A couple of shots of the Car Haul truck I'm driving if you're interested;

[A HERETIC I AM]

Taken in Huntley, IL., in the NW Chicago Suburbs late last week;



Most of that snow fell overnight.

The same truck and load the day before;



I picked those up at the St Louis Manheim Auto Auction. Loading cars at auto auctions sucks, but at least they all went to the same place.

[here_is_to_hope]

1. Darn parking lots...is it true

you drivers can't back up? I heard that from a chicken hauler so it must be true.
Must be nice having freight that unloads itself.
:hi:

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. LOL...Back up? SHEEEEEit

I cut my tractor trailer driving teeth driving in the City of Miami, backing up against or "bumping docks" literally dozens of times a day. I am not bragging here, but I can put that 102" wide truck into a 104" wide space, no problem. And I've done it before. It is true that many OTR drivers just don't get that much practice backing up because they mostly drive..well...forward. They might back into a dock once every 2 days or so but I have done it probably thousands of times and for a while, up to 25 times a day.


Just tell me where you want the truck. If it will fit, I'll put it there. Of course, with Car Haul, I don't back into docks at all. I need room behind me to load and unload and the unit has to be perfectly straight in order to have the tractor decks line up with the trailer properly.

When I was driving on the Indy Car circuit back in the 1990's, the company I drove for had offices at the Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, MI. Our parking spot for the truck was in a courtyard sort of area in between their Engineering department Dyno halls. In order to back in, I had to pull into another courtyard 150 yards further up the edge of the plant, back out and down an alley then left into our courtyard. The lane into the yard was about 1 and a half times the width of the trailer and then opened up. They wanted me to park to one side of the wide spot and I prided myself on being able to do the entire maneuver in one shot, without any corrections by pulling forward.

Here's the exact courtyard I am talking about. The crosshair is centered on where I had to back into. I would drive along the north side of the building and pull into the courtyard to the left of the center of that shot and back up down and into that alley, under the walkway you can see, into the space and place the truck and trailer alongside the west edge. The Wikimapia shot does indicate that Detroit Diesel has done some building expansion in that area, as the courtyard does not appear to be long enough to hold a 75' long truck, but back in 1989-1993, that's where I parked the 18 wheeler

This is the truck I did that with, probably 40 times a year;

[here_is_to_hope]

4. That looks expensive!

The wife and I ran team for Marten as O/O for 13 years, produce to Hunts Point from California, Kodak out of Rochester to get back.
The worst hole I have ever been asked to get into was in Sturgis, delivering Randy Martens Harleys for him...lol.

[siligut]

6. Backing up really is a learned skill.

It doesn't come naturally. Well, at least to me. :)

[Bertha Venation]

3. How in the bloody fucking hell do you drive that thing?

:scared:

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Simple.

Aim it and go!

Really, it drives just like a normal tractor trailer, but there are a few things you need to be aware of that are unique to that sort of truck. Really low ground clearance, for one.

[Mopar151]

5. How does the "stinger" trailer pull?

Is it comparable to a semi? How do loads or crosswinds affect it?

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Just like a normal semi trailer.....

With, as I mentioned to Bertha above, a few distinct differences you have to be aware of. It only has about 5 inches of ground clearance, so it can get high-centered real easy if you aren't careful. When it is empty it handles like a dream because it has a fairly low center of gravity. Loaded is a different story. This trailer has 5 free floating decks, meaning they will tilt and move fore and aft. It has one stationary deck at the very bottom forward, a "Diving Board" position that extends over the belly position and the bottom tail position. The latter two can be raised and lowered but only from 0one end and can not really slide to the extent the others can. Since the 5 decks I mentioned have that capability, there are 4 hinge points on each of them plus the slide, so there is a lot of weight bearing moving parts. Add a car on each one that is riding on tires and suspension and you have an awful lot of "lash" if you will, and inertia from bottom to top. The older the trailer, the more lash or play in all those joints and hinges. Load it with 8 cars stacked up and when you take a turn, the inertia doesn't stop for quite a while longer than it does with a normal van trailer. In other words, the bottom car deck moves, then the car moves, then the deck above, then the car, etc. You just don't corner fast, that's all!

As far as aerodynamics are concerned, Car Haul trucks are just about the least aerodynamic vehicles on the road. The wind can easily blow through the loaded trailer, but it also depends on what you have on. The load in the picture is long gone, but I loaded 2 F-350 full size Ford Vans today, just like the one on the tail in the pics. I loaded 4 cars yesterday in Omaha and the 2 vans this evening (Thursday) in KC, MO. I am 100 miles east of KC right now, headed back to FL. Those vans are going to catch a lot more wind than say a load of smaller cars.

Car Haul is the kind of thing that can be frustrating as hell, lots of fun and satisfying as can be. It can also be a major pain in the ass at times, as evidenced by the time stamp of this post. My day is ending so late because the vans gave me problems loading plus I had to reload another unit I picked up yesterday. It ate a lot of time.