Blue Ox with Honda Fit automatic

[SunriseMtl]

I bought a blue ox last season to use hopefull this year and definitely next year. It came with all needed including the front plate for a Mini Cooper. I have been assuming that any vehicle I were to tow would need to be a manual transmission front wheel drive. So I have been looking for a Mini Cooper locally. However the other day I was talking with the person I bought by Winnebago from and he said that he had recently sold his newer rv and the person who bought it was going to tow a Honda Fit automatic but only certain model years would work. Can someone shed some light on this for me or perhaps direct me to a thread that does. I have looked and can't find any.
Thanks as always and safe travels!
Brian

[creativepart]

Search for either the Good Sam or FMCA Towing guides. They come out every year online and detail the cars eligible for flat towing or dingy towing.

Here’s a link to to FMCA guides:

https://www.fmca.com/motorhome/videos/player/24/38

[Morich]

I do not recommend this without some really definite info from the car manual for that speciifc year, make, and model with that specific transmission as I was somewhat misled by the Rv folks information!
While some newer cars with automatic transmissions CAN be flat towed, what they skipped over was HOW it was done and what extra provisions were involved when it was an electronic transmission!
If you are not really into the newer cars and newer transmissions, it is easy to miss some of the details. Some of the complications we got involved in were small points that I missed until having the car and getting it wired!

It got pretty complex to get the car, lights, and braking system wired in a way that left the car powered but left the transmission NOT powered!

Overall, I would have been far better off to have traded cars first, rather than going through the trauma of getting it wired and then after a couple years, things started going wrong with the electronics on the car. That put meinto a neverending circle as I had been lucky enough to have bought an extended warrenty.

But that warranty also turned out to be a game that had no end as the Ford folks first worked on the car numerous times and numerous dealers who all said it was fixed but always after a $100 deductable and finally coming back to needing to change the battery as the battery was not covered and even thought we had changed the battery several times!
AFTER all else they were able to fall back to it being "something" that the tow wiring had done, even though they could not say what!

The old game of "punt" between the hitch installer and dealer service! I really think both tried as the dealer even went as far as changing the transmission, which made the car work for almost a month! ($7000 shown for their paper loss?)

Be very careful about where you get the advise on what can and can't be flat towed. New cars are a whole new world of complex stuff that most of us will never be able to sort.
I found dealers service was not able to figure it either and finally traded the car!

[l1v3fr33ord1]

Brian-

I towed a 2009 Honda Fit Sport automatic for 30,000 miles. It was a "big" small car and a great toad. I called it "the rolling shed," as it carried certain items that would not fit well in the motorhome. The manual listed the tow prep procedure. I installed a charge line between motorhome and toad and did not remove any fuses for towing (even though the manual suggested doing so).

It's my understanding that most Honda Fit automatics and Honda CR-V automatics, 2014 or older, can be towed four-down. In any particular case of model and year, you should confirm by looking at the owner's manual. You can find manuals for Hondas online at this link.

[lenore]

The Honda CRV from 2014 and older can also be flat towed. The key on the newer vehicles is that they have CVT transmissions that cannot be flat towed. We have towed our CRV 2013 for over 8k miles with no issues. The manuals in the Honda actually tell you the sequence of events to perform before towing this way. kudos to Honda for doing this.

[Morich]

When looking in the car manuals, it may be helpful to know the correct term to look for in the index.
We found "recreational towing" was one term used in the books we searched! It dealt with the more specific questions of toad towing, rather than the normal towing for repair.

Good luck on the search. The right cars are out there but they are getting harder to find as many folks no longer want to use manual transmissions making the search more complex.

[SunriseMtl]

Thanks again to all for posting this great advice and information. As always I have found that joining this community is without a doubt the best decision I have made after buying my motorhome. Our Sunrise may not be new but she is our pride and joy. We are two years away from "perhaps" retirement and our current experiences will serve as a great primer for the next motorhome we buy. Cheers and safe travels.

[powercat_ras]

I towed a Honda 2015 HR-V with manual transmission, had to have the key in it to unlock the steering wheel so there was some battery drain that I addressed with a charge line.

There are Honda Fits with manual transmission, too. You have to go back a few years as the newest years dropped the manual transmission configuration.

[Morich]

And the mention of how to deal with battery drain brings up a second thought for prepping to tow!

Once we get past some of the bigger choices of what to tow, we can also do some good if we keep in mind how much the market may vary when it comes to getting the tow car ready to tow.

Our first car setup, we were pretty green to what it would take to get it fully ready and have all the right parts installed. So we went to a company who advertised doing that type work as they installed trailer hitches and set up trailers for towing.
Not knowing better we made a big mistake and went with what they told us we needed. That meant we paid far more and got far less in quality of install. We did not do a good job of shopping and there are many better options in this area!

The second time around we had gotten a far better idea of what each item we were getting was meant to do for us and we shopped folks who did that work and got a much better price as well as much better install.

In this area, we found there were at least two types of business that set trailers and cars up to tow. There is the group who deals with stock trailers, etc and knows very little about doing cars but insists they "do it all the time" and then there are those folks who actually do it all the time and know far more about what each car may need.

My final thought is to highly recommend trying to sort out what each item will do for you and at what cost. If you have a specific car and RV, there is no reason an install business should not be able to give you a line by line written estimate and then they should also be able to tell you what those items do!

After our experience with the second car install, I now know how little the first place actually knew about what they were doing!
I feel it totally normal for a place to ask definite for definite answers on what they need to know and then take a bit to get that estimate ready. This is what I would want to do if I was buying parts from others and theninstalling them. Their prices constantly change and I'm okay with them checking parts and prices BEFORE they tell me!
But that story should be over before I drop off the car, not done as they discover what they need to do!

Shop and compare and the "right" one will be willing to give you a solid estimate before you decide.

[fbuckwalter]

Originally Posted by SunriseMtl

I bought a blue ox last season to use hopefull this year and definitely next year. It came with all needed including the front plate for a Mini Cooper. I have been assuming that any vehicle I were to tow would need to be a manual transmission front wheel drive. So I have been looking for a Mini Cooper locally. However the other day I was talking with the person I bought by Winnebago from and he said that he had recently sold his newer rv and the person who bought it was going to tow a Honda Fit automatic but only certain model years would work. Can someone shed some light on this for me or perhaps direct me to a thread that does. I have looked and can't find any.
Thanks as always and safe travels!
Brian

A 2014 or previous Honda Civic can be towed wheels down. It has been several years since we bought the Civic we towed it around the country with no problems. It was only when I left the emergency brake on that I had issues!

[lenore]

Originally Posted by fbuckwalter

A 2014 or previous Honda Civic can be towed wheels down. It has been several years since we bought the Civic we towed it around the country with no problems. It was only when I left the emergency brake on that I had issues!

Oh lord I did the same thing with my CRV. jUST ruined the parking brake shoes and stress cracked the rotor, but was fixable. Now it is on my checklist before towing. Funny didnt feel anything with the Vita climbing through the Sierras, but when I stopped in Reno Nevada I noticed my fuel economy went down, check Honda and then found my big mistake. We ended up 6 k miles on that trip and CRV just didnt have a parking brake. until I got home.

[Keith H]

Originally Posted by lenore

The Honda CRV from 2014 and older can also be flat towed. The key on the newer vehicles is that they have CVT transmissions that cannot be flat towed. We have towed our CRV 2013 for over 8k miles with no issues. The manuals in the Honda actually tell you the sequence of events to perform before towing this way. kudos to Honda for doing this.

Confirm that 2014 Honda and older automatics can be towed 4 down. CVT transmissions cannot be towed at all according to the hand book.
We have towed our 2013 automatic CRV >20,000 miles with no issues.

[Heating man]

I flat tow a 2013 Fit it tows fine. The next generation fit has a CVT transmission and can only be towed with the stick transmission.

[Morich]

The CVT transmission is one that we felt was totally out!