Towing a Roadster

[Dave]

As some of you know, I'm packing up and driving 3,300 miles to the Boston area in a couple weeks. The plan is to have my daily driver Subaru shipped via a transport company. I'll haul all my belongings with a 20 foot Penske truck and tow the roadster behind it on a car hauler. One of the ones that the entire car sits up on.

I'm completely paranoid about theft, vandalism, rock chips, etc. Now, I know you can't haul a car with a car cover on it as the cover will flap around in the breeze and rub the paint off the car. So, here's my solution: I have a 300 foot long, 2 foot wide, roll of bubble wrap (stop laughing, I'm serious) that I scored from a buddy that works at a warehouse. I'll drive the roadster up onto the trailer and proceed to tightly wrap the bubble wrap around it. I'll roll it around and around like you would wrap a bunch of wires with electrical tape. My custom fit car cover will go over the bubble wrap. Then a tarp over top of the car cover. The tarp will be held down with rope or bungee cords.

Well, what do you think? Will it work? Another thought I had was to scrap the tarp and go around and around over the top of the car cover with that clear plastic (like industrial Saran Wrap) that warehouse folks use to hold things down to pallets with for shipping.

Am I nuts? Got any better ideas?

[alfred183]

Take LOTS of pictures

[RoadsterYosh1]

You can shrink wrap your car. Don't laugh, I'm serious...
In the boating community many owners put this plastic “shrink wrap� over the boat and use a heat gun around the edges to make it drum tight on their boats during the off season. I understand this to be very popular in the snow belt areas of the state. They also shrink wrap the new boats when they ship them. I don’t know what the material is called, but a place that sell boats may be able the help you out.
Yosh

[sgriffin]

Boston will swear that the Washington Hillbillies have arrived. LOL Good luck. Sam

[Dave]

Yosh, I'm on it! I know exactly what you're talking about. It's white. That's a great idea. Thanks!

[Jason]

Yosh, I'm on it! I know exactly what you're talking about. It's white. That's a great idea. Thanks!

Say Dave, that sound's like one heck of a move! Why not ship the roadster and tow the subaru? Sorry your leaving the wet coast though. Takes lots of pictures!

Jason

[dbrick]

The shrink wrap sounds good, but if it's new paint, I don't know what the moisture trapped under the plastic will do. Maybe shrink wrap over the cloth cover? The only drawback I can think of is people just HAVE TO see what's under the cover.

What about a box trailer, Stickerman told me you can fit it in a 12 footer if you take the bumpers off, Maybe someone can verify?

Just don't tell the rental company you are putting a car in there.

I also had a friend put a car IN the moving van. He hired a flatbed tow truck at each end to get it in and out. Another one used a dumpster, but he owned a garbage company.

What can I say, I have strange friends

Good Luck, avoid Connecticut, the traffic is terrible.

Once you get settled, come to Watkins Glen,
Hope I'm not the only Roadster there.

[TR]

I've gotta agree with Jason...Ship the roadster, tow the subie...

Sorry to see you go so far away when we never got to meet in person...TR

[RoadsterYosh1]

Yosh, I'm on it! I know exactly what you're talking about. It's white. That's a great idea. Thanks!

Glad I could offer a suggestion Dave.

Sounds like you value the Roadster more and willing to deal with the hassels of trailering it.
Good luck
Yosh

[Minh]

Actually maybe a big ole rol of plastic saran wrap might do the trick. Layers upon layer of it. The roll has has a whole lot of plastic.

It is the same roll used to wrap up pallets of goods onto a freight truck.

Any freight or truck loading/unloading zone at a department/grocery store operation should have a few lying around.

[Dave]

Thanks for the support and the well wishes, gang! If I can score the shrink wrap, I'll put that on over the bubble wrap so I don't need to worry about it sticking to the paint. The paint is a good 4 years old so there's no worries about it being trapped under the plastic and not being able to off-gas.

I've been around and around with transport options over the last 6 months. My original idea was to rent a class 8 semi and load everything into a little 28 foot trailer. problem is, no one rents a class 8 one way. Too bad, I would have saved a ton on hotels. My buddy Randy works for Kenworth, up in Seattle, I work for Freightliner down in Portland. We both have our CDLs and are quite comfortable towing trailers. Our plan was to team drive all the way out there and make the trip in 3 days. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the time off work and with the round trip rental thing, that pretty much killed it.

I thought about shipping the roadster and trailering the subie. Cost to ship the subie is a grand. Cost to ship the roadster was over $2k due to its modified nature, and my listing it as a collectable type car. When it comes down to it, I care a whole heck of a lot more about the roadster than I do a 99 Subie with 90K on it. I'm not letting the roadster out of my site. There's just no way I could trust anyone other than myself with it. If I crash on the way out there and destroy the car, at least it's my fault. I can handle that. If the Subie happens to fall off the transport guy's truck, oh well, that's what full coverage is for!

[dbrick]

With the truck thing, have you contacted any of the freight haulers or dealers or Penske? Someone might want to shuttle a truck to the East coast, as long as they don't mind you hauling a trailer of your own stuff, that way they don't pay someone to bobtail cross country.

Either way, let us know how it turns out.
Best thing about Boston, It's really fun to listen to them talk.
So Pahk that little Fahhren cahr in the Yahd