Well, I thought I'd learned my lesson years ago at Express Lube, never trust an idiot with a wrench...
I rented a 5x8 U-Haul trailer to haul my Sport down to DFW for service (600 mile round trip) and had to buy a 2" trailer hitch ball for my Toyota-supplied receiver. The guy at U-Haul, seemingly more intelligent and better spoken than the average U-Haul trailer monkey, offered to mount the ball on the receiver at no charge. That sounded great to me, to get one more pain in the butt task out of the way (by an "expert" no less) before I had to trundle my junk down to Dallas and back.
So I strapped the Duc down secure and got 100 miles of washboard Oklahoma highway before I stopped to take a leak and grab a Coke and a bag of fried pork rinds ("Breakfast of Champions!" in those parts) and check the security of the rig. Lo and behold, the bolt on the trailer hitch ball had spun free and was held in place by a flimsy 15 cent cotter pin, so, essentially, the whole rig and my Duc were hanging by a 1/16" sliver of cheap metal. I guess I should be thankful that the trailer monkey had installed the cotter pin more or less correctly (or at all) lest the rig and its contents (and me) be scattered as wreckage across US 75.
Thankfully, McAlester, OK is blessed with a 24-hour Wal Marks where I was able to purchase a 15" crescent wrench, big enough to give me a hernia torquing the ball onto the receiver as tight as possible. Of course, it took me another 8 hours to go the remaining 200 miles, stopping every 25 miles to inspect the rig and make sure nothing else screwed up.
So, forget about the "45 MPH SPEED LIMIT" sticker on the trailer fender, watch out for the guy in the U-Haul shirt with the wrench and the stupid grin on his face.
I rented a 5x8 U-Haul trailer to haul my Sport down to DFW for service (600 mile round trip) and had to buy a 2" trailer hitch ball for my Toyota-supplied receiver. The guy at U-Haul, seemingly more intelligent and better spoken than the average U-Haul trailer monkey, offered to mount the ball on the receiver at no charge. That sounded great to me, to get one more pain in the butt task out of the way (by an "expert" no less) before I had to trundle my junk down to Dallas and back.
So I strapped the Duc down secure and got 100 miles of washboard Oklahoma highway before I stopped to take a leak and grab a Coke and a bag of fried pork rinds ("Breakfast of Champions!" in those parts) and check the security of the rig. Lo and behold, the bolt on the trailer hitch ball had spun free and was held in place by a flimsy 15 cent cotter pin, so, essentially, the whole rig and my Duc were hanging by a 1/16" sliver of cheap metal. I guess I should be thankful that the trailer monkey had installed the cotter pin more or less correctly (or at all) lest the rig and its contents (and me) be scattered as wreckage across US 75.
Thankfully, McAlester, OK is blessed with a 24-hour Wal Marks where I was able to purchase a 15" crescent wrench, big enough to give me a hernia torquing the ball onto the receiver as tight as possible. Of course, it took me another 8 hours to go the remaining 200 miles, stopping every 25 miles to inspect the rig and make sure nothing else screwed up.
So, forget about the "45 MPH SPEED LIMIT" sticker on the trailer fender, watch out for the guy in the U-Haul shirt with the wrench and the stupid grin on his face.
but I never heard back from them.
