A random tip in a truck stop changed how I strap cars

Last month I was fueling up near Tulsa and overheard two drivers talking about load securement. One guy said he always crosses his straps in an X pattern on the rear axle of a car carrier. I thought it was overkill, but I tried it on a 2016 Civic I was hauling from Oklahoma City to Dallas. The wind was brutal on I-35 and the car felt rock solid the whole way. I used to just run parallel straps and hope for the best, but the X pattern stopped all the side sway I never even noticed before. Been doing it on every load since, about 30 runs now. Has anyone else picked up a trick like this from just overhearing someone? What's a tip you wish you learned years earlier?

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mark_nguyen9525d ago

I ran X patterns on the rear for years on a 3 car wedge and honestly it cost me more time than it saved. On a Civic, sure, that thing is light and the straps barely load up, so an X feels great because it kills the sway. Put a Tahoe or an F250 back there and crossed straps start rubbing on themselves at the hook point, and I have seen webbing get chewed through in under 300 miles that way. Parallel with a proper ratchet and the right angle does the same job without the wear, and you can actually check tension at a glance. Thirty runs is nothing, wait until you do a thousand and see what those straps look like.

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