I had found an old thread on here that referenced an older thread about tie downs that covered the pros/cons of wheel vs frame tie downs – but the link provided was with the old forum setup, so it didn’t link to anything.
I don’t mind if no one wants to discuss this if someone can just point me to a thread the covers the two sides.
Otherwise, a couple friends and I had this discussion a few days ago. One was adamant about going to the frame / lower rear shock point. The other friend (and myself) thought transporting the car with the suspension under load could cause extra wear on the car or possibly slowly diminish the effectiveness of the shocks.
The usual arguments were tossed around – the frame tie down points are there from the factory for a reason, wheel tie downs will take your car out of alignment, etc. I don’t think either of us really discussed the crossing vs. not crossing options – it sounds like the common thinking now is to not cross the straps.
I’m curious to hear the arguments for tying to the frame beyond “that’s the way I’ve always done it and never had issues”. Personally, I’d 100% prefer to tie to the frame – it’s much easier than tying straps through the wheels. It just seems to me that the argument of “that’s the way the factory does it” doesn’t, by itself, prove it’s the best way. Cars transported from the factory or even from dealership to dealership are usually done on giant ships or by trucks with multi-car carriers. The transfer of energy from poor road conditions don’t (I believe) transfer nearly as strongly to the car when the car is on a giant carrier as it does when it’s on a single car trailer (which 90% of us are using). Particularly if that carrier is weighed down with several other cars. So if you hit a big big dip going full speed on the freeway, it’s going to result in a more sudden force applied on the car if it’s a single car trailer. If the car’s shocks are already loaded from the tie downs, I would think this would risk more damage.
Many say wheel tie downs do, in fact, affect alignment, while others will argue “no way” because the car “sees more lateral force on the track than what you’re applying via straps”. But ignoring that, for the moment, let’s say wheel tie downs do tweak the alignment. One thing I’m wondering is if the wheel tie down has gotten a bad rep because it’s much easier to correlate the tie down to the change in alignment because it’s easier measure and test – measure alignment, tie down car by wheels, transport, measure alignment, compare.
On the other side, the type of effect a frame tie down might have is not as easy to measure (suspension fatigue, body/tower fatigue, shock dampening capabilities diminished, etc). I mean, face it, if the shock towers starts cracking on these cars, people’s first thoughts aren’t to correlate that to frame tie downs since the towers are known to be weak anyway. And you’re not really going to notice a gradual degradation of dampening.
Anyways… curious to hear the different sides of this or be pointed to a detailed thread about it that covers the angles (I’m sure it’s been done… but most the threads I found were around cross vs. not crossing.
Thanks,
Som
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I’ll probably do just that. Might have to change my straps soon anyway… thinking I’ll just get some latched ones and go to the frame. Seems easier to strap the car down than going through 4 wheels every time.