by Jim Wilson (Jim) » 25 Jul 2002 10:21
David. I'm absolutely certain that the torque strap you describe is an aftermarket piece.
As you probably know, i brought in a lot of cars during the early 80's. several arrived with damage. I shipped most cars 'roll on, roll off', i had to remove everything of value from the cars, or the dockers or ship crew would steal anything they could find. It's best to leave the full set of keys with the car; this avoids the need for these b*st*rds to jemmy the boot open. They even steal the horn push button, the dome lamp lens, any emblems, ie Charger, Road Runner, etc prised off with a screwdriver. Anything easily removed gets stolen.
I had a 57 Ch*vy Bel Air coupe they left the parking brake off. So the car rolled back and forth during the journey smashing into a Cadillac behind it and the car in front. The owner of the Caddy was devastated when he picked the car up; not only did it have this damage, but someone had completely wrecked the dash to steal the radio. It was a mess. The guy was in tears.
Even containering the cars didn't help. I sent some, where I had to leave the cars, and the dockers drove them into the containers, damaging my GTX and Road Runner in the process.
All this puts me off importing cars again.