Most Popular Bike and Hitch Lock for 2016 Honda Odyssey

Solid trailer, not too difficult to put together. After putting it together I took a 100 mile trip with four bikes and it worked great. Two tips from others helped. I installed in "on the car" (and was able to do it by myself) and I took some time to put the bikes in the order we would always load it (with our current four bikes), essentially "setting" the wheel holders to the exact bike. Great product and great price.

Great quality, awesome price I ordered this on etrailer Feb 1st, got the delivery on Feb 8th. Perfect packing. The product was very easy to assemble. There were finally 4 small screws that I was not clear what to do with. Called etrailer and they clearly told me where the screws go. The rack is built strong, really good quality. I was actually surprised to see such great quality at less than half the price of a Thule or Yakima. Overall the product is easy to use. Yes it has some quirks like when you fold the center rachet arm, the cotter pin to hold it in place is sometimes hard to push in. Not a big deal but something that swagman can improve on. Also one other key point is the total dimension of this rack. I have a Honda Odyssey and with 4 bikes mounted on the rack, it takes about 3-3.5 feet of space at the back (juts out). A thule T2 or Yakima hold up for 4 bikes will be close to 5.6-6 feet. The swagman has a great advantage in reducing vehicle sway and drag. As with anything this comes with a drawback that you need to play around and figure out the best positions for the bikes. Again not a big deal, one time job of 10 mins. Overall I am very happy with the bike rack and even more happy with etrailer. I will be coming to etrailer for all my future rack, hitch needs.

Seems like a great product based on the specs and the positive reviews definitely swayed me. But, my experience was only 3 stars. Here's what I found. I have a 2" hitch provided and installed by U-Haul on our 2007 Odyssey, so no flimsy 1" adapter. This thing still moves around a great deal. No failures, but just be prepared when you first mount bikes, go over bumps, etc. LOTS of surface rust after just a year of use where the connecting rod fits into the hitch; took 30+ minutes to work it free last time I took it off the car. We tend to leave it on because we use it often and it is heavy and beastly to put on. Consider some sort of release agent before installation or removal. Operation was fairly straight forward once I got the hang of it. However, over time, certain functions started to fail or become difficult. The key lock is a bit tricky to engage even out of the box, but became very difficult to turn the longer it has been in use. After 10 years, OK. After 1 year, not so much. The locking pin on the arm also started to come out of alignment with the hole in the arm (not much, but enough, has me wondering about the years to come) and required quite a bit of additional manipulation to get it to engage. But, my largest criticism is bike management. We have two adult comfort / mtn bikes, one kid bike and a tag-along. We bought two of the cross bar attacher thingies. No dice. My own men's bike was easy to get on and always went on first per instructions. Next was my wife's, a Trek with a pretty standard triangular frame. TIGHT, TIGHT fit to get that thing on and not the ideal placement to make it work. Our oldest son's bike, another Trek, wouldn't go; could only get one arm through. The cross bar adapter was NO help. What a waste of money, those. Can't use them on anything. They are very limited in their range of use. To get it on, I had to have the bike cocked at about 60 degrees. The crazy fit of bikes #2 and #3 eliminated any chance of getting that tag-along on it even though it is much smaller than a bike. Into the trunk it went, defeating the whole point of a 4-bike carrier. The detachable tie-downs seem like a great idea, but they sure are easy to drop when wrestling a bike, or lose OR STEAL. Where are you going to put them, or the extras, when not in use? Something else to figure out and deal with. The sliding lock downs? Again, another seeming good idea, but after a year, they become very difficult to slide back and forth. I have really had to wrench on them in certain cases to get them to move at all. Can't be good long term and very aggravating since it is supposed to be a slick feature. Why not just leave them in place once you figure out the best spot? Well, there's the principle of it, but there is also this thing called my kids' friends! Yeah, play dates or whatever. Requires a total rework. Not fun. Two adult bikes was very workable even if you couldn't move lock downs...just used the next ones over. And the swing out feature was, in general, very useful. Maybe it's an impossible task, a great 4-bike rack, I dunno. Maybe it's me. But, maybe it's the rack. If you can, try YOUR bikes before buying. Maybe a friend has one already? Maybe it requires some kind of care and feeding not mentioned anywhere. I wouldn't say don't buy it, but just be aware of what you're getting into. Talk to owners of this and other types and brands to see what their use issues might be.

Installation today was pretty straight forward. We had no problems. It may require two people to install the bike rack onto the hitch because it is pretty heavy. But, as a 41 yo woman I was able to attach the bike rack to the hitch by myself. We haven't used it yet to transport our bikes, but I imagine that will be seamless too.

So, one year in, this works well for the price. I have successfully hauled around 5 bikes a couple times now including a couple vacations. Bikes got there securely despite 4+ hours of driving at interstate speeds, including one harrowing stretch on bumpy roads with 70 mph speed limits (wow Texas, seriously?) where the car got significant amounts of "air" at random intervals. Getting the bikes on and off is still a major pain. I had to buy the adapter for 3 womens/children's bikes. My own full size mountain bike barely fits on, too, the pitch between the bars seems a bit challenging and requires me to contort the bike dramatically to get it on and off. If you are trying to actually get 5 bikes on here, figuring out the bike handle tetris game is not easy. Will take you a bit. It still takes me ~15 min to load 5 bikes up every time. On short trips I sometimes skip the tiedown through all the bike wheels and it's fine, although I wouldn't do it for long trips. My biggest regret here is not buying one where the rack will pivot out to allow access to the rear minivan hitch with the bikes attached -- this means this is the last thing to pack in the car and the first thing you unpack, every time on vacation. It requires planning and forethought. The rack does fold down nicely which we used extensively on vacation once the bikes were unpacked, just don't drive around that way. On my Honda minivan the bottom of this sags a bit when fully loaded with bikes, to the extent I scrape hard every time exiting my slightly inclined driveway. We found a few other low spots along our way, from restaurants to other businesses, that resulted in similar cringe-inducing moments. We drove it on the beach quite a bit, after a healthy wash with the pressure washer there is some mild rusting where the handles rotate, but the rack is otherwise in good shape.

Bought several bike racks and trailer hitches from etrailer. They followed up to make sure all was good. I would highly recommend buying from them. Good people and they care about the customer!