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Towed my C4 home this past weekend about 250 miles or so.
Had gotten one of the newer aluminum trailers and here is my experience.
I figured the ramps would be too steep so I brought my floor jack along and jacked the tongue of the trailer up while it was still attached to the truck. This gave me the needed clearance to make it up on the trailer.
The airdam on the front will not clear the lip on the trailer so you will need to add some more height or remove the airdam, I chose to take a 1x6 and a 2x4 as seen in the pic to add enough height. This solution made the airdam clear by about an inch or so.
There were no issues with the wide tires and the tie down straps, however after driving for about a mile you will want to stop and re-tighten them. Also you driver door will open and close just fine if you lower the wheel guard on the trailer so you don't have to climb in and out of the window.
Car towed perfectly with no trailer sway or anything like that. All in all it was pretty painless.
I had a good experience with the UHaul Trailer as well roughly 4 years ago; summer of 2012. Hauled the car from the St. Louis area all the way to TPIS up in Chaska, MN. Did that in August of course.
I had a neighbor help me drive my car up into the trailer and I was able to go down my drive way to the ramps so I had a natural "lift" from the angle of my driveway on to the ramp to the trailer. The straps pull the wheels down tight and the trailers are surprisingly built well. I think they weigh about a ton if I remember and with the dual axles they perform well going down the road.
I didn't realize until I was up in Minnesota the damn wheel/tire fender on the driver side has a hinge so that you can lower it..........
I didn't get a schooling on it when I rented it, so I learned myself. Only thing was I think I paid $50/day for it.....wasn't real cheap, but I don't need a trailer every day.
I towed my '85 from IL to AZ (1700 miles) and 15 years later towed it back to IL on a U-Haul trailer like that.
It worked fine on both trips. I took the air dam off for more clearance. I also found a couple of business that were separated by a curb and had different height parking lots. I parked on the lower one and when I put the ramps out to the higher one it was nearly straight to load and unload the car. On the other end of the trips I looked for uneven or sloped areas to lessen the ramp angles and that worked good too.
With the 2X's under the front wheels, the front block on the trailer isn't very effective as a chock against the car going forward. And the angle of the front wheel straps isn't helping to keep it from going forward either. Hopefully, the car was strapped down in the rear so it wouldn't go over the front of the trailer while braking.
The car is really far forward on the trailer. A C4 is pretty evenly balanced ft/rear weight wise. The center of the car is ahead of the front axle of the trailer. Mostly hard on the tow car suspension, there's more tounge weight than the 10-15% needed for sway-free towing. While U-Haul has good proprietary tires, a good portion of the total weight of the car and trailer is on the front trailer tires. You want tandem axles to be evenly loaded, so the tires on one axle aren't overloaded, get too hot and blow from the overload.
I am glad the op had a safe trip and he did have a couple good tips on getting the car on the trailer. what was written here in this post is correct. You do not want the car this far forward, reason already explained.
With the 2X's under the front wheels, the front block on the trailer isn't very effective as a chock against the car going forward. And the angle of the front wheel straps isn't helping to keep it from going forward either. Hopefully, the car was strapped down in the rear so it wouldn't go over the front of the trailer while braking.
The car is really far forward on the trailer. A C4 is pretty evenly balanced ft/rear weight wise. The center of the car is ahead of the front axle of the trailer. Mostly hard on the tow car suspension, there's more tounge weight than the 10-15% needed for sway-free towing. While U-Haul has good proprietary tires, a good portion of the total weight of the car and trailer is on the front trailer tires. You want tandem axles to be evenly loaded, so the tires on one axle aren't overloaded, get too hot and blow from the overload.
I noticed both points too when I saw the pictures. Glad the trip went well. Here's a picture of my setup.
12-09-2016, 04:28 PM
c4 Uhaul towing experience
