towing a griff - any advice

[gjm]

for a number of reasons my griff is going to the garage on a flatbed truck to have some work done. i am a bit concerend about how they intend to winch it onto the truck without damaging the underside of the nosecone. anyone had their griff on a flatbed got any recommendations or tips to make sure it gets on and off unscathed? cheers

[beano1197]

I have a huge long Friday night in the rain, raging at the inability of the RAC and their contractors, story to tell. Best not start me on the subject - it was only last night and I haven't calmed down yet!!!

Summarising, I told the first contractor to F off when they turned up with one of those things with a fork on the back (I had specified low loader and nothing else).

Eventually got a great guy (Noel) from London come all the way out to Bracknell. He had a snazzy low loader (quite a big bugger, but Noel reckoned it was very manoeuvrable), he knew exactly what he was doing and there was absolutely no problem. He knew what to attach the winch to; he checked it was going to clear the ramp as it went on and off; he positioned it very carefully and strapped it very carefully and securely.

I reckon if the guy knows what he is doing, you have no problems to worry about.

('course, I still have to suffer the same trauma on Monday to get the Griff over to The Garage, but it's a suspected coil failure - nothing too painful!)

Best of luck!

[angusfaldo]

I've had mine towed a couple of times and with an appopriate lowloader there's plenty of clearance at the front.

However, where you can have problems is at the back, if the loader has a steep angle onto the loading tray. The first time mine was winched the nose was lifted too high and the exhaust was dragged on the road, crushing the pipes. It cost the transport company a new sports exhaust.

So my advice is, when the guy is winching the car, ask him to go slowly so you can keep an eye on the back of the car.

Oh, and take a camera. You'd be surprised how different (and striking) a Griff looks from below when it is up on the truck!

[GreenV8S]

for a number of reasons my griff is going to the garage on a flatbed truck to have some work done. i am a bit concerend about how they intend to winch it onto the truck without damaging the underside of the nosecone. anyone had their griff on a flatbed got any recommendations or tips to make sure it gets on and off unscathed? cheers

Luckily mine tends to go a long time between shredding the transmission so I'm not that familiar with low loaders and so on, but when I've had mine recovered in the past, it was always with one of those low loaders that drop the whole bed off the back of the truck so it's at a very shallow angle. Apparently it's standard AA policy to specify these for sports cars because they are prone to grounding out when you try to use conventional ramps.

Edited to add: I remember they also used "soft" i.e. non-abrasive straps to winch it on.

>> Edited by GreenV8S on Saturday 2nd November 22:15

[shpub]

for a number of reasons my griff is going to the garage on a flatbed truck to have some work done. i am a bit concerend about how they intend to winch it onto the truck without damaging the underside of the nosecone. anyone had their griff on a flatbed got any recommendations or tips to make sure it gets on and off unscathed? cheers

Best thing is to drive it on if possible and not use the winch.

[apache]

is there a Griff owner out there who has not had to use a lo loader?

[davidd]

Mine has only been on one once, apart from the AA chap pushing his hand through the rear window it was fine!!

[SGirl]

I've not had the pleasure of having the Griff towed in yet... (touching lots of wood, flinging salt cellars over shoulder etc.)

[beano1197]

The best bit, of course, is the bit when you forget what it was like having to winch it on!

Second half of my earlier post is that I can report another good low loader driver - we checked out the exhausts as it came off (on a bit of a slope), but it was fine!

See also www.pistonheads.net/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=21189

[IPAddis]

Had mine low-loaded on Friday. The guy had two wooden planks which he put behind the ramps so that the wheels were slightly higer off the ground to clear the exhausts.

I drove it onto the ramp myself (very steep and raining, didn't trust the RAC muppet with 300lb/ft) and had no problems.

They strapped it on by putting the straps around the wheels. Made some slight dents in the tyre wall which I was slightly concerned about but they popped back out when unstrapped.

Edited to add, I did have a look at using the front tow hook (on front-most cross-member) but if we had used it, the splitter would have been ripped off.

Ian A.

>> Edited by IPAddis on Monday 4th November 14:12

[gjm]

thanks for all your advice chaps. griff was winched onto flat bed by a v competant recovery driver and a couple of extra bits of wood infront of the wheels did the trick. i have no front air splitter so no probs with the winch rope catching this, although it was a bit close to the underside and i would have thought if i had a splitter it would have got mangled.

[beano1197]

Result

Trust it'll be back soon, gracing the roads under its own steam!