Here’s How To Tow a Car the Right Way

After four years of towing those beasts, I was a pro, teaching all the new recruits when they arrived — except for one older dude. He refused to listen to my advice and promptly got the rig stuck not once, not twice, but too many times to count. He tipped over a $10,000 mower and then nearly drowned a $40,000 mower. He was later fired. Anyway!

What you’re here for today is a lesson in towing. Maybe you need to move your car across the country for a new job. Maybe you just bought a track car that isn’t exactly street legal. Maybe you need to take your long-sitting project to the mechanic. Whatever the case may be, you’ve come to the right place. I’m here to get you up to speed on safely towing whatever you need. 

Let’s get into it. 

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Basics of Towing a Car

Estimated Time Needed: Half hour to an hour, depending on towing setup and skill level

Skill Level: Beginner

Vehicle System: Towing

Well, you could do it wrong and impact both your own safety and your car’s overall health. 

Let’s first talk about the safety aspect. When you don’t know how to use a trailer, there are a couple of issues that can arise that could negatively affect your health. 

Trailer sway is something you’ve all likely seen on “Ridiculousness,” “AFV,” or some YouTube clip show. This occurs when the trailer begins to sway back and forth and the driver fails to mitigate it and often makes it worse, causing the vehicle and trailer to do its best python impression on the open road at 65 mph. The resulting accident is often not pretty. 

An uneven load can be just as dangerous as trailer sway, and I’ll tell you why. Your vehicle has four contact patches, namely, its tires. Those tires create a bond to the road and ensure that your vehicle is stable while driving. When you have an uneven load, it can reduce those contact patches. 

For example, if you’re new to towing and renting a full car trailer from U-Haul, you may think you need to just load the trailered car and put the front wheels all the way up to the stops on the front of the trailer. Not so. What that does is put too much weight on the trailer’s tongue, which then puts weight on the rear of the car and actually lifts the front of the car up. That, in turn, reduces your ability to steer and brake, which can have disastrous effects. 

The opposite is true as well. If you put too much weight on the rear of a trailer, the front wheels will have too much weight on them and the rears will lift up. 

And if your load is too weighted to the left or the right, your turning dynamics can also be affected. In certain situations, loading up a trailer too much on the left or right can actually cause the trailer to tip over in a turn. 

There is a limit to what you can safely load onto a trailer, dolly, or tow bar. Those things are not ants, capable of lifting 4,000 percent of their body weight. Just as your vehicle has a GVWR, trailers do as well. When you overload a trailer, you can bottom out the suspension, break the trailer in half, and lose all your precious cargo. 

So, before you load up, check the trailer’s weight limit and see if what you’re transporting will stick to those guidelines. 

This is a big one. For those who haven’t used a trailer before or do so infrequently, you may think that you can just pick up a trailer from U-Haul or Penske, load up your vehicle, and hit the road. Here’s the thing: You can’t. 

Those trailers are used day in and day out, and they’re not as well maintained as you might believe. Brakes can become stuck or partially on. Chains can break. Ball hitches may not want to latch properly. Before you put anything onto the trailer, do a thorough inspection of the trailer. 

Take that trailer around the block. Unloaded, it shouldn’t feel much different than what your vehicle normally feels like. If it feels like it’s dragging or as if it’s weighed down, you know that the trailer has an issue and you should return it. Again, if your equipment isn’t good, you may put yourself in danger and cause irreparable damage to your vehicle. 

It’s not as simple as driving the towed vehicle onto the trailer and putting it in Park. Ratchet straps, the car-securing kind or car-wheel kind, are absolutely required, and so is a good chain. 

If you’re securing your vehicle to a trailer, dolly, or tow bar, having the right ratchet straps attached at the right points is critical. For most cars, you’ll want to attach them to the axles of the vehicle. This will keep it from moving too much. One per side will work, at least for a trailer. For a dolly, you’ll want to secure the front axle of the car with two straps and a chain. Tow bars are chains and chains alone, and they attach differently. 

You could die, simple as that. Check everything twice. Check all your straps, chains, load levels, and connections. Check your brake lights. Check your turn signals. Check your tires. Check, check, and check again. 

Depending on the towing method you choose, your equipment needs will vary. In terms of big-ticket items, there are three common types of towing aparati: a trailer, a dolly, and a tow bar. Each has its uses and pros and cons. 

Trailers lift the entire car off the pavement and onto a surface so that the trailered car’s wheels stay stationary. A dolly lifts the front wheels of a car off the ground, while the back wheels are free to spin (when left in neutral). Lastly, a tow bar connects the rear of one vehicle to the front of another, and all four wheels of the towed vehicle spin freely (when left in neutral). 

You may also need a few accessories. 

Let’s get started. We’ll outline the basics of the three most common ways to tow a car. Be sure you understand your tow vehicle’s capabilities and be honest with yourself about your skill level. Towing can be both dangerous and detrimental to the towing vehicle’s components. If you do it wrong, you could damage your ride and find yourself with a big ol’ repair bill.

The most common form of towing is using a trailer.

Now that you’re hooked up and ready to go, let’s talk about how to actually tow, or rather, let’s talk about what you need to know when you’re driving down the road with a trailer, dolly, or tow bar attached to your vehicle. 

You now have a lot more weight behind you. That means your stopping distance is going to increase dramatically. Because of that, you want to give yourself enough space and time to adequately stop. Increase your following distance, decrease your need for speed, and generally act as if you have another vehicle attached to you. Use common sense. 

Just as stopping takes longer, so does accelerating. When merging, remember that the extra weight is going to slow you down and could cause an accident if you don’t merge into traffic correctly. Think and judge whether you have enough time or power to get across traffic, merge onto the highway, or just make a turn. 

Turning ain’t as easy as in a vehicle without a trailer attached. You’re much longer than you used to be, so your turning radius needs to be enlarged or you risk hitting a curb, hitting a stop sign, or mowing over a pedestrian minding their business on the sidewalk. You also risk damaging whatever you’re trailering. 

No sharp turns, folks. 

The idea of quick movements goes to the actual driving experience as well. Sharp inputs, quick lane changes, late braking have nothing to do with trailering. This is how you get into accidents or on the news. Slow down your movements; they’ll only multiply the effect on the tow vehicle and trailer. Move steadily and slowly. 

I started towing when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 16 years old. I’ve learned a lot thanks to that trial by fire. Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way. 

You’ve got questions. The Drive has answers.

A. Almost any vehicle can be towed on a trailer, but you’ll want to do your homework to determine if the vehicle you want to pull is capable of being flat towed (on all four wheels with a tow bar) or if there are special steps you need to take to prepare for towing. Don’t be the person that destroys their car by towing it the wrong way. 

A. Funny you should ask. We answered this question recently in a post titled, How Much Does It Cost To Ship a Car?

A. Trailer towing a car is one of the most stable and safest ways to tow, assuming you have a vehicle capable of the job. Some people prefer dollies because they’re cheaper and simpler to use, but they won’t match the stability of a trailer.

A. No. Towing with a rope is not only illegal in several areas, it’s not safe. Ropes can fray or snap, and there’s no safe way to stop the towed vehicle because ropes aren’t stiff like a tow bar or dolly.

A. That’s a great question. Here’s an explainer on towing capacity and what it means. 

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