Using a 2 wheel tow dolly

I have just bought a new FWD vehicle that we intend to tow, but which is not flat-towable. I have towed before, but always with Jeeps as the tow vehicle and always flat-towed, so I find myself uncertain about how to set up the car for tow-dolly towing.

The vehicle is an automatic transmission Honda Fit (my tow weight limit is low) and I am pretty sure I know how to load the vehicle onto the tow dolly (although I have never done that before), but I find myself unsure of how to set up the car itself, so I have some pretty basic questions.

1) I am sure I have to leave the emergency brake off, but what about the transmission setting? I can not turn the engine off without putting it in Park, but does Park lock the rear wheels? If so, how do I get the transmission into neutral (if that is the right setting) without starting the engine?

2) Do I remove the key and lock the steering wheel? Or does that depend upon the tow dolly?

I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about using tow dollies, but they all spend the time on how to load the dolly, not on how to set up the car. I think this is a pretty basic question but since I have never done this before I am uncertain what to do and worry that I will ruin the transmission if I do something wrong.

If the tow dolly has swivel plates, you can leave the Tranny in park and steering locked, generally. If not, then need to leave steering unlocked.

Parking brakes generally lock the rear wheels. Leave the parking brake disengaged.

Your Honda Owner's manual should have a section on towing.

A friend of mine owns a Fit, and pulls it on a dolly. I will ask him about details. 

The Fit is a front drive (FWD), so transmission Park locks the front wheels, not the rear. Leave the parking brake off and tranny in Park.

If the dolly has swivel plates for the front wheels to rest on, the car steering must be immobilized. If the dolly does NOT have swivel plates, the car steering must be able to turn (unlocked).

Your Fit may or may not have a locking steering column - many newer models do not. They may use a digital key or other electronic means of anti-theft protection.  Test by manually turning the steer wheel without the key in.

I dolly tow a 2016 Fit with automatic transmission.  As noted, put transmission in park to secure the front wheels on the dolly.  My dolly does not have swivel plates so I leave the key in the ignition in the "off" position after running the engine. This keeps the steering unlocked.  If your dolly has swivel plates, remove the key to lock the steering.  These recommendations apply to 2016 model year, not sure about other years.

The Fit has a low front end clearance so I found that with my dolly it is important to have the dolly as level as possible when loading and unloading to avoid damage to the air dam or transmission base pan.

Car is easy to load and tows well when set up properly.

LarsMac said:

If the tow dolly has swivel plates, you can leave the Tranny in park and steering locked, generally. If not, then need to leave steering unlocked.

Parking brakes generally lock the rear wheels. Leave the parking brake disengaged.

Your Honda Owner's manual should have a section on towing.

A friend of mine owns a Fit, and pulls it on a dolly. I will ask him about details.

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Thanks for your post.

The owner's manual says that you should not tow it as it will damage the vehicle. They mean, of course, flat towing, but have no further information than that one specific statement. However I stopped by the service department today and asked them. They told me to leave the transmission in Neutral, not Park and, of course, leave the emergency brake off. I think that the steering wheel setting (locked or unlocked) depends upon the tow dolly as I have seen some videos that say that this or that tow dolly requires the steering to be locked or unlocked.

Paul M said:

I dolly tow a 2016 Fit with automatic transmission.  As noted, put transmission in park to secure the front wheels on the dolly.  My dolly does not have swivel plates so I leave the key in the ignition in the "off" position after running the engine. This keeps the steering unlocked.  If your dolly has swivel plates, remove the key to lock the steering.  These recommendations apply to 2016 model year, not sure about other years.

The Fit has a low front end clearance so I found that with my dolly it is important to have the dolly as level as possible when loading and unloading to avoid damage to the air dam or transmission base pan.

Car is easy to load and tows well when set up properly.

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That is interesting. As I mentioned in another post, Honda service specifically said to leave the transmission in Neutral, not Park, and showed me how to do that. Perhaps there is something different about the 2019 model from yours. Perhaps I should check with Honda itself to see what they have to say about the transmission.

I've been told so many different things by so many different "experts" and they contradict each other. What I do, and it is probably more work than what needs to be done, is put my car in park, in ACC mode to keep the steering wheel unlocked, and disconnect my battery.

There is no connection between the rear wheels and the front wheels so it seems pointless to put the transmission in neutral if the front wheels are off the ground and secured to the dolly with wheel straps, but if Honda requires you to do that you probably should to avoid any warranty issues.

Whenever I put a fwd car on a dolly, I put the tranny in neutral. There will always be a little give in the straps. Takes the pressure off the parking pawl.

jubileee said:

Whenever I put a fwd car on a dolly, I put the tranny in neutral. There will always be a little give in the straps. Takes the pressure off the parking pawl.

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The one thing that concerns me about putting the transmission in neutral is that the straps are then the only thing holding the car on the dolly. Are they strong enough to do that? Or is it wise to add some chains to keep the car from rolling back off the dolly should the straps break.

All the better dollies come with safety chains in addition to the wheel straps, but they can be a PITA to hook up so often not used. The chains may be optional on cheap models and are often missing if bought used.

The chains depend on you finding a spot on the car chassis to hook on or around and that is increasingly difficult because modern vehicles have smooth underpanels to make them more aerodynamic.


IMO, putting the tranny in neutral to save wear on the park pawl a poor trade-off decision.  Its designed to hold under stress, e.g. parking on a hill.  Avoiding the use of a feature where it is most needed seems foolish to me.

Gary RV_Wizard said:

IMO, putting the tranny in neutral to save wear on the park pawl a poor trade-off decision.  Its designed to hold under stress, e.g. parking on a hill.  Avoiding the use of a feature where it is most needed seems foolish to me.

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I don?t want to start any kind of argument, but I want to disagree with your opinion. IMO park is not designed for stress, ( in fact, it will ratchet under slight impact) especially hill parking. That little stamped metal pawl has a tapered edge or you would never get it out of park under stress.
I guess me putting a fwd vehicle on a dolly in neutral, to save a little wear and tear, and suspension binding (I?m not going into that here) is just an old man thing.
Also, I believe the manual in our 1996 Honda said neutral for dolly towing.

I would add that I would never dolly tow a car without safety chains attached to the car's frame.  While the wheel straps are designed to hold the car in place, the safety chains provide a back-up in the event of catastrophic failure (accident, strap damage, etc).

I installed short lengths of rubber-covered chain (to prevent noise) thru the lower front suspension component on each side of the car to provide a quick and convenient attachment point for the safety chains.

I also favor putting the transmission in "park" to provide an extra margin of safety in the event that the car and dolly somehow become separated  I note the concern with stressing the transmission parking pawl, but I haven't heard of it causing transmission damage.  I believe the damage risk is minimal due to the very limited range of motion possible in normal circumstances with properly secured wheel straps.

My concern over whether to use the Park or Neutral setting seems silly after reading these comments but just this morning I had to take the Fit into the Honda dealer to try to get some service take care of. While there I asked the advisor if the Park setting locks only the front wheel or all of them. His first response was that it locked all of the wheels. He then said he was going to look into the question, so I don't know what is true. I have to go back and I will ask him again but I suspect he has forgotten all about it.

As for safety chains, I had them raise the Fit onto a hoist and looked under the car. The entire front is covered with plastic but there are struts to the wheels and those struts, left and right, each have a hold that looks like it is the place for a chain so I would run the chain through those holes to make sure the car was properly secured to the dolly.

It is frustrating to me that I keep asking the Honda advisors about this question and they keep telling me to use neutral, but all seem uncertain that Park locks all the wheels. I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that they would know. I called Honda itself but got no help either.

Gary RV_Wizard said:

All the better dollies come with safety chains in addition to the wheel straps, but they can be a PITA to hook up so often not used. The chains may be optional on cheap models and are often missing if bought used.

The chains depend on you finding a spot on the car chassis to hook on or around and that is increasingly difficult because modern vehicles have smooth underpanels to make them more aerodynamic.

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Absolutely! I would NEVER tow a car without safety chains - on dolly, or flat. That is not even a option in my book. There are far too many ways for things to go horribly wrong without chains.

LarsMac said:

Absolutely! I would NEVER tow a car without safety chains - on dolly, or flat. That is not even a option in my book. There are far too many ways for things to go horribly wrong without chains.

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Where can I find chains strong enough to keep the car on the dolly? I know places like HomeDepot sell chains by the length you want but I do not know if those chains are strong enough to hold a 2600 pound car on the dolly if the straps break.

If you have two chains, each with a 3000 lb rating (give or take), the pair should be sufficient. There can always be some scenario you can imagine where that might be insufficient, but those are probably disaster scenarios anyway. In the extremes, the car attachment point or the mounts on the dolly are as likely to fail as the chain itself.

Honda doesn't design &  build cars for two-wheel towing, nor do they test dolly towing, so towing knowledge among Honda personnel is going to be skimpy at best. Nor are they going out on a legal limb by promising you something is ok when Honda engineering hasn't tested and proven it.
I'm confident that the Park position on the shifter  locks only the drive wheels, meaning the front wheels on a Fit. It's not an all-wheel drive.

MikeFromMesa said:

Where can I find chains strong enough to keep the car on the dolly? I know places like HomeDepot sell chains by the length you want but I do not know if those chains are strong enough to hold a 2600 pound car on the dolly if the straps break.

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I have dolly basket straps that break at 12,000 lbs.
Never seen the need for chains on the TV.
Some here have mentioned "safety chains" for the dolly to the hitch. Those should be a given.

When we used a dolly for one season, I found one of the wheel straps cut halfway through because it got just enough out of position to rub on a front suspension part as the car rocked on its springs.  That happened in a single days drive, under 300 miles. I got real religious about the car safety chains after that.

I thought all imported cars had binding hooks under them. I know my Toyota has a ring right in the center at the front, and one on each side at the back. They would be for strapping the vehicle down on the ship for transport to North America. Perhaps the Honda fit is built in North America. I know we have a Honda plant about 75 miles south of where I live here in Ontario at Alliston.