Towing with a cover....not too smart?

[Guest]

Since I will tow the TR6 to Dallas, the plus side, besides driving in airconditioned comfort, will be that I can detail my car at home and not worry about cleaning 8 hours of road grime, bugs and oil off the car when I arrive. A question: I have Moss's top-of-the-line car cover that I occasionally use when storing the vehicle and wonder, would towing the car with a car cover ruin my paint? Somehow I think this would be the case. I have seen the damage done by "bras" on cars and kinda think the constant friction of the car cover would be a bad think. Any thoughts?


Bill

 

[Bugeye58]

Bill, you would probably lose the cover by the time you got to Shreveport, as I'm assuming you are using an open trailer.
A trick I've heard of, but never tried personally, is to lightly coat the surface with an extremely mild dish soap, such as Ivory liquid. Then, after unloading, it's a matter of a simple wash. All the gunk is trapped by the soap, and never reaches the surface.
Jeff

 

[Harry_Ward]

Bill,

Unless the cover is secured firmly in place or is framed off the cars painted surface I would not try it. I've rubbed alot of paint off my truck by covering stuff in the bed on various camping trips. However, after you get it down to the steel on the first trip it's not so bad the next time because you know it's already gone.

Harry,
CT

 

[Guest]

Loud and Clear. Thanx.


Bill

 

[BobSands]

Hey Bill... Don't want to hijack your thread, but when passing a trailer with new cars on it, the cars appeared to have a protective plastic wrap on all the fenders and hoods. Wonder if this is the future of protection while towing? Don't know where you'd get such a thing, or if the "cling" feature would ruin a nice paint job.
Take care Bob

 

[Flinkly]

you can buy a clear 3m material for some newer models of cars or a fit-all kit to do yourself. they sell them to protect areas where rocks might fly up like the front of the hood or on fenders. i'll try to find a linkie. you could probably do something like that and keep it on all year long like the product is made for. again, i'll try to find a link with info.

i guess you can't really do it yourself, but here is 3m's offering:

https://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Scotchgard-PPF/Home/

 

[Russ Austin]

Bill I towed my TR3 700 Miles to Pensacola Beach with very little grim or bugs, but something you can do to an open trailer is put a nose on it. You can get a small dome shaped nose that goes on the very front of the trailer. I'm looking at a couple of options like that.

 

[GuyShark]

Create a nose for your open trailer out of some plywood.

That will help with grime/road stuff bouncing up onto your car.

 

[jsneddon]

[ QUOTE ]
Create a nose for your open trailer out of some plywood.

That will help with grime/road stuff bouncing up onto your car.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depending on how long your trailer is you could even get crazy and build a tall skinny box out of plywood. Gives you a ton of extra storage and keeps the bugs at bay. Had a buddy with this setup for towing motorcycles and it worked like a charm. His was about 4 feet high, as wide as the trailer and about 1.5 or 2 feet deep with a hinged top. Aerodynamics weren't pretty but they aren't that great on an enclosed trailer either and something that low isn't going to kill you. You just need it a little higher than your car anyway.

 

[mccalebr]

When I bought my Midget I needed to get it home to Georgia from Ohio. I had available a flatbed trailer with ramps and used that. I asked advice of several lists and took these pointers: do not use a cover; only tow with the vehicle oriented forward; hood (top) up and windows up; tied down fairly tight, but where the car's suspension still works. I took along plenty of ratcheted, heavy duty (2K lbs) tie downs; attach the tie downs so that the two in the rear cross, do the same in the front. Doing so will keep the car from doing any side to side movement.

I now have an enclosed trailer so the problems are solved.

Ray