Towing with strap ugh!

I’ve been victim of help tow vehicle too many times here recently. Strait up I hate it. When I was dumb 16 yr old I tried to help to friend with a chain that resulted in shattering a $400 rear window in our blazer, our only family vehicle. Lesson learned avoid chains.. well since then I’ve used Dolly’s/trailers, much easier, worth money. Well over past 6 months I’ve been asked too many times to help tow a vehicle, with strap, but be in the broken one..thankfully not been my vehicles. But not my money to spend. I’m nice guy sure I’ll help!!!...... past 3 times been with BIL, older then me, knows more then me, it’ll be fine type of fellow. Last time was bad, today worse.. I know the situation, person in front, first 5 mins at 20 mph we’re good let’s speed it up we can get there faster! Hey dumbass I have no effin brakes back here! So today helping BIL pull his truck to his bosses/my landlord shop. Need to take pics, his boss/my landlord is circle track racer, has few cars to race, even has his own machining equipment. Anyways, my BIL has 90 c1500 worth bout trash bag full of aluminum cans, tow vehicle king ranch f350 I want to avoid like the plague. Let fun begin, BIL ties strap to his “grill guard”, me, hey I’d tie it to frame be safe, him, nah it’ll be fine. Whatever not my truck. Thankfully we were on backroads. First few miles go uneventful, then after 5 mind hey we can 40 now... then lil more.. call BIL dude slow the berkeley down I can’t stop, nah we’re good, berkeley you man berkeleyk you!! Finally make to our turn off, I’m standing out the back window trying to stop, he then turns and gets right back on gas.. too much slack in line slow down...bam! Again should’ve took pictures. Off comes his grill guard sliding across road. I berkeleying told you , I berkeleying told you!!! again thankfully on back roads less traveled. Finally he hooks strap up to frame, takes back off in hurry and snap goes strap. At this point we’re less mile from the shop, his truck is victim of 27 year old freeze plug giving up. I told him get out my way, fire the bitch up and haul ass. Get there fine, he’s pissed I drove his truck with no antifreeze in it. I know old Chevy 350 can handle it, he doesn’t. We argue, job done, I can finally end my day, did I mention I wake up at 4 am and this happened hour ago. Sorry but my daily rant. And I write too much. But berkeley...

I added some carriage returns for you....

I’ve been victim of help tow vehicle too many times here recently. Strait up I hate it. When I was dumb 16 yr old I tried to help to friend with a chain that resulted in shattering a $400 rear window in our blazer, our only family vehicle. Lesson learned avoid chains.. well since then I’ve used Dolly’s/trailers, much easier, worth money.

Well over past 6 months I’ve been asked too many times to help tow a vehicle, with strap, but be in the broken one..thankfully not been my vehicles. But not my money to spend. I’m nice guy sure I’ll help!!!...... past 3 times been with BIL, older then me, knows more then me, it’ll be fine type of fellow. Last time was bad, today worse..

I know the situation, person in front, first 5 mins at 20 mph we’re good let’s speed it up we can get there faster! Hey dumbass I have no effin brakes back here! So today helping BIL pull his truck to his bosses/my landlord shop. Need to take pics, his boss/my landlord is circle track racer, has few cars to race, even has his own machining equipment.

Anyways, my BIL has 90 c1500 worth bout trash bag full of aluminum cans, tow vehicle king ranch f350 I want to avoid like the plague. Let fun begin, BIL ties strap to his “grill guard”, me, hey I’d tie it to frame be safe, him, nah it’ll be fine. Whatever not my truck. Thankfully we were on backroads. First few miles go uneventful, then after 5 mind hey we can 40 now... then lil more.. call BIL dude slow the berkeley down I can’t stop, nah we’re good, berkeley you man berkeleyk you!!

Finally make to our turn off, I’m standing out the back window trying to stop, he then turns and gets right back on gas.. too much slack in line slow down...bam! Again should’ve took pictures. Off comes his grill guard sliding across road. I berkeleying told you , I berkeleying told you!!! again thankfully on back roads less traveled.

Finally he hooks strap up to frame, takes back off in hurry and snap goes strap. At this point we’re less mile from the shop, his truck is victim of 27 year old freeze plug giving up. I told him get out my way, fire the bitch up and haul ass. Get there fine, he’s pissed I drove his truck with no antifreeze in it. I know old Chevy 350 can handle it, he doesn’t. We argue, job done, I can finally end my day, did I mention I wake up at 4 am and this happened hour ago. Sorry but my daily rant. And I write too much. But berkeley...

In reply to stuart in mn :

Oh, thank you so much. The "wall of text" is really hard to read.

Driving over to change the oil and filter with sender unit on the SVT today I saw two scooters full of kids running nose to tail in perfect formation instead of yahooing it all over the road as usual when you've stolen it to see that one is towing the other with what can best be described as some gnarly ropey fabric-y length of what I don't know.  Not sure if they were taking it to be fixed or getting some extra fun out of it before abandoning it. 

Solution?  Set ground rules about where to hook up the strap, speed, communication, route, etc beforehand.  

Or better yet, just say no in the first place.  

Today, Towing with a strap is illegal here in Ga. but in the very early 70's, MY brother and I TOWED HIS CORVAIR FROM MIAMI TO ATLANTA, at a high rate of speed with a 20 ft. logging chain, and a duster! 

Floating Doc said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

Oh, thank you so much. The "wall of text" is really hard to read.

People used to write more than one or two sentences st a time. Believe it or not.

When I was a kid I was given a false impression of how easy it was to flat tow a vehicle. My parents would pull his stock car to the track behind her Malibu with a chain. She’d drive her car, he’d steer the race car and it always looked so effortless. They still will drag a dead car home on a strap occasionally without incident.  I swear almost every time I’ve tried it has gone like Pababishop’s adventure.

Sorry I ramble on and on and forget to break up my stories. I tried to set rules, some people listen some are jackassess. Atleast that went better then today, just blew coolant hose to turbo on work truck, stuck on side of hwy just waiting...I’m not having my truck towed like that!

Appleseed said:

Floating Doc said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

Oh, thank you so much. The "wall of text" is really hard to read.

People used to write more than one or two sentences st a time. Believe it or not.

But they also used paragraphs.

Papabishop said:

Sorry I ramble on and on and forget to break up my stories. I tried to set rules, some people listen some are jackassess. 

With any luck, he won’t  ask for help again.  If he does, you can point out this experience as a guilt-free way to say “No”.

I only flat tow/get flat towed with people i trust. it's not a hard concept if both people are in complete understanding of how things need to work. I've had my aw11 mr2 towed by a mid-2000's dodge ram at 60+ mph in rush hour traffic in Kansas City when the fuel pump when out on it, besides roasting my brakes trying to slow the truck down/keep strap tight we didnt have one issue.

Fun fact of the day: dont tow a vehicle that doesnt have an engine in it but still has the trans and torque converter with the driveshaft hooked up. It turns out that that the driveshaft spinning will eventually get the torque converter spinning which will eventually come out of the front of the open trans. With it spinning it will drop down, shoot out from under the truck, cross 3 lanes of traffic, and hit a curb and fly about 12 feet in the air. one of the neater things i've gotten to witness.

Is it even legal to flat tow with a rope or strap?

FWIW, in this context i think the wall of text does a better job of conveying the emotion of the situation from Papa's seat.

AngryCorvair said:

FWIW, in this context i think the wall of text does a better job of conveying the emotion of the situation from Papa's seat.

Exactly!  Kind of a Jack Kerouac stream-of-consciousness thing.

Well written!

Perhaps too much for the Twitter generation.

914Driver said:

Is it even legal to flat tow with a rope or strap?

It is not on Illinois.

My cheap ass buddy convinced me that I could tow his broke junk to his mechanic. I advised him that it was not a good idea, the po-po liked to hide out on our 3 mile route. He insisted it would work. A tow would have been 70% less than the ticket he got.

I dunno if it’s illegal here in Texas, highly doubt it. Hell even Seen couple cops having to get pulled off beach by that method by drunk hillbillies before!

Flat towing is always interesting, and damage after which is nearly always expected. If I do a flat tow and manage not to mess up someones car in some way, I consider myself very lucky. 

I couldn't imagine do 40mph while doing it. 

Papabishop said:

I dunno if it’s illegal here in Texas, highly doubt it. Hell even Seen couple cops having to get pulled off beach by that method by drunk hillbillies before!

i'd say its probably different pulling a stuck vehicle out vs. driving down a public road with a vehicle in tow. I 'think' flat towing is illegal in most states

I've done plenty of short flat tows with straps without causing any damage...but I know to escalate the method of towing when going longer distances, rather than rolling the dice. Around here, the next option up is "flatbed truck."

I have always had easy and stress-free flat towing experiences, with and without good brakes, but the person on the other end of the rope (I've been on both ends (that sounded dirty)) was skilled and communicative.

The worst incident was in the middle of the night, trying to make things easy with a car that wouldn't run, and was using the tow vehicle to turn its engine to power lights and flashers, we went by a cop trying not to stop. He must have been sleeping as we did not stop at a sign, and my lights were all completely out at the time.

Anyway it's all totally fine as long as you think. I saw one guy flat towing a VW Thing behind another VW Thing on a highway in Canada in rush hour. They were going like 25 mph. That sort of thing can lead to trouble.

One trick that I always heard about back in the day is to use a chain but run it through a piece of pipe to prevent excessive sag or collisions.

Never had to use it though.  I’ve flat towed a couple of other people short distances to help them out and always keep it slow and use flashers.  But a couple years ago when the fuel pump went out in the Suburban the local mechanic sent his flunky out to get me in his shop truck.  He only had about an 8’ strap which felt terrifyingly close as he just effing sent it on the trip to the shop.   Nothing damaged though, class 4 hitch to GM tow hooks, we could have picked up both vehicles by those attachment points.

We were at the mud drags in the early 1980’s at Broadway Bob’s in Union Grove, WI and some dude asked my buddy with Illinois plates to tow strap his truck home and he would give him $100 and pay all tickets. He found out it was near my friends house.  

Big old snatch ‘em strap and we went flying down the tollway all the way to Naperville, IL - 75-100 miles?  

No cops, no tickets, they paid their own tolls, and only a few close stops.   I still can’t believe I survived that ride.  

edizzle89 said:

Fun fact of the day: dont tow a vehicle that doesnt have an engine in it but still has the trans and torque converter with the driveshaft hooked up. It turns out that that the driveshaft spinning will eventually get the torque converter spinning which will eventually come out of the front of the open trans. With it spinning it will drop down, shoot out from under the truck, cross 3 lanes of traffic, and hit a curb and fly about 12 feet in the air. one of the neater things i've gotten to witness.

Thanks for getting me busted for not working, I tried to tell them I was listening to a podcast but noone bought it.  They enjoyed your story though when I told them what I was laughing at (though noone knew what a torque converter was).

As an engineer reading legal documents, flat towing is legal in Ohio.  Your tow strap can't be longer than 15 feet and you have to have a white cloth of atleast 12 square inches attached to the strap midway between the vehicles.  

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4513.32

I've always put a sign in the back of the towed vehicle that says "IN TOW" because people are idiots.  I've also always kept it under 25 MPH because there's a law out there about having a person in/on a moving "trailer".  I can't find it quickly but I think it was more geared towards hay rides but I try to cover all my bases because Ohio cops can be a little strict.  I also print these laws out and have them with me since many LEOs don't know all the obscure laws.

I don't know the local laws about it, but when the miata died 2 miles from home on mostly flat ground, no one was willing to help me flat tow it. 

Way back at 18 I towed my buddies Corolla home about 3 miles down and up a couple hills by one of those orange nylon scary looking ropes with my Sonoma. One of the scariest things I've ever done was going down the hill on 130 relying on a dead Corolla to stop me.

So I can understand why no one wanted to help with the miata now that we're older.