Before you head off-road with your UTV or side by side, you must know how to transport it safely.
There’s a lot of advice out there on how to tow your UTV, but not all of it is solid. We’ve put together our best tips to haul a side by side or UTV so you can spend more time enjoying the trails and less time juggling ratchet straps, trailers, and bungee cords.
You know, if your UTV was street legal, you wouldn’t have to do any of this! Imagine driving to your favorite trail or OHV area without a truck and trailer holding you back. Stop for food, hit the town, do whatever you want – all in your UTV. Best of all, our expert team can make it all happen on your behalf.
Using a Truck
If you want to see how not to load your UTV onto a truck bed, simply watch this YouTube video. This sort of elaborate rigging setup is not aerodynamic, making it unstable at high speeds.
The truck bed idea is perfect if you own a truck and only have one machine to transport. To load it into the truck bed, you must have a high-quality set of ramps and some durable tie-downs. Choose ratchet straps for a secure fit, not those flimsy pull straps.
When you look to purchase a set of ramps, make sure they are simple to store. You will want to splurge and get a pair that connects to the truck. This prevents accidents from occurring while loading or unloading where the ramps slide out. There have been many accidents while loading a quad on the truck simply because the ramp slips. Don’t let it happen to you!
If you find that the truck bed isn’t quite long enough to accommodate your vehicle, certain ramps also double as a truck bed extender. Of course, these cost slightly more than regular ramps, but work great for anyone that needed a tad more space.
Using a Trailer
If you would rather haul with a trailer, or have multiple machines to transport, we’ve got a few tips for you.
You will want to use a trailer that has a ramp, some thick ratchet straps and a towing vehicle that has a hitch. This necessitates more expense upfront.
Before you begin, make sure you engage your parking brake on your towing vehicle. While this sounds like a no-brainer, many people forget this critical step. Then, verify that your trailer coupler is tight and secure. You should also check the trailer safety chains.
Heck, check everything about 200 times during this process, just to be sure.
Lower the ramp gate until it safely rests on the ground. Put your ratchet straps within the tie-down rings located on the trailer bed. Carefully, guide your UTV on the trailer. When you do this, make sure you put the heaviest part on the front to comply with the vital 60/40 rule of balancing your trailer’s weight. By keeping your UTV centered properly, you ensure superior weight distribution.
Once you have the side by side placed where you want it, make sure you secure it with ratchet straps. Never attach the hooks to your axles or suspension as it can bend your parts when tightened. If you are unsure where to place the straps, check your owner’s manual.
Sound like too much work? Too much money invested? Too many chances to get hurt? You could always get street legal instead.
Towing a UTV with a Trailer
When you tow a side by side on your utility trailer, follow the rules just as you would with any cargo. Some tips you must adhere to include:
Alter your driving style to provide more room to maneuver. The trailer adds weight, width and length to your truck.
Reduce your traveling speeds by 10 mph or more.
Make sure the side mirrors are adjusted so you can see the trailer and other objects.
Always wear your seatbelt.
Never load your rig again! Make your UTV street legal now.
Positioning Your Load
Distribute the Weight
One of the Dirt Legal team members recently hauled a heavy car home on a trailer, and because it wasn’t running, he was forced to load it backwards.
Thirty seconds on the highway and the trailer started violently swaying from one side to the other. This is called trailer sway, and it’s a potentially fatal result of loading your trailer incorrectly.
The proper weight distribution varies from trailer to trailer, and that specialty website linked above will do a way better job of explaining this, but essentially when most of the weight is behind the trailer’s axles you get a “tail wagging the dog” effect where the trailer wants to move independently of the tow vehicle.
If this happens, one course of action is to slow the vehicle down gradually but swiftly. Get it done quickly before the swaying enters other lanes or whips your truck around. The alternative is to crash, something we do not recommend doing.
Use Plenty of Tie Downs
We all know that person who says, “just throw her in gear, she won’t move.”
The same staff member of ours we talked about earlier recounts another instance of hauling a 4,000-pound car on a flatbed trailer:
“I tied the car down as I usually do – two in the front, two in the back, all through the wheels – and yet somehow, all four ratchet straps were loose every time I pulled over. The funny thing was, the car never moved an inch.”
This is a common occurrence, especially if your ratchet straps are worn. The stretching and slackening action of towing a UTV or side by side will do this.
The take-away here is to always have several redundant backups in case a tie-down or ratchet strap fails. Be sure to keep those balanced between the front and rear of the vehicle as well.
And speaking of that…
Tie the UTV Down Evenly
Yet again, the same team member of ours once tied a motorcycle to a trailer and accidentally positioned all the straps as pulling toward the back of the trailer.
After the first few bumps, the bike was pushing up against the rear ramp, which luckily was folded vertically. Otherwise that bike would have been on the highway in all the wrong ways.
Position your straps so that the four corners of your UTV or side by side are covered. You don’t have to wrench them down like Thor, just use enough tension so the straps don’t come loose and the hooks don’t work their way out. Better yet, use straps with captive or closing hooks.
Make sure to cover the possibility of the UTV moving forward, backward, left, or right, and you’ll be hauling your UTV like a professional in no time flat.
A creative approach to hauling ATVs | source
Other UTV and Side by Side Towing Tips
Before you head out on the road, consider a few more tips we have for you.
If you plan to haul the UTV in your truck, put a tire at the front of the bed. That way you can push up against that tire without running into the truck’s rear window. It’s not uncommon for people to bust out this window when loading their quad. Another danger is when you slam on the brakes. Even if that machine is tied down, it can still move forward and cause some damage.
Don’t just throw your ramps loose inside the truck bed. Instead, strap down the ramps when you aren’t using them. This is especially vital if you use lightweight aluminum ramps. Even if you think they won’t go anywhere, it only takes a little wind to get under them and whip them right out of your truck bed.
Light the way. You need to make sure other people can see the trailer. Without adequate lighting on the trailer, bad things could happen in traffic. Consider adding deck lights so you can watch your UTVs as you drive. Top tip: If your trailer lights aren’t working, use the lights on your UTV instead. If needed, attach something over the headlights to prevent those from shining in your rear-view mirror all night long.
Pack a winch. Even if your UTV is usually in running condition, there will surely be a time when it isn’t. Whether you simply have a dead battery or you snapped an entire wheel and hub assembly clean off, a winch is an invaluable thing to have. Considering that one big-box store with the red price tags has some pretty good winches for only a few hundred bucks, there’s really no reason not to have one in your arsenal.
Don’t forget your spare tire and jack. This also seems like something everyone should know, but hey, we all learned it somewhere. Anytime you haul a trailer; you should have a tire for it. Getting a flat will ruin your plans very quickly if you aren’t prepared.
Place your UTVs properly. If you plan to load more than one machine on your trailer or truck, make sure you put the smaller one in the front. This allows you to watch everything while driving. Plus, the larger UTV holds the smaller one in place better. If you have trouble seeing the one in the back, consider attaching something bright to it. Then, you just have to look for that as you drive to ensure everything is in place. Be sure to consider your weight distribution when you organize your load.
What are some of your best UTV hauling tips?
Help the other readers out and share some of your favorite tips while hauling. Do you have that friend who just wings it and throws their machine in a truck bed?
Leave us a comment and let us know your experiences.
Why not get street legal instead?
Imagine if your UTV was street legal. If it was, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that stuff – you could just drive there! Our expert team can make it all happen on your behalf. Check out our comprehensive Street Legal UTV Guide covering all 50 states or click below to see how our team of experts can make your UTV or side by side street legal quickly and efficiently.
About the Author
Brian Jones is an ASE Certified Master Tech that lives outside of Dallas, TX with his wife and children. He has a passion for old muscle cars, big pickup trucks and anything motorsport related. In his spare time, he does a lot of traveling and writing for dealerships across the country through CarBlogWriters.com.