I recently had my awd celica all trac towed back to my house. the driver used hooks to winch the car onto the flatbed. the hooks were connected, on each side to the front suspension.
does this affect wheel alignment at all?
I have had the car towed before, and the other driver used straps secured to the wheels instead, he told me that this was the best way.
what do you guys think?
don't most cars have tow loops hidden in front and back? If they are there, then that is the best way to drag it up onto the wrecker. In this case it sounds like the wrecker was the guy at the controls of the flat bed.
I don't know any thing about your car, but a lot of cars could easily be damaged that way
Every Ford and Chevy I've owned has an oblong hole on each sice of the frame for yanking and tie downs, I assume most other cars would too. Your flatbed operator is an idiot.
Yaw on BMWs aluminum lower control arm and see where he's working next week.
Yanking on the front arms of most cars won't hurt anything, newer sports cars and many german cars being the exception. Most japanese cars put the fron tie downs under the front bumper, which makes using them to winch the car up a pita unless you have a very longbed. Unlike Ford and Chevy most companies don't put nice easy to use holes everywhere. There should be an extra charge for some Mercedes and Audis as they are puzzles trying to figure out which plug you should pop out of the gooey undercoated floorpan.
I'd be leery of bent control arms but then again I've been in BMWs for so long now that it's drilled into my head not to pull by the aluminum control arms. I don't know about those other German cars but BMW provides a nice tow hook in the trunk toolkit to screw into the bumper underneath a little cover for just this purpose.
yes, BMW has a very nice tow hook just for that reason.
My Saab had easy to access tiedowns under the bumper.. but the POs off road excursion when he got run off the road, bent them flat with the body
having been a tow truck driver for AAA in a past life. i can say using the lil j hooks and hooking into the tow loops in the front of the car is best.. i however have been a fan of using a tow strap then clipping the hook on the cable to and winching it up. we never used chains to secure the veicle to the bed. i always used the wheel straps.. always thought it was the most safe way to transport a car.
pigeon wrote: I'd be leery of bent control arms but then again I've been in BMWs for so long now that it's drilled into my head not to pull by the aluminum control arms. I don't know about those other German cars but BMW provides a nice tow hook in the trunk toolkit to screw into the bumper underneath a little cover for just this purpose.
That hook is for pulling ther car out of a snow bank or ditch, I've seen a couple bumpers badly tweeked by using that hook to load and secure a car on a flatbed. For a BMW take the small rubber pucks out of the bottom of the rockers and put small j or t hooks in the slots. The hook in the bumper is of to one side and as the car gets close to the winch it is easy to pull the bumper at an odd angle.
so the next time that I need a tow, how should I ask the driver to load/secure my car? car is awd..
If I remember right there should be two u shaped tow loops in the opening of or just below the front bumper and an oval shaped slot in the floor just ahead of each rear wheel. Small hooks in these for openings will work fine, as will the above mentioned wheel straps. Those holes are how the car was chained down for delivery and if done properly chaining the car down will not harm it.
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