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Old 08-15-2016, 10:49 AM   #1
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Uh Oh

We're new to towing a car behind the motor home and I have been paranoid about taking off with the emergency brake on the toad engaged. I check and have the wife double check it after me each time we load the car onto the dolly. The Jeep Cherokee has an e-brake so you can't see if it's engaged by just looking at the position of the brake lever, you have to get in and look at the indicator light. Normally the procedure is to drive the Cherokee onto the dolly, engage parking brake, strap the wheels down, then get back in and release the brake. So far so good.

You know what's coming next. We wanted to get an early start on our last trip so we loaded up the toad the night before so we wouldn't have to do it in the dark the next morning. For what ever reason, I chose not to release the brake after strapping it down. I guess I thought I'd check it in the morning, which didn't happen. The next morning I did a quick walk around and the parking brake never entered my mind. We get in the coach and take off and immediately hear a scraping sound. I stop, listen, turn the coach brake on and off, put the transmission back in N, then D and take off again. The noise is back and I immediately know what it is. I stop and get out of the coach and the first thing I see are two black streaks behind the car. They weren't long, maybe 50 feet or so, but it was enough to ruin both rear tires.

Luckily, there was a tire place on the way out of town that had two of the correct size tires so it didn't delay us a lot. The car has over 30,000 miles on it so the tires were in the last quarter of their life, but it was an aggravating experience.
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:03 AM   #2
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We always do what we call our "toad rolling check" whenever we first hook up, and / or pull away from an overnight stop even if we do not unhook the toad.

One of us stands behind the rig, and the first thing we do is check the brake lights, tail lights, and turn signals.

Then the coach driver slowly pulls away, and the toad checker walks around side to side to ensure the wheels are freely rolling, no odd noises (tranny properly set), and the bars are locked. The checker walks along for 25 or 50 yards, and is communicating to the driver over walkie talkies. Once we are both happy, the checker hops in and we are on our way.

I also keep th driver's side window open just to ensure that if anyone is yelling at us because of some problem, I have a better than chance to hear them; a few weeks ago, a DP leaving their campsite had a bay door pop open (all the way) and thier sliding tray was coming out of the basement...... Hope he saw it, by the time I was able to get out of our coach he was way too far down the road.

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Old 08-15-2016, 11:12 AM   #3
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That seems like a short skid to ruin the tires. Maybe it was because they were cold and scuffed harder.
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:14 AM   #4
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yikes

Been there done that
Your lucky I went about a mile and a half before a lady frantically waving me down got my attention. We ruined two tires and a rim. The Rim was $450 alone and not easy to find.

As D&S said we now do the toad walker and my GF stands behind the coach when I am completely ready to pull away and checks tires rolling and all lites. That was an expensive and troubling lesson that will not be repeated.
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:24 AM   #5
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I alwasy do a "Neutral Roll". On my street, there is a slight down hill, so releasing the parking brake of the coach, it will roll to confirm the TOAD is in neutral and parking brake off.

Just this weekend it rolled about 1 ft and stopped.....because the transfer switch had gone back into gear (so TOAD was in "Park"). I had tried a slightly different procedure which apparently did not work

If your'e not on a slope, put the coach in gear and let it roll a couple of feet while idling, and then hit neutral to make sure it continues to roll.

Our Trailhawk has an electric parking brake which I really don't like....I do have it set to manual.

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Old 08-15-2016, 11:27 AM   #6
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As my final check to verify no parking brakes (MH or Toad). I do what I call a "Coasting test".

When I first start out, i.e. pulling away from a gas pump, or pulling out of a rest area, etc.

I get the MH moving forward a little bit (1 or 2 mph), then put the transmission in "N" and see how well it coasts. If it doesn't seem to be coasting very well, I need to check out why. On those rare occasions that it doesn't seem right, its always been the parking brake in the MH that hasn't fully released.
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:33 AM   #7
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:46 AM   #8
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With our first coach, we pulled our 86 Toyota 4x4 pickup as a toad. It had manual front hubs that were always disconnected (unless 4 wheeling, of course) so all we had to do is put the trans in neutral, turn the key to ACC (to unlock the steering wheel) and off we go.

The second time we pulled this truck, I had inadvertently left the trans in reverse. I pulled out of our gravel driveway, down our cut-de-sac of about 75 yards, right turn onto a side street for about 100 yes and then left turn down the main road to the highway for about 200 yds and accelerating to about 35mph. Being new to the whole coach/toad scene, I didn't check mirrors, back up camera, or anything else. When I did finally look in the mirror, I saw a huge plume of blue smoke billowing out from behind the truck.

I immediately came to a stop went back to the truck (I thought I'd left the e-brake on), opened the door and saw that the brake was off. Scratching my head and going through the list of things that I might done wrong, my eyes settled on the gear shift and I saw that it was still in reverse. All kinds of $$ signs, for engine repair, came flooding through my thoughts as I pulled the gear shift back to neutral and tried to start the engine. Nope, it just cranked and cranked but would not fire. Tried again, and I heard one cylinder tried to fire and then a second (this is a 4 cyl) and then a third. It was sputtering and sputtering and once again billowing blue smoke out the exhaust. After a minute or so, the fourth cylinder fired and the engine started to level out and the smoke decreased until it ran normally with no smoke.

The rear tires had some flat spots and we eventually had to replace all four and put up with the bumping (from the flat spots) for a couple of months.

The engine had about 150000 miles on it at the time and we put another 100000 on it since then (we still have the truck). This made a firm believer of Toyota durability out of me.

Since then, we've got another coach and two other toads and believe me we've set up a fool proof method of checking everything before we pull out.

Ron
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:50 AM   #9
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Yep, welcome to the club! Fried the parking brake rotors/pads on the CRV 2 wks ago. I would swear on a stack of Bibles I had it released, especially since the "PARK BRAKE" light was NOT on on the dash. The wheels turned & rolled & we never smelled anything "hot" when we made at least 2 stops (where we got out) enroute, so I don't know how it happened. But the shop tech said the only way that would've happened to them was to tow with the parking brake on.

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Old 08-15-2016, 11:55 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Betr2Trvl View Post
We always do what we call our "toad rolling check" whenever we first hook up, and / or pull away from an overnight stop even if we do not unhook the toad.

One of us stands behind the rig, and the first thing we do is check the brake lights, tail lights, and turn signals.

Then the coach driver slowly pulls away, and the toad checker walks around side to side to ensure the wheels are freely rolling, no odd noises (tranny properly set), and the bars are locked. The checker walks along for 25 or 50 yards, and is communicating to the driver over walkie talkies. Once we are both happy, the checker hops in and we are on our way.

I also keep th driver's side window open just to ensure that if anyone is yelling at us because of some problem, I have a better than chance to hear them; a few weeks ago, a DP leaving their campsite had a bay door pop open (all the way) and thier sliding tray was coming out of the basement...... Hope he saw it, by the time I was able to get out of our coach he was way too far down the road.

Regards
We do now!
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Old 08-15-2016, 11:57 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atom Ant View Post
That seems like a short skid to ruin the tires. Maybe it was because they were cold and scuffed harder.
I thought so too, but one tire had a small chunk of rubber missing. The other just had a scrubbed look to it. We replaced both to keep both the same tires on the axle. Our drive is concrete and has a very rough surface.
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Old 08-15-2016, 12:00 PM   #12
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I'm glad to see we're in good company! We've discussed the issue and will now do a rolling check before we leave after loading the dolly.
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Old 08-15-2016, 03:56 PM   #13
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Don't feel bad, somebody posted a video on here a while back that shows a motorhome towing a small pickup with the rear wheels locked up and most of the tires are already gone when the RV driver finally pulls over and sees what has happened. He then just shrugs and takes off again without changing or fixing anything....
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Old 08-15-2016, 04:18 PM   #14
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I did the opposite just today. I towed my Tacoma to Florida and back. Got home yesterday and was too tired to unhook it. So today, while home alone, I got to it. Re-installed the drive shaft, unhooked dolly safety chains from the truck, and then took off the first strap. So far so good. Then when I undid the last tire strap, the truck rolled off the dolly (I'm parked on a 2 mile long hill). Well, it took off like a shot! I ran after it, barefoot! Caught up to the truck and managed to get the door open. Almost got run over. Got inside and hit the brake about 5 feet from the really steep part of the hill. Next time, I will remember to engage the parking brake before unloading.
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