On the M8 last week there was a car transporter on hard shoulder with 2 cars behind it, one facing the wrong way and the mechanic working on the transporter round about the rear wheel area.
Obviously they have had to remove the last 2 cars to access or fix the problem but wondering what sort of problem would this have been?
Surely not needed to fix a puncture?
GB, presume you have had experience of this - any clues?
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Sounds like a possible trailer suspension airbag problem to me BG, but it might have been a puncture and the fitter needed to get access to the back of the wheel to hit it with a sledge hammer to loosen the rust hold of the wheel.
Loaded car transporters and breakdowns are a headache, on most designs you have to raise the platform over the cab the wrong way to tilt the cab, and that means unloading up to 9 vehicles to clear that one, obviously you wont be doing that on the hard shoulder as plod would have a fit.
I had a puncture on the nsf steering tyre on the M6 B'ham couple of years ago, the air line the tyre fellow had was about 6 ft too short, so we had to get his van onto the back of the truck to make the reach shorter...watched with interest by a patrol car crew from the other carriageway...the tyre breakdown van is not allowed to stop in front instead which to me is ludicrous as whilst the chap is changing the tyre he has 23 tons of unladen truck for protection as against a 2 ton van.
Our biggest problem breakdown wise now is burst hydraulic pipes, there's hundreds of yards of the stuff and far too many moving parts on the new designs, though you usually only see those breakdowns at delivery/loading points.
A big problem for all truck breakdowns is that the fitter never gets given the phone number of the driver, so by the time he gets the message it's wrong and can't clarify until he gets to the site of it and finds he's got the wrong parts...brilliant.
Breakdown fitters are overjoyed when they get called to car transporters...;)
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Cheers for that GB.
I have often thought that Top Gear should use a transporter as one of their challenges.
The three of them to load a transporter each with a selection of cars, take it through a slalom course with maybe some parking and then unload again. Obviously being left to them to decide in what order and in what direction the vehicles should be loaded!
Can see them doing this in a TG style to hilarious results!
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Some of the larger transporters have a computer on board which tells the driver which vehicles to fit where(dependent on dimensions)to get the most on.
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Can see them doing this in a TG style to hilarious results!
That would be fun, and they would cause untold damage which they'd enjoy immensily, send them an email suggesting it, but they have to drive it flat out under a 16ft high obstacle too.
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I'm sure there could be worse:
I keep ending up behind an artic with a very clean ally bodied trailer with signs saying ' not fit for human consumption'. I believe it collects the waste from local butchers. I was once on the third floor of a building when it pulled up below at a traffic lights and I could look down at it's contents!
On a warm summer's day, I've pulled over and waited, rather than follow it.
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you want to try working at the rendering or petfood plant where they send this stuff-lovely.
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