mr mooseman. the proper way to tie down a vehicle or piece of equipment that has a suspension is to tie down the UNSUSPENDED portion!! Yes, the vehicle body will move up and down somewhat (kind of like when you drive it down the road), but the suspended parts of the car (be it wheel, axle, suspension arm etc.) stays firmly planted on the trailer. The only way to 'safely' tie down the body part of the car, as you suggest, would be to continue to cinch it down until all of the suspension travel is gone (bottomed out). Ususally not recommended. The biggest danger of securing only the body(suspended) portion to the trailer is that unless you have completely bottomed out the suspension, the car body will move up and down and back and forth a bit on bumps, which means your chains and binders,or what ever you are using as a tie down, will be going: tight-slack-tight -slack and on and on...which is how things come unhooked, and how things break. I have been involved in picking up 'things' from along the road that were not tied down properly,and its not usually pretty; so I have learned the "whys" as well as the "hows". Here is a couple of pictures of things with no suspensions that the company I work for has moved
. later, MAX
