Who here tows cars on a trailer?

[BushPig]

It looks like I'm going to be towing my Suzuki 4x4 from Darwin (in the north of Aus.) to Adelaide (in the south of Aus.).

 

It will be a 6000KM round trip (-3700 miles) not including the wheeling I do down there.

 

Has anybody got some hints or tips for carrying cars?

 

The trailer has a capacity of twice the vehicle I'm carrying and the tow vehicle will do it easy.

 

 

[mxfever090]

What will you be towing with?

 

Here is how I normally go about it.  Pull the vehicle onto the trailer and watch the suspension of the tow vehicle.  Once the rear suspension of the truck doing the pulling starts to drop I stop the car on the trailer.  That gives me enough tounge weight to keep the truck riding well, but not heavy enough that the headlights point to the moon.  If you don't get on far enought though there won't be enough weight on the tounge and you will develop a high speed sway that will probably make you soil your tights.

 

Strapping depends on the vehicle.  I like to chock the wheels and put the vehicle on the trailer in neutral.  This keeps from banging up the park pin if you pull on it while strapping.  On a solid axle vehicle I strap the axles so suspension bounce doesn't have a factor in loosening anything up.   If it's a uni-body I strap to the securing points that are in the bottom of the car.   Normally in the area where the jack goes for changing a tire.  They make adapters that fit in the hole and turn to lock in that have a chain hooked to them if you can't get a bite on it with a strap.  You have to crank this type of set up down though because suspension movement can loosen straps and make them come off. 

 

Lastly - TRAILER BRAKES!  Make sure they work and the tow vehicle has a controller of some kind.  I prefer one I can manually adjust the sensitivity.

[BushPig]

What will you be towing with?

 

Here is how I normally go about it.  Pull the vehicle onto the trailer and watch the suspension of the tow vehicle.  Once the rear suspension of the truck doing the pulling starts to drop I stop the car on the trailer.  That gives me enough tounge weight to keep the truck riding well, but not heavy enough that the headlights point to the moon.  If you don't get on far enought though there won't be enough weight on the tounge and you will develop a high speed sway that will probably make you soil your tights.

 

Strapping depends on the vehicle.  I like to chock the wheels and put the vehicle on the trailer in neutral.  This keeps from banging up the park pin if you pull on it while strapping.  On a solid axle vehicle I strap the axles so suspension bounce doesn't have a factor in loosening anything up.   If it's a uni-body I strap to the securing points that are in the bottom of the car.   Normally in the area where the jack goes for changing a tire.  They make adapters that fit in the hole and turn to lock in that have a chain hooked to them if you can't get a bite on it with a strap.  You have to crank this type of set up down though because suspension movement can loosen straps and make them come off. 

 

Lastly - TRAILER BRAKES!  Make sure they work and the tow vehicle has a controller of some kind.  I prefer one I can manually adjust the sensitivity.

 

Thank you, that was a great reply!

 

I will be towing the car carrier with an Isuzu D-Max, it is small by American standards and would fit into the mini-truck category.

 

It has an IFS front end and Live axle leaf sprung rear and a 3 litre turbo diesel engine.

 

 

Its towing capacity is 3000kgs and the car I am pulling is probably around 1000kg (it weighed around 13** kg when attached to a 250kg box trailer with over 100kg of rubbish.)

 

I looked at the trailer yesterday, I'm going to have to make sure it has brakes (it was an older trailer), they completely slipped my mind when I was inspecting it.

 

Thanks for your advice, I reckon I'll follow it.