Re: Towing spiders

["Jay Mackro" <jmackro@domain.elided>]

Kelly M wrote:

>Last year, I needed to have my spider towed, they sent a flatbed truck
>While the flatbed was still
>tiled at 30 degrees and the edge about 3 feet off the ground, the tie
>down hook ripped free, sending my car bouncing down the street.
>From that day forward, I will always use a cradle, and make them put the
>rear wheels up on the dollys for towing.

Kelly:

Geez, what a horror story!  OK, so I'm the guy who advocated flatbed
"towing", rather than the cradle + two wheels on the ground.  I'll fess
up - once I did need to have my Alfa towed (well, maybe it was twice).
Anyhow, an intelligent, articulate tow truck driver showed up (he's
probably now the president of a web-based start-up called www.
towtruck.com, and worth $14 billion) - anyhow, he first tried the
cradle on the front end, but identified the tailpipe problem, and pulled
his truck around to the back of my car.  Upon lifting the spider from 
the rear, he noticed that the sump was now sitting way too close
to the road to safely tow the vehicle.  He gave up, and called in a
flatbed truck.

I don't think that your problem is common to all flatbeds.  I think
you encountered an extreme case of operator stupidity.  Heck, it was
probably the same guy that crunched Chris' tailpipe.  Another "tip" -
when unloading an Alfa spider from a flatbed, if it comes off tail first,
the tailpipe will dig into the asphalt.  A clever driver will "untilt" the
bed until the lip is a few inches off the road.  The car now comes off
at a lesser angle, and the pipe doesn't auger in.  Of course, Kelly's
driver would have just unhooked the car, and then tilted the bed
until it rolled off by itself.

Jay

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End of alfa-digest V7 #998
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