Can AM RV

[honda03842]

Going to visit a friend who sold his Scamp 13 and purchased a new 22 foot
Shasta trailer, an Oasis FQ, weight 4700 pounds loaded. He towed the Scamp 13 with a Honda Odyssey.

Since the Shasta was well over the rating of the Odyssey, he went up to Can-AM RV in London Ontario for a custom set up. Today I'm going to see the result and hope to post pictures,

I will say he was very impressed by their professionalism and installation process.

From our discussion it appears the changes consisted of strengthening the hitch area and the Odyssey's backbone. This may be a reasonable solution for those that want to tow a Casita 17 but don't want to buy a truck just to tow a Casita 17.

Follow up pictures in the morning.

[Gompka]

Interested in more details in the upgrade, usually in most cars you run into the problem of overloading the rear suspension eay before you get into any frame limitations. Im tackling a similar issue, but for me it's as easy as changing out springs. Lucky, for me toyota released the rav4 adventure model and towing capacity went from 1500lbs to 3500lbs just by changing to stiffer springs and lifting the car 0.6". Im only towing a scamp 13 but I do have lots of weight on the tongue as it is and I also want to add bicycles so this will hopefully help the rear of the car from sagging so much and make things safer.

[TomK]

Hi Norm and Ginny. Your friends are also friends of ours. We live approx. one hour east of London, ON. They went to Can Am and had the weight distribution, sway bars and reinforcements installed, and picked up their new trailer here in MI. On the way home, they stopped by our house to show us their new rig. They then returned to Can Am on the way home to get the new system "balanced" and all adjustments completed.

They told us everything went well. They were very happy with the results, stating "It towed like a champ" Same as the Scamp, but lower mileage. After the final adjustment, they met the owner, and took it for a test ride. We didn't discuss the price, but I don't think it was cheap. It was certainly less than a new truck.

Can Am seems to have quite a reputation for this kind of thing. They are an RV dealer, with Airstream on their list of brands featured, and are highly regarded, maybe even considered legendary in those circles.

I was told the Oddessey has a towing limit of 3,500 lbs. Dry weight of their new trailer is listed as approx. 3,100 lbs so at least for the ride home, it was almost empty. We discussed how easy it would be to fill it full of "stuff" and quickly gain weight, but if careful; I don't think they'll have a problem. I wish them well!

Tom

[honda03842]

I don't think they'll have a problem. The max loaded weight is 4700 lbs.

The primary fix is the addition of a square tube from the bottom of the hitch receiver to the center of the rear axle. The tube was formed to follow the contour of the Odyssey and though I didn't measure it is a 1.5 to 2 inch square tube.

Beyond the addition of weight distribution bars, set up to have the Odyssey sit as it would unloaded by the trailer. It had two anti sway bars as well.

He did get less mpg than he did towing the Scamp but that's not surprising. I recall he said he got 12 to 15 towing the Shasta. He used to get 17 towing his Scamp 13.

What was surprising was how reasonably priced the trailer was. Of course not having to purchase a truck is a big deal and he loves his Odyssey.

Though i'm not surprised he was really impressed with Can-Am.


Attachment to receiver



Tube running to rear axle.

Attachment 1

Connection to rear axle.

Not the best pictures but.....

[Mike Magee]

I keep having to remind myself that today's V6 engines put out more HP and torque than the pickup truck engines of the '60s and '70s. The minivan certainly should handle better. I guess the questions would be how the cooling system and brakes will fare.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Mike Magee

I keep having to remind myself that today's V6 engines put out more HP and torque than the pickup truck engines of the '60s and '70s. The minivan certainly should handle better. I guess the questions would be how the cooling system and brakes will fare.

Hi Mike,

The Odyssey's brakes work well. The trailer has it's own brakes and hopefully they work as well. We've towed our Scamp (2600 lbs) for four years with the Odyssey, now almost 100,000 miles, and they have yet to get new pads., though this September we'll install them.

We also have a transmission cooler on the Odyssey, it's huge and seems to work well. At 80,000 miles we replaced the transmission fluid and it was relatively clean. We use full synthetic oil and change it every 7,000 miles.

As we approach half our Odyssey ownership, we are very happy. Definitely a comfortable, powerful car. On the rare occasions I really step on the accelerator I'm shocked by the powerful response. Discounting impossible windy days we typically exceed 18 mpg towing.

New trucks have become very expensive and diesels are another whole story.

We are still a one vehicle family, going on 20 years, and key to us is reliability. We've always had good results with Honda though I do know there are other reliable vehicles. It's like a wife, if you have a good one, stick with her.