Tow bar angle

[redpoint5]

I'm curious why the distressed car needs to be towed so far, multiple times, and over the course of 2 years?

[EcoCivic]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

No offense intended, but that's a gumby flexy somewhat janky tow set up. Wouldn't think about using it in low traction conditions.

No offense taken, I appreciate your input. That car is my first flat towing experience, so I am by no means an expert and am still learning. In what way is that setup flexy and janky? I would like to know so I can come up with a better setup next time. Thanks

[EcoCivic]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I'm curious why the distressed car needs to be towed so far, multiple times, and over the course of 2 years?

Well its engine locked up in 2015 when I was living in North Carolina, so I moved it to my friend's yard to swap the engine because I was living in an apartment at that time. Long story short life happened and the engine never got replaced and as of 2017 I moved to Tennessee. The first attempt at towing it home was a fail because the tow bar was at such an extreme angle, so I bought an appropriate height ball mount and tried again a few days ago. Fortunately the second try with a much more level tow bar worked well enough that I was able to get it home.

[Piotrsko]

Well, for starters the hitch on the tow car is a piece of flat steel so you can probably flex it by jumping on it and the U for clearing the bumper would make the flex worse, particularly left or right. It's probably a 1500 lb max load hitch.

It only takes about 25 lbs side force on the rear corner to loose control on the freeway and the towed car can probably generate more than that oscillating out of sync. So while you weren't going fast, all that mismatch car movement through the hitch was loading and unloading the rear tires. Another 10- 15 lbs air pressure might help in the rears.

The towed car portion looks ok.

[EcoCivic]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Well, for starters the hitch on the tow car is a piece of flat steel so you can probably flex it by jumping on it and the U for clearing the bumper would make the flex worse, particularly left or right. It's probably a 1500 lb max load hitch.

It only takes about 25 lbs side force on the rear corner to loose control on the freeway and the towed car can probably generate more than that oscillating out of sync. So while you weren't going fast, all that mismatch car movement through the hitch was loading and unloading the rear tires. Another 10- 15 lbs air pressure might help in the rears.

The towed car portion looks ok.

Thanks for the information. The hitch on the tow car is actually very solid and heavy, it weighs nearly 30 pounds by itself. I can not flex it by any visible amount by standing on it. I believe it is rated for 3000 pounds, but I can't remember for sure as I bought it so long ago. I remember at the time I bought it there were 2 different hitches available and I went with the higher rated one (I believe the lower rated one was 2000 lbs). Either way I don't see the hitch breaking from flat towing a car as there is virtually no tongue weight and I'm sure I would lose traction well before anything broke.

Yeah for some reason the towed car was definitely generating significant sideways forces at times. It actually seemed that letting some air out of the tires helped. I normally have my tow car's tires pumped up to 40 ish PSI for efficiency, but lowering the pressure to 32 ish PSI for more traction while towing seemed to help quite a bit.

Up hills it usually pulled perfectly fine though, I got up to around 60 MPH while climbing several times with no issues at all. I felt like I could have gone even faster on reasonably steep hills, but I didn't risk it.