When towing four wheels down, can I go in reverse 2 inches? 8 inches? 10 feet?

roaming rob, Do not listen to the folks that say you can't back up with 4 down.  I have backed a hundred feet or more at  times.
The secret is to have the intelligence to understand how things work.
First off the castor of the steering axle will reverse on you under normal towing circumstances but just the knowledge of this will tell you to LOCK the steering wheel in the straight ahead position and back the TOAD as you would a trailer you can succeed.
Now some that don't know better will tell you that this is a NO,NO as you are skidding the front tires.  The wear of tires while backing this way is so slight that you will never notice it during the life of the tire.
I have been towing one to two trailing vehicles since 1986 and have never had a problem with backing, so don't take the words of the negative Nancy's, but figure out a positive approach to problems.
Marvin

It "can" be done. But there are a 1000 ways to really screw it up, too.

Locking the front wheels might work, but on a lot of vehicles the front wheels will not lock exactly straight, and that can create a significant adventure all its own.

LarsMac said:

Locking the front wheels might work, but on a lot of vehicles the front wheels will not lock exactly straight, and that can create a significant adventure all its own.

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This is wrong, if the wheels will not lock straight then someone has not adjusted the linkage properly. Plus slightly off center will have zero affect on the ability to back as a trailer.
You can fool around with unhooking/hooking for 15 minutes or you can spend 2 minutes locking/unlocking steering.
The choice is yours.
Marvin

I've successfully backed up with our toad hooked up several times over the years, but no more than 10-12 feet at the most. That's always been enough to let me steer a new path, usually around a car that parked in front of us, sometimes illegally such as in a fire zone. I just take it slow and watch the toad's front wheels for any signs of them turning. If they do start to turn, I pull up a few feet and try again. More often, I just wait them out...

Lou Schneider said:

The issue that causes the toad wheels to swing to lock as you back up is caster.  It's the same principle as the front wheels on a shopping cart.  When the cart is going forward, the center line of the wheels drags behind the pivot, so they want to stay in a straight line.

Cars are the same way - they're designed so the front wheels are slightly behind the pivot point.  This way the steering will return to a straight line when you let go of the steering wheel.

Try to pull a shopping cart backwards without the front wheels spinning around, and you'll immediately appreciate the problem.  When you reverse direction, the wheel center is now ahead of the pivot, so with any slight deviation the wheels spin 180 degrees so they are once again dragging behind the pivot.  In a car, this throws the wheel violently until it hits the steering limit.

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Lou Schneider said:

Like the casters on a shopping cart, they track just fine going forward.  But try pulling a shopping cart backwards and the front wheels go anywhere but straight.

Same thing happens in the towed car, regardless of where the power is coming from.  The towbar locks the car in a pre-determined path and the wheels refuse to follow it when backing up.

And trying to hold the steering wheel in place while backing doesn't work.  I tried this and the forces pulling the wheels away from their straight ahead position just about ripped Cindy's arm off.

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I can't get my head around this and therefore disagree.  I think....lol

Vehicle tires are not 360 degree rotatable like a shopping cart.  As you describe it, I could never back up a car.
The tow bar does pivot on the ball.

I don't doubt that pushing back with the MH can and will turn tires like happened to you.  But I don't see it as always happening; especially if the vehicle is trying to pull the MH.

Derby6 said:

I can't get my head around this and therefore disagree.  I think....lol

Vehicle tires are not 360 degree rotatable like a shopping cart.  As you describe it, I could never back up a car.
The tow bar does pivot on the ball.

I don't doubt that pushing back with the MH can and will turn tires like happened to you.  But I don't see it as always happening; especially if the vehicle is trying to pull the MH.

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The problem is when the toad is hitched to the motorhome, the pivot point moves several feet ahead of the car's front wheels to the front end of the towbar.  The toad's front wheels now track in between the towbar's pivot point and the car's rear axle and the slightest deviation in direction will pull the front end of the car to one side or the other.

Going forward, everything is fine.  The caster in the car's steering lets the front wheels steer normally and follow behind the tow bar pivot.  Like the caster wheels on a shopping cart, they stay centered and everything is fine.

When you reverse, the car's front wheels are now several feed AHEAD of the tow bar pivot.  The slightest change in direction away from a straight line will pull the front of the tow car to one side.  The geometry of the car's front end will make the wheels turn away from the pull, spinning around until they once again drag behind their pivot.  Obviously the toad's front wheels won't go all the way around, they'll stop at the limits of the steering travel in the opposite direction of the tow bar's push.

It makes no difference if the motorhome is pushing the toad, or the toad is pulling the motorhome.  The problem is the towbar pushing or pulling the toad's front end off track.

Disconnect the towbar and use a chain to pull the motorhome backwards and everything is fine - both vehicles are free to follow their own tracks.

But lock them together with a towbar and you'll have problems backing up.

Lou Schneider said:

...
It makes no difference if the motorhome is pushing the toad, or the toad is pulling the motorhome.  The problem is the towbar pushing or pulling the toad's front end off track.

Disconnect the towbar and use a chain to pull the motorhome backwards and everything is fine - both vehicles are free to follow their own tracks.

But lock them together with a towbar and you'll have problems backing up.

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Although I have managed to slowly back up short straight distances without unhooking, early on my wife and I tested a back up procedure for longer distances that we found quite successful without completely unhooking. We just unhooked one arm of our all terrain tow bar, creating two pivot points that allows the car to be steered relatively independently of the coach. With just a little coordination regarding where we were backing up to, it really worked quite well over a 90-100 foot distance including a 90 deg. turn. We've never had to use the process in the real world yet, but at least we know it works if needed. The real savings would just be time, so the need for it would be situational of course.

Dutch,why didn't you just lock the steering and back it like a trailer?
Only take a couple of minutes and you wouldn't need a helper if you used the mirrors properly. 
Marvin

GA_Boy said:

Dutch,why didn't you just lock the steering and back it like a trailer?
Only take a couple of minutes and you wouldn't need a helper if you used the mirrors properly. 
Marvin

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That doesn't work very well for making the 90 degree turn we were able to do with the single arm connected. That can work for straight backing though. There's a big difference between backing with a trailer and backing with a tow bar connected car. On a reverse turn with the steering wheel locked, the front wheels would be trying to skid sideways, putting a lot of stress on the tow bar and attachment points, as well as the tires.

Rather than swimming against the tide and trying to do something that virtually everybody - including the folks that manufacturer the equipment used for towing - says shouldn't be done - I spent a few minutes getting good at unhooking fast! ... and then learning how to not get into situations where I need to invoke "Plan B" to begin with.  Yes ... sooner or later everybody finds themselves in a situation where you've got no choice but to unhook ... but, done right those situations should be rare indeed!

I can unhook in less than 2 minutes if it ever becomes necessary, but in almost 10 years of towing 4-down it hasn't happened. There have been a few occasions where a straight backup of a few feet or so was needed to grab some extra turn clearance, but there's never even been a need to lock the steering wheel to manage that simple task. And with a 3,500 lb car attached to an 8,000 lb rated tow bar,  I'm quite sure no unusual stresses were placed on it.

I pulled into a gas station at a bad angle and too close to the pump island that I couldn't get my toad pass the pumps when we were leaving. So I backed up without unhooking. Eileen was at the back with a walkie-talkie. Took about ten minutes of frustration. Backup go forward, backup go forward and repeat and repeat. When I finally got past the pumps and drove forward to go around the back of the station to exit, it was a dead end!!  :-\ Had to UNHOOK turn around and HOOKUP and go back out the way we came! We had a good laugh over that. Seriously I can connect or disconnect the toad in about two minutes.