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PATwhacker, It's not the 1990's anymore. Minivans mostly have 3,500# tow ratings that include a fair amount of van cargo before deducting from tow capacity. And my Fleetwood popup has a GVWR a full 1,500# higher than it's dry weight. We put all our food, clothes, bedding, camp chairs, cookware and lots of other misc gear in the camper and it only adds up to 700#. Not even close to max capacity. CCC does vary by model, but it's not hard to find one with plenty of cargo weight capacity, especially if you're not looking for slideouts and such.

Our first minivan was an 03 Honda Odyssey. We've had it since new and it has about 20,000 miles of towing duty on it of its 220,000 total miles now. Every bit of the powertrain and suspension is still factory original. Hard to say that kind of record isn't good towing performance. It's still our backup van and we only bought another because I promised my wife a new one before we hit 200k for her daily driver. It's nice to have a beater spare car though. Especially one that almost never breaks!

Wiring the brake controller on a minivan is a hassle though. I'll certainly grant that. No plug and play harness provided.

Did the same thing a little over a year ago (see signature). Check out popupportal Lots of people over there towing with a minivan.

Adam

I would never use a minivan to tow a pup Most pup gear in the van i.e. Coolers. Clothes dry goods ect. Pup 700 to 300lbs payload. Fill up minivan seats. Numbers never lie.


My Jayco has surge brakes. Not like I' need away with a overkill tow vehicle

As much as I love Jayco's trailer, if you look Jayco do not get one with surge brakes. I had 2 pups with surge brakes and I hated them. Electric is the only way to go.

We tow our Fleetwood / Coleman Sun Valley with the Odyssey and it's a perfect match. Those aren't made anymore, but last I looked Jayco sold something similar in the 1207 floor plan. King bunks can sleep 3 big kids fairly easily, queen mom/dad, and the couch #6. Lots of top-down accessible storage space and a portipotti storage cabinet. Avoid full bathroom models. You haven't got the weight capacity to have that AND a good amount of living space. A pop-tent can be used to hold the toilet outside for privacy.

So there are things you'll miss a lot about a hard side RV that you can't help in any pup, but there are also things you can do to mitigate those issues. I've pulled with an Odyssey for a LONG time now and they take some work to make really good popup tow vehicles. You'll need:

1. Install ATF auxiliary cooler and PS fluid coolers. Aftermarket units are both cheaper and have higher cooling capacity than the official Honda accessories.
2. Get a 2" receiver hitch, not a smaller one. E-trailer.com has good options.
3. Unless you are SURE your pup will have surge brakes (only Jayco still makes those), you need to custom wire the Ody for an electric brake controller. The Honda tow package does not include this. Do a charge wire while you're at it.
4. Get a light duty weight distributing hitch, rated 500# max, preferably more like 400. More is not better with a unibody minivan!
5. Pump van tires to 40psi for towing and change ATF every 30k miles (easy to do on this car!). Synthetic engine oil recommended (And I swap in one quart of 0w30 while the rest is 0w20 to maintain enough viscosity on long hot mountain grades).

Now limit your popup choice to one with a maximum DRY weight of 2,000#, based on your noted 6 people van load. Keep the LOADED weight under about 2,700# to stay within your van axle ratings. With wdh, it will be your front axle that hits capacity first. Use CAT scales to dial in wdh just right and verify all your ratings. Blow of Honda's sliding scale of tow capacity vs passengers in the manual. That's for those who can't add and subtract (You can, right?), or are too scared to use a truck scale.

This limits you to a 12' box, low wall pup with no front trunk or slideouts. CAN you pull more? Sure, but you'll be over some ratings. In the long run, that will cause you problems.

Pick a floorplan that allows you large amount of top-down accessible storage space. That will allow you to load and unload at home without popping the top, a HUGE time savings. It also keeps you van cargo minimized which is important because they'll be closer to max than the trailer axle.

Pack light and minimize frivolous accessories to keep under that 2,700# target trailer weight. No firewood, no water, no rock collections, no bikes, etc. Pup life is happiest when you keep it simple anyways.

Good luck!