trailer.
Our RAV4 is just under the 3000 lb limit for towing without brakes in most states. We have a portable brake unit but don't take it with us as the U300 has excellent brakes.
Pierce
We needed to trade cars anyway, as well as go from two to one, so we bought our 2012 Jeep Liberty specifically with 4-down towing in mind. The Blue Ox towbar and baseplate, along with the InvisiBrake, didn't come cheap, but we can take the Jeep without worrying about any sort of trailer. Hooking up or unhooking takes maybe five minutes each.
Flat towing is the way to go. I started off with a dolly and it was always in the way. I am currently towing a 2006 Honda Pilot with no problems. You MUST use the proper shift sequence however. That said, I consider the dolly to be best option until you find the best car for you to flat tow. Used dollies are cheap and easy to sell when you're done with them
We flat tow our Jeep Wrangler (using just a Harbor Freight towbar with a welded connection on the not-stock bumper) but we also have used a dolly (sitll have it) when we take the 4-door sedan (Kia Optima). I really don't think it's much of a hassle to use the dolly but the Jeep is much narrower (dollies are wide) and seems to follow pretty well. The nice things about having a tow dolly is that you can take more vehicles and they have brakes.
Stowing the dolly in a campground is no problem... we simply push the tongue under the motor home.
Craig
Thanks for the info Craig. With a tow dolly, I would have more choices...take the Odyssey or Ion.
Al
I too am looking at a tow dolly. As soon as the platform motorcycle lift sells and frees up warehouse space. Then we can sell the Saturn wagon toad, stop towing the Avalanche, and then take the Sienna van, as a better running around vehicle.
Tandem Tow Dolly HDXL (http://www.shop4motorcycletrailers.com/product/CTD01HDXL)
We have used this one for 7 years. Surge brakes, movable piviot, ramps, trash guard easy on off. ^.^d
I should add that some Jeeps are not amenable to using a tow dolly; apparently they need all four wheels on the ground to keep things working right. Our '99 Wrangler is supposed to be this way and this is why I got the HF tow bar, the BrakeBuddy and modified the (already heavily modified) front bumper. I don't recall all the details but make sure your vehicle can be towed on a dolly. Front-wheel-drive cars are generally ok. AWD are not always ok. Rear-wheel-drive vehicles can be a problem, as well.
It's always something...
Craig