“do not stay on 101 or you end up going up the Canejo Grade and through Simi Valley. That will be hard on the Elantra.”
I’d like to see an Elantra try to pull a trailer up the southbound Grapevine.
The OP’s question has been asked several times here in recent years with similar replies from regulars. Has anyone ever returned to tell us how they ignored the advice had a grand trip with no problems?
The up hill side of the grapevine, either north or southbound is tough on most cars and trucks. The Canejo grade is a little steeper but not nearly as much altitude change.
Lugging that kind of load that far with an Elantra all the way to Texas is not something I would want to do or recommend for a variety of reasons.
Other than the obvious transmission issues there’s also the issue of abnormal engine overheating due to the load being pulled and the southwest U.S. is pretty hot this time of year.
Just some food for thought, but seeing as how the larger items seems to revolve around a bed, love seat, and so on why not just sell that stuff in Seattle and replace it in Texas? Just load the car with the personal stuff and motor on.
Odds are someone in Texas is sitting around right now wondering how to move a bed, love seat, and so on to Seattle…
i agree with ok 4450, texas isn t the amazon, they have furniture there. unless these are heirlooms, get rid of them. they will probably get rained on anyway
"Just some food for thought, but seeing as how the larger items seems to revolve around a bed, love seat, and so on why not just sell that stuff in Seattle and replace it in Texas? "
This makes sense to me. I would bet that small amount of furniture could be moved in a partial load by a moving company as I suggested earlier.
The tendency is to move too much stuff that isn’t worth moving. We moved into our house 25 years ago from a house about a mile away. We still have boxes of stuff in the garage that we haven’t unpacked. I should have disposed of the junk 25 years ago. I’m just now getting around to pitching out stuff from the garage.
The OP should appraise the value of the things he wants to move. It may not be worth as much as the cost of renting the trailer and certainly not worth the price of damaging his car.
The Grapevine is never any fun unless you have the power. I did that in a B210 automatic several times, which was painful. The Elantra would just be over in the truck lane grinding along at 30 or so, same as I was. The Conejo Grade isn’t nearly as long, but it’s steep. Staying on Hwy 1 through Malibu instead of using 101 is also a much prettier drive and there’s no good reason not to do it. I would take 101 instead of 1 from where they split near Ft. Bragg. The reasons to use 101 along the ocean are mainly up in Oregon and the northernmost bits of California, where I-5 goes up and over several passes. There aren’t any major uphill sections on 101 in California excerpt pt the Conejo Gradeand it’s much easier driving than twisty CA Hwy 1, which is gorgeous, but busy in stretches as well as narrow. Only that stretch from Oxnard to LA is much easier than 101. Hwy 1 even has a number of grades, if no long ones, like the climb out of Stinson Beach. On 101 the only major grade is the Cuesta Grade, the downhill stretch from the top of Santa Margarita Pass to San Luis Obispo. It’s fairly steep, but not that long (and downhill) . Taken slowly that should be OK. Anyhow this still sounds like a bad idea to me. It’s putting too much stress on a car that isn’t really designed for towing. Yeah, sure, it has a rating, but few cars don’t. I’d have no problem towing a load to the dump or home from Lowe’s, but Seattle to Texas is not the same thing at all.
The coast road is a tough drive without a trailer. There are long stretches of narrow road with no shoulder, a rocky embankment on one side and a steep drop off on the other, winding along the hilly coastline. I wouldn’t pull a trailer down that route with a pickup truck.
Unless I was doing the trip just for sightseeing I wouldn’t drive the stretch of PCH north of Oxnard.
I used to have big old cars and would regularly drive from Seattle to LA to visit family. I had a 1969 Oldsmobile 98 that would just hop up the Grapevine at 75mph like it was nothing. I’ve also done it in a loaded Chevy pickup pulling a U-Haul trailer, and at 50mph with the heater on the engine was still at 260 degrees by the time I got to the top.
At least northbound is kind of a rolling hills climb, with some ups and downs. Southbound is something like 6 miles of straight climbing with no leveling off.
Kinda curious as to what you would drive north of Oxnard. The PCH is the only road going north, it is one of the many sections where 101 and 1 are merged. Maybe you are referring to the section north of Santa Barbara.
Forgive my terminology, it’s been over 25 years since I moved to Washington. My memory may be a little hazy. I still remember the Harbor Freeway being 11 and now there’s a freeway where my grandmother’s house once was.
I remember when it was 2 lane, highway 1 and was called the Rincon. Now its a 6 lane freeway called 101 with historical markers for highway 1. But when you get to Santa Barbara, its the same 4 lane that was there 45 years ago when I first went through, except you are lucky if you can go 15 mph until you get out of the city.
I don’t live there anymore either but I went through there a couple weeks ago. I took 1 down to Santa Monica on the return trip. I also took 1 north of Santa Maria as I was going to the Hearst Castle and Big Sur. Nice drive but you cannot drive and see the scenery at the same time. You have to keep pulling over if you want to see the coastline.
Saw a Smart Car today with a tow ball (no kidding).
It’s not quite the same highway through Santa Barbara. They got rid of the traffic light at State St. that was a headache for decades and built an underpass for the street. Certain factions in Santa Barbara thought a traffic signal on a freeway (obviously not a freeway at that point) was better than making residents use an underpass to get from downtown to the beach. Common sense finally prevailed some years ago.
Technically, the ‘Grapevine’ is only the grade from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley up to the top of Tejon Pass at over 4000 feet. It’s one steep, steady climb. The rest of the route from Tejon Pass to Valencia (or thereabouts) is now often considered part of the ‘Grapevine’, but it never used to be. Before I-5 made it much more direct, it was known as the ‘Ridge Route’. Parts of the old, twisty highway are still there. Now it only seems to be oldtimers who call it that (like my mother, who lived in Bakersfield in the fifties).
The other problem with driving Hwy 1 in the summer is that it is often foggy. September and October are great months for this drive as fog is rare by then. It’s no fun driving a twisty road in the fog when you know there is a drop of several hundred rocky feet to the ocean on one side. And you know the views would be great if the stupid fog would clear. Driving it northbound you’re away from the edge of the cliff, but the views are not quite as good (when there is no fog.) Hearst Castle is a major treat for those who haven’t been. Not only is the house amazing, it’s sited on top of a hill with lovely views for miles. It’s usually above the fog, too, and the view over a sea of fog can be almost as pretty as the ocean view.
The drought is so bad in California that the Hearst Castle had to close the restrooms in the visitors center and put porta-poties outside.
Saw a Smart Car today with a tow ball (no kidding).
I’ve seen Smarts pulling motorcycle trailers before. You can get a popup tent trailer that only weighs 350 pounds with a tongue weight of 20 pounds. A Smart can easily handle that.
Hearst Castle probably relies on local water supplies. Those are the users with hardest time dealing with a drought. You can only afford to truck in potable water. Anyways, the visitors will have a good story to tell about the Porta-Potties at one of the fanciest mansions anywhere.
Hearst Castle relies on a natural spring located about 6 miles inland. It was piped in when the house was first built and still supplies water for the ranching operations that the family still owns. The spring went dry a few months ago so even the cattle operation is being shut down.
The bathrooms at the house have never been open to the public, there have always been porta-poties up there. They have had public restrooms at the visitor center though, but now those are closed.
The drought is being blamed on the lack of rain and snow, but the truth is that there are simply too many people for the natural eco system to support and those people also try to support vegetation that is not native to the area.
There have always been wet and dry years out there, but there weren’t as many people in the past dry years. Californians are going to have to make some fundamental decisions in the near future such as learning how to survive on much less water as people of the middle east do or accept nuclear power plants to run de-salinization plants to provide water, or develop new technologies to convert sea water to fresh water.
Saw a Smart Car today with a tow ball (no kidding).
That’s in case you want to bring anything along other than the clothes on your back… 