Car Carrier Trailer

Overview

A car carrier is a tractor-and-trailer rig built to move finished vehicles from factories and ports to dealers. Its defining feature is a pair of decks, upper and lower, made of skid plates and runways that cars are driven onto and chained down. The decks are not fixed: hydraulic cylinders raise, lower, and tilt their segments so the operator can pack vehicles of different heights nose-to-tail and bumper-over-bumper, squeezing the maximum number onto a single trailer. A gooseneck carries the upper deck forward over the tractor cab to use that space too. Loading and unloading is done by driving each car up fold-out ramps, then ratcheting it down by the wheels.

How it works

The rig is a powered tractor and a passive trailer. The Truck Tractor supplies the driveline: a Diesel Engine feeding a Transmission whose power take-off also drives the deck hydraulics, and a Drive Axle turning the rear wheels. The trailer couples to the tractor's fifth wheel through the kingpin on the Trailer Frame, whose gooseneck reaches over the cab.

The load rides on two decks. The Upper Deck and Lower Deck are runways of skid plates in hinged segments, and the Hydraulic Deck Lift uses hydraulic cylinders and a valve block to raise and tilt those segments for clearance and tight packing. Cars reach the decks over the Loading Ramps, which fold out at the rear and bridge the gaps between segments. Once positioned, each vehicle is held by the Tie-Down System, ratchet winches tensioning chains or wheel straps so nothing shifts in transit. The loaded decks ride on the Trailer Running Gear, a leaf-sprung tandem group, and the whole rig stops on Air Brakes, air disc brakes across tractor and trailer.