Does anyone have a Honda Odyssey and can give me pros and cons on it (hopefully lots of pros, please!)

We're in the market for a 7 seater and took a new one of these for a test drive this morning. I like it as it's not really big and van-like, or heavy and bulky to drive. Actually, I love the way it drives, so smooth.

DH was also very impressed, which surprised me seeing as he is a 'Holden only' man!

We are looking at getting the luxury model too. DH is also impressed with the heated seats and the electronic button to fold the back seats up and down, lol.

My questions are:
- do you find the boot space sufficient?
I doubt that I will ever need to put a pram in the boot and do grocery shopping at the same time, so I don't need room for both at the same time.

- I was just reading in the brochure that there are 5 child safety harness points. The dealer showed us the 3 on the roof at the back, so where are the other 2?

- how fuel economical is it?
how much does it cost to fill up, and how many k's on average do you get out of a full tank?

- does anyone have a roof DVD player fitted aswell?
it doesn't come with one, but looking at it, it doesn't seem to have the room to fit one in along with the sunroof and aircon for the back.

- is there anything you wish it did have?

Can't think of anything else atm, hope someone can help!

It is 6 months since we looked at the Odessy and perhaps it has changed slightly in that time but the one we looked (brand new now second hand) at was appallingly designed as far as installing car seats. I was actually quite shocked that they had done such a bad job of thinking through where to put the anchor points in a supposedly family car. The 2nd row anchor points if used rendered the seats behind either useless or at least very unpleasant to use and would also have to be undone in order to slide the 2nd row forward or back. The third row had no points at all - I think they had to be custom fitted (if that was even possible). Also you could only realisticly fit two car seats on the 2nd row for regular use. We bought a Ford Territory in the end which has the 2nd row points on the back of the seats so that they don't interfere with the third row at all and you can slide the second row around without having to change the length of the car seat teethers. The third row anchors are on the floor behind the third row seats. You can also easily fit 3 seats across the second row.

Good luck finding the right car!

So where exactly did you see the anchor points? I didn't think that they would've changed it much in the last 6 months, but the anchor points I saw were behind the 3rd seats, and there was 3 of them. The book says it has 5 points so I'm wonder where the other 2 are?! Maybe you saw the 2 for the middle row?

I agree, it would only fit either 2 carseats comfortably along the middle row, and 2 carseats on the 3rd row. That works fine for us though.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it

We're also looking for a 7 seater and are considering the Holden Zafira or the Honda Odyssey. What I've found is that the following is spot on (works for Honda Odyssey too):


If you find anything else with 7 seats that looks promising too please post!

Kelly the one we saw had three points on the ground behind the second (middle) row - thus writing off the leg space of the third (back) row. I guess they might have been on the roof (it was a while ago and we wrote it off pretty quickly because of this and because DH couldn't get into it as he is 2m tall), but on the roof they would be in the rear passengers face. In a 3 row car the second row anchor points really must be mounted into the back of the second row seats or it's completley impractical to actually use all the seats. Ideally the third row should be made the same way but it's less critical as there is nonone sitting behind to be worried by points on the floor or ceiling and the third row doesn't have to slide around (thus requiring constant strap adjustment). So if you actually need 6 or 7 seats permanently and you have to use carseats or Hstraps in two or more of those seats I would not be getting an Oddessy. We looked at the Zafira too and DH couldn't even get his legs into it so again we didn't look that closely but I seem to recall it wasn't that great for getting a lot of car seats into either. Given I intend to have my kids in carseats until they are too heavy for them (26kg) and then in Hstraps until they can safely use a normal seat bealt (about 145cm in most cars) anchor points are of great interest to me.

Thanks for that, Sebela. I agree the second row seating should have anchor points on the back of the seat. I didn't check that out. We were going to go back on Saturday arvo when we had more time, and I suggested to DH that we actually put all the carseats in with the anchors to see how it would work out. We will need to use 2 anchors so it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Jackie - I agree with that statement. We don't plan to have any more kids after this baby so the only time the car would be full up is with extra friends or rellies tagging along. If we had 5, or maybe even 4 kids we would look at something bigger again like the Voyager or something similar. As it is, all 3 of my kids will still be in carseats/boosters for a while and it is very very squishy in the backseat of our Commodore atm. Plus, we travel to and from Perth a few times a year which is a 6 hour drive each way, and it would be so much more comfortable for the kids with a bit more room rather than sitting on top of each other for that long.

Would like to check out the Zafira, but they don't have any up here atm. If you go to carsales.com.au they have a function where you can compare the different cars next to each other.

Still would be interested in more opinions if anyone else has one.

Thanks heaps, girls.

Hi Kelly,

I have a 2005 Luxury Odyssey, LOOOOOVVVVEEE IT.
or as my friends would say obsessed by it. Upgraded from a Holden as well

I find that i have plenty of boot space, like you posted no need for a pram and groceries as well, so i remove the pram for shopping days and if it's a really big shop, the 3rd row seats split fold for even more room.

There is 5 anchor points 3 for the centre row which are in the rear of the roof, and the other 2 are in the boot at floor level down near when the boot latch is. We have 2 baby seats in ours one in the centre row and one in the third row.

Depending on petrol prices it can cost anywhere from $60 - $70 to fill up, it has a 65 litre tank, fuel economy is pretty good, i do alot of short trips so don't get the full fuel potential that i could average 500k's per tank, but have done so far 1 long trip and got 800k's out of that tank.

I don't have dvd player but have seen one with it fitted. It was on the roof just behind the sunroof.

Can't think of anything else i wished it had as think its perfect for us and our situation.

Hope that helps, happy to answer any other questions you may have, feel free to PM me if you would like.

Edited to add, i have sat in the third row when there has been 7 of us in the car and the strap from the babyseat in the centre row goes right over my head without a problem.

We looked at these, too and decided against it for the following main reasons

1/ Centre row centre seat has only a lap seat belt. So, big reason against for us.

2/ Seat anchor straps from the middle row went right where DD would have sat if she was in the back row.

so, for us, it didn't even stay on the list for too long.

We have chosen instead to go for a Toyota Kluger AWD. We did look at the Avensis, but decided the Kluger was more versatile for our needs. (3 kids, assorted friends & family, wanted 2-3-2 seating, power to tow, car like to drive, good space & fuel economy). Actually re the fuel, the Kluger is better than our '97 Commodore which I was surprised by, too.

HTH