hi, i am moving 1000 miles south and i am thinking towing my 99 civic with my 08 odyssey by using uhual’s tow dolly. Uhual people told me it is fine but I am just not confident enough. Do anyone recommend or not recommend doing this? It is attempting because it is cheap but don’t want to take too much risk. Thanks.
sounds good to me, but before you set out at hiway speed, Make some test STOPS with the rig to get the feel of how much pre-planning is needed for safe stops with that extra weight. ( dollies don’t have brakes. )
Once you have that braking feel you will properly adjust your driving top speed and braking distance accordingly.
What a coincidence. Driving south on I-55 yesterday I saw an Odyssey towing 2 Corollas. I thought that would be illegal but neither a sheriff’s deputy nor a state trooper paid any attention. And the van was cruising at near 70 mph until a long 2% grade got the best of it.
I would be leary of the brakes handling all that weight in a panic stop and concerned of the possible damage to the transmission. The Odyssey is rated to pull 3,500 so Honda thinks it’s no problem. How much experience to you have towing trailers and cars? A 1,000 mile trip can make for a tough maiden cruise for you.
Its going to put a lot of stress and strain on your Odyssey. If you can hire someone to drive the Civic, and you drive the Odyssey, that’d probably work out better. There may be a student at your local college for example who needs a ride home and all you need to do is post a request for a driver on a bulletin board in the student union or the modern electronic equivalent.
I do this quite often myself, not to find drivers, but to find somebody to help me out with some home improvement or landscaping project or another. It’s good for everybody concerned, gives the student some spending and tuition money, and saves me some muscle and back pain.
The thought of towing seems to make the OP nervous, why not just sell the 1999 and replace it. The thought of possibly wrecking both vehicles would make me avoid it.
Years ago I was towing a repossessed car behind another repossessed car and had to stop suddenly and ended off the highway with both cars damaged.
Thanks everyone for your prompt reply. Just post it in Craigslist.
It’s all about where those 1000 miles are? If you are going through mountains, then I’d dump the plan. If the roads are generally flat, it isn’t so stressful on the Odyssey transmission. The tranny in the Odyssey isn’t very robust and that’s where most of the stress lands.
I think the OP means by (Just post it in Craigslist) that they are selling the car instead of towing it 1000 miles.
As someone who has driven real long hauls, is 1,000 miles really a long haul?
Let the U-Haul people hook it up and strap it down, and everything will be fine. The Civic is well within the Odyssey’s 3,800# towing capacity.
If the Civic is a stick shift, you can tow it with all four wheels on the ground.
As someone who has driven real long hauls, is 1,000 miles really a long haul?
It’s all perspective. If you’ve only driven in your local town…then driving 200 miles is a long haul.
I certainly agree with Mike on that comment. Way back in 1965, I took my old '53 Chevrolet to Fort Lewis, around 2000 miles. We later drove long trips a lot. My daughter married a man (the one who bought that old NSX) who thinks a trip to San Antonio from McAllen is transpolar. The first time she told him she was driving to Illinois to visit her grandma, that poor lad almost had a heart attack. San Antonio was first restroom break.
In 1997, we retired and took a yellow rental truck with all out household goods in it, and our 8 passenger wagon behind it on a car trailer, not sure what to call it. That trip was around 1500 miles. I had no real problem. But, I am sure it helped that I used to drive a large straight truck before military service.
In 2005, I helped move my son to Virginia from Amarillo. It involved a rental truck with a trailer that left the rear wheels on the ground. While we were loading it, my Son-in-law (different one) started nagging me that I should disconnect the car trailer from the truck. I did know what I was doing and wanted the professional hook-up. He threw such a major tantrum because I did not obey him, that I haven’t been back since, 11 years.
He informed me, as a devout Christian who tries to follow the Bible, that when I visited his house I must OBEY him. That is not what the Bible says, of course. In any case, I have complied with his orders by not going to his house again.
The truck wasn’t even on his property. And, i was the person who was going to drive it well over 1000 miles on the highway. It was a case of him throwing his weight around, and he certainly has plenty of it.