Doing homework

Welcome! I take it you are looking at R-Pods as a possible purchase for you and your family. With your children, I would think that the 176 or 182G would be good choices. The 178 would also be good if you treated the dinette as two beds along the sides with an aisle between. I think it would get awkward to try to have both daughter and son in the same bed. The 178 would have room while they are both young and it would be the most comfortable for you as you would not have the cushion gaps to deal with.

We have the 179. While it is good for the two of us and would be good for a third person, I don't know how well it would work for a family with multiple children.

Have you looked at Forest River's R-Pod pages to see the various floor plans and specifications? If so, which model to you think would work best for you?

I understand. We usually keep ours long-term, but there have been some exceptions. We traded our 2009 Escape which had a 1500 lb tow limit for a 2016 Escape with a 3500 lb tow limit. Unfortunately, we hit ice with a strong cross-wind while traveling through Wyoming in December. The Escape did not fare well and was in the shop until March. We purchased a used Nissan Frontier crew cab to use. Then decided we did not need two vehicles so we had our son-in-law pick it up from the shop. He then took it to Carmax, where we sold it. We have had other vehicles as long as 14 years.

From what I can find out, the Odyssey has a 3500 lb tow rating. If you are going to use it, you definitely will want the transmission cooler in addition to the hitch receiver and the wiring to support the round, 7- terminal Bargman connector, not just the flat 4-pin trailer connector. In addition to the hitch and cooler, you will need an electrical brake controller. Since the Odyssey does not come with the wiring connector, you will need a wiring kit to add the round connector plus the additional wiring for the 4-way connector. We purchased the Hopkins InSIGHT Flex-Mount trailer brake controller. Others like the Tekonsha Prodigy P3 controller. Either one will require the ETBC7 Universal Installation Kit. You will also need the Plug-In Vehicle Wiring Harness for a 4-pole connector. Hopkins HM11143114 is one. Curt C56118 is another.

Honda requires the use of a weight distribution hitch when towing with the Odyssey from what I could find out. We use the Equal-i-zer 4-point sway control hitch. It combines weight distribution and sway control so no separate sway bar is needed. Others use the Fastway E2 (2-point sway control) or the Andersen No-Sway hitch. There are other options, but those are the ones mentioned most often in the forum.

eTrailer.com is a good source for parts. If you are not comfortable doing the installation work, you would have to add the cost of that when calculating the relative cost of upgrading your Odyssey as opposed to trading the CR-V.

It is good that you are doing your "homework".

The CRV would be out of the question. With the van, you would be at the lower end of performance. You may find it difficult keeping up with traffic when hills or headwinds are encountered. It can be done, just set your expectations accordingly. I suspect you will want a more muscular tow vehicle as soon as it can be arranged.

With the one you described as going downhill on a curved decline sounds like the tongue weight of the trailer was too low or if they had a WDH, it was improperly adjusted and transferred too much weight, making the back end of the tow vehicle too light. It also makes me wonder if the person had brakes on the trailer and if they were operating properly or were set too low. I would like to know more details about the other accident. With the brakes operating properly, that should not have happened unless it also was on ice. The drag of the trailer brakes should have prevented that from happening.

You'd be better off with say a Jayco 174..
We recently sold our Rpod because it just is too small when having kids.
Was great for couple years, but kids grow fast and rpod didn't.
Jayco having bunks, Queen bed, and small dinette with power awning will feel so much larger.
We didn't get the Jayco, we ended up with 25ft Class C because 6cyl strains with a loaded up Rpod/Jayco/any 3k lbs trailer... I wont even get into the quality of Forrest river products, my opinion is about size with children..