The Gympie gliding weekend was barely enough to assess the Odyssey. But it was a good start. The one that we got (842 DKT) was grey in colour with only 8899 kilometres on it when I collected it. We added a touch over 300 leisurely kilometres on it.
The Odyssey is a large car, especially after the City, and this can take some getting used to. The first thing that I noticed was the deceptiveness of its' speed. Combined with the power steering I found myself arriving in corners with a little more speed than I was happy with. I wasn't the only one who did this! On my own I found that the Odyssey has a sprightly turn of speed and easily exceeded all traffic requirements.
A quick check indicates that the engine bay has a service friendly ambiance. It seemed to offer good access to most aspects of the engine and drive train. And it did display the typical Honda intelligence in the neat co-ordination of all cables, leads and wires there.
This intelligence also showed through in the cabin. It had the usual Honda ergonomics with everything where I expected it to be. A couple of times I had to think about the column mounted gear lever, especially the need to have ones foot on the brake before it will come out of Park. And everything worked the way Honda bits should. (And the buzz word "cup-holders"? Yes, one for each seat, plus a few little oddments receptacles (not big enough to be called "bins".) The ride quality in all seats was good with access to the rear row of seats reasonable. One thing that I think would be a good idea would be to put map/reading lights over the rear four seats and not just for the front seat passenger and driver. That rear air-conditioner section is worth its weight in gold. There is also air ducting coming in under the front seats to blow additional air onto the feet of the middle passengers. Any owner may find it a good idea to put gauze screening over these outlets as they looked ideally placed for little explorers to insert sticks and stones and marbles and whatevers.
That deep luggage bay works well and can swallow quite a sizeable amount of odds and ends. But closing that large back door is a two handed operation. Placing the rear interior light on the inside of that door is a very good idea. It works very well.
We didn't put up enough kilometres to do any fuel consumption figures, it appears to be about 12litres per hundred kilometres. Apart from a large tank (about 60litres) it is a quick clean filler, with a bib spill catcher/diverter.
All in all I enjoyed the Odyssey. It more than met our requirements during the weekend and I can endorse the Car of The Year award.
I would like to thank Honda Australia and their Caravan of Cars for making the Odyssey available.
