Sure can be towed, they can get it on a flat bed. Honda is not going to do anything for you anyways, wasting your time and energy.
Time for a new vehicle.

 

How do you get a vehicle that won’t roll up on a flatbed?

 

If it was only the trailing arm that was rusted, you could have a new rear subframe assembly swapped in, but it's more likely that the body itself is rotted where the trailing arm connects to the body. It is a 16 year old vehicle and we don't know how well it's been taken care of with regard to washing the salt off the underside.

 

It was bought a year and a half ago, nor do we

 

Wow that's really unfortunate, sorry to hear that.

It can be rolled up if they use a dolly under the rear end. Any tow guy who's worth his beans shouldn't have much of a problem.

 

When I bought one in that condition (for parts), I used a come-a-long to pull the control arm from the opposite side of the vehicle until is was roughly pointing in the right directlon, then gingerly drove it onto a car hauler trailer.

 

Sorry to hear about another rusted out car.

I think DCM is on target. It’s probably not just the trailing arm, but also the body that it is attached to. I don’t know anyone that has put in the amount of money needed to fix that. It’s usually end of life, and either sold for parts or sent to the junkyard.

It sucks. Whomever sold you the car probably knew it was near the end. They either sold it to you really cheap, or hoped that you would skip doing an inspection on it. I think if you search this forum you’ll find that you aren’t the only one that has fallen into buying a car that has a great looking paint job and interior only to have the underside rust out. There is even a buyers guide post somewhere on here focused on making sure people checking out the trailing arm for rust.

 

It may be worth more in pieces than whole! Gotta look at the upside, but yeah that stinks.

 

Road salt = Element's worst enemy.

Always ALWAYS thoroughly check the under body on these cars BEFORE purchasing.

 

It's all vehicles here in the rust belt. Actually here in NJ, we are not as bad other states.
This year so far, I have sent 3 gm pick ups to scrap. 2014 and 2015's had rotted frames and the fuel tank/shock brace falling off.
These are $60,000 vehicles!

 

It's astounding how poorly a lot of "new" vehicles are manufactured!!

 

A lot of the rust problem is due to the brine crap they now use. Seems it's much more caustic than plain old salt. Plus, they no longer use sand or cinders from coal fired plants.
I don't understand why folks that live here in the rust belt, don't bother with rust preventative coatings.

 

They sell those on EBAY for $240-350, rear trailing arm

 

If it's the frame that the trailing arm is attached to that rusted, the problem with uni-body vehicles is that it wouldn't be cost-affected to repair.

 

My tires on my ‘03 EX were slanting out and I replaced the upper control arms. About $50 for the parts and an hour per side. Everything is back to normal now.

 

These can be fixed. I just fixed mine myself. Find a shop in your area that does frame repair and fabrication. Have it towed on a flatbed rollback truck.

 

Interesting. The repair looks good! Did you fabricate the welded-on parts?

 

it can be towed you will need to pay that bill as for fixing that much rust you probably should look at parting it out .

 

Here's my public service announcement: Wash your Element often in the winter depending on salty roads and sticky snow stuck on the car. Washing UNDER THE ELEMENT is more important than washing the top!

 

I see the OP hasn't been back, so hopefully they got it figured out.

 

From their history, it looks like they figured it was a parts car, though coolcat's repair shows that with enough time/gumption/money, any car is fixable. In this case, the repair used even looks like a pretty smart solution!

 

My Dad's early 2000's Toyota Tacoma suffered from the frame rust problem. The frame broke and rear spring shackle went through! There was no recall for his model year, Toyota wouldn't help. After dad passed, I ended up selling the truck for parts with 75,000 on it. Salt or not, there's no good reason to use crappy steel like that. I've had rusty cars, but never had the frame fail!

 

We just sent a 2014 and (2) 2015 gmc pickups to scrap for rotted frames. Fuel tank mount and spare tire mounts rotted to nothing.
I've been in the auto biz 45 years, never seen rust this bad ever.

 

Get on youtube and see if anyone has a fix. Thats where i find all of my problems.