Jason Bleazard <dml@bleazard.net> wrote:
: Walt@Walt-n-Ingrid.Com wrote:
:> David brought up a good point, if any of the wheels are touching the ground,
:> technically you'll have to have a plate on it, to flat tow it. Since the desire
:> is to haul it 2/3rds the way across country, it probably would be a necessity.
:> Perhaps CO offers temporary interstate transport plates which would allow it to
:> be flat towed. I know some states do. Don't know about insurance, but I would
:> guess there probably would be some requirements there as well. Definitely needs
:> to be kept in mind if it is flat towed.
:>
: Hmmm... yes, plates and insurance are both good points I had not considered. Thanks Dave and Walt for thinking of that. Renewing the plate isn't a big deal, don't know about insurance though. We all know how I feel about insurance companies.
I don't know if this is even feasable or not, (not sure if you have
to own the vehicle to get insurance on it) but if you want to cover
the cost, what I could do is to put it on my policy (probably would
have to be liability only since comp/collision would require an
inspection by an insurance rep, which obviously would be difficult),
but it could be removed after its here. Probably wouldn't cost very
much to have it insured for those couple of weeks or whatever it ends
up being. I could also stop by some of the local insurance agents
and see if they have a short term, temporary type policy for this sort
of thing rather than putting it on an existing policy and removing it
later. If a vehicle can only be insured by the owner, we could get
around that by having you could just sign the title over to me or just
make up a bill of sale or something, then I'd sign it back over once
it got here. Hmmm, now that I think of it, I think some insurance
policies have an option to cover not only your vehicle but whatever
you happen to be towing (liability only), in which case you might
not need to get any insurance on the Jeep itself, it would be covered
by the liability insurance of the tow vehicle.
: Here's another: how about some kind of brake control system for the vehicle in tow? Based on http://www.brakebuddy.com/towing_laws.html it looks like it would need one in Ohio and New York. We never used to use anything like that going up and down the mountains of Utah, but I guess the state of New York knows better. These "Brake Buddy" systems go for about $800 from what I could tell with a quick search. (And here's the fun part, it looks like it runs off of 12V in the towed vehicle, but I believe t
he Jeep's electrical system is 6V.) A trailer is looking better all the time.
If it were me, I wouldn't bother with anything like that at all. I
mean, obviously it isn't required from a "laws of physics" standpoint,
just the "laws of bureaucratic weenies". :-) So really the only
danger would be getting stopped in a state where it is required,
and it seems like the odds of that are fairly slim - you'd probably
have to be pulled over for something else or just happen across a
REALLY bored cop, since there's no way to tell externally wether
a towed vehicle might have such a braking system or not. I guess
it would be up to whoever was towing the vehicle through said states.
(If Mike ends up being able to flat tow it the whole way, wether he
wants to risk OH and NY or not.) If it turns out that Mike will
need to get that garden tractor and Tom ends up pulling it to
Chicago or David pulls it to Detroit so that we need to head out
with the 3500 to get it, then its a moot point anyway since we
can just bring the trailer and it won't end up being flat towed
through OH or NY anyway...
Speaking of flat towing though, since the Jeep has a tow bar
on it, does it also have a connector to plug into the tow vehicle
to cause its lights to act like trailer lights? If not, I would
definitely plan on bringing something along that you can use to give
the jeep brake lights, turn signals, and running lights at the very
least. If not, I'm sure we could put something together really quick
and inexpensively here. I've already got some trailer type wiring
and lights here I think so you might not need to buy much, even if
we were starting from scratch it would probably only be $20-30
to put something together. It would just plug into the tow
vehicle via a standard 4 way plug, and the lights would be zip-tied,
duct taped, etc. to the back of the Jeep...
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| 67 Dodge Coronet, 70 Plymouth Barracuda, 76 Peugeot TSA |
| 78 Dodge B100, 90 Dodge Dakota Convertible, 92 Dodge Ram 4x4 |
| 96 Dodge Dakota, 96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, 96 Kolb FireFly |
| 99 Jeep Cherokee 4x4, 01 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD |
`--------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
.
.
.------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Make your plans NOW to attend the National DML Meet in Colorado! |
| Date: July 15-23, 2006 - More info: http://meet.dakota-truck.net |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2006 - 09:31:34 EDT