Hi, guys.
I live in Manhattan, which means there's no way I can own a decent tow vehicle, let alone a trailer. Even if I were willing to daily drive a truck (which I'm not), none of the monthly parking garages will allow them anymore. No way to do it.
My vintage racecar is an '87 190E 2.3-16 that's gutted and caged on coilovers...but it's still techniclaly street legal. It's licensed, registered, and insured. I've been driving it to events, even to faraway venues like Mosport, Calabogie, VIR, and Tremblant.
That's not such a realistic option for me anymore. I don't want to put the wear-and-tear on the expensive race engine and custom coil-over suspension. The deafening noise and lack of HVAC is getting old on 900-mile roundtrips in midsummer. Besides that, I've got some friends who would like to come with me to the Canadian Vintage Grand Prix and Tremblant Summer Classic.
What can I do?
I know I can rent a car trailer from UHaul for a low price of $65 per day with (what appears to be) unlimited mileage. What can I do for tow vehicle rental?
UHaul offers 1/2 ton pickups for low daily rates (plus mileage), but they don't have any crew cabs. Wouldn't really work if we're 3-4 guys plus gear.
Enterprise Truck Rentals offers 3/4 ton crew-cabs for a higher daily rate, but with 400 miles included and lower cost per additional mile, which comes out to about the same. Seems like a better choice all-around.
Assuming a 900-mile roundtrip over a 4-day weekend, I'm looking at around $450-500 for the truck plus $250 for a Uhaul car trailer. Seems kind of steep if I'm going to do this more than once.
How would you guys approach this? Any rental places I'm missing? Any problems I'm going to run into? What would you do?
The u-haul trailers have E36 M3ty surge brakes, which are only a little better than no brakes. IMO, that's not a great option to do regularly. Are there any local-type trailer rental places in the area that'll rent you a proper car trailer with electric brakes? If you can rent a truck with a brake controller, that would be a better option.
Buy a truck and store it someplace outside the city? Find a race shop that will tow the car to events for you?
Why won't the local garages allow pick ups anymore? No pickups at all, period? Living in Colorado that would knock out 90% of their clientele!
Call UHaul, I think they make you rent a box truck to tow with if you don't have your own.
Enterprise for Truck.
Enterprise also has a commercial division but you may need to rent in a business name.
For trailer, look into local companies that rent commercial tools. The kind of place where you might rent a Bobcat skid steer and the trailer that it comes with or just the trailer like if you needed to move your own Bobcat.
Rent full size van. Those should be able to tow, contain friends and equipment. Plus can be a place to sleep
So while not the best idea for carrying people with you, I've fit a bunch of cars into the backs of box trucks. They could follow along separately, and none of the issues of towing, just ride up some ramps and in.
I looked into it for a while and basically concluded that it wasn't really feasible for me to rent a truck + trailer for towing my Miata to the track. For one thing, virtually every rental company out there specifically forbids towing a trailer in the rental contract. You can rent a big SUV from Hertz, but you can't tow with it. U-haul forbids towing with their pickups and vans. They will let you tow with a box truck, but those really suck for this purpose. IIRC, Enterprise Commercial will let you tow with their trucks, but wouldn't rent to me as an individual.
Trailers are just as bad. Equipment trailers are relatively easy to find for rent, but are generally poorly suited for race cars because they're built for equipment with lots of ground clearance. U-haul trailers are better in that regard, but have surge brakes and are officially limited to 55 mph (not that anyone follows that, but...). The really big problem with them though is that they're not reliably available. Even if you "reserve" one, they have so few at the rental office that it's not uncommon to show up at your reservation time and discover the previous customer hasn't returned it, so there isn't one for you and you're SOL.
There used to be a small business around here that rented race car trailers, but they went belly-up a while ago.
Make friends with someone who owns a truck and trailer! I borrowed a friends trailer for the first year i raced. Now that i sold mine off im back too that.
Find a locked storage yard outside the city and rent a space for a tow-rig and trailer, the sort of place with individual storage garages and lots of RVs and boats.
One ton vans are cheap on the used market and a $1500 trailer shouldn't be too hard to find. Now everything is yours and you don't have to deal with rental issues.
Call enterprise commercial and check with them regarding the qualifications to be "commercial", you may find a loophole.
docwyte wrote:
Why won't the local garages allow pick ups anymore? No pickups at all, period?
They just take up too much space. You can park them at a daily rate ($45 per day, plus 50% surcharge for an oversized vehicle, plus tax), but no one will accept a truck or SUV for monthly parking.
They can afford to be choosy. There are waiting lists for monthly parking, even if you're willing to pay the $450-500 per month for a spot. One of the many indignities of living in Manhattan.
KyAllroad wrote:
Find a locked storage yard outside the city and rent a space for a tow-rig and trailer, the sort of place with individual storage garages and lots of RVs and boats.
One ton vans are cheap on the used market and a $1500 trailer shouldn't be too hard to find. Now everything is yours and you don't have to deal with rental issues.
I've considered that, but it's very hard to justify buying a truck and trailer, then paying storage/maintenance/repairs/insurance for something I'll only use 2-3 times per year.
I just think renting a rig makes more sense.
LanEvo wrote:
I just think renting a rig makes more sense.
In principle yes, but in practice it sucks. There just aren't enough people interested in doing it for it to be a viable business model.
So where do all the wealthy people in Manhattan park their luxury SUV's?
KyAllroad wrote:
Find a locked storage yard outside the city and rent a space for a tow-rig and trailer, the sort of place with individual storage garages and lots of RVs and boats.
One ton vans are cheap on the used market and a $1500 trailer shouldn't be too hard to find. Now everything is yours and you don't have to deal with rental issues.
This, cheap outdoor RV lot parking, add a solar battery maintainer, let some trusted friends borrow it and get the fluids hot now and then if you don't use it monthly.
docwyte wrote:
So where do all the wealthy people in Manhattan park their luxury SUV's?
Wealthy people around here don't own cars. All the luxury SUVs belong to car services. I guess they park in Queens.
Vehicle transport service, like Reliable comes to mind. Call them with pickup dates and check pricing?
