Suggestions on which car dollies to buy?

I'm planning on buying a set of car dollies to move around a 2500 pound project car occasionally. My garage floor is concrete, in pretty good shape but 70 years old and fairly course. Initially I looked at Harbor Freight and it seems like the new plastic wheels on their dollies are not well liked. Does anybody have a suggestion on a set of four for under $150?

The speedway motors set has been mentioned before

I bought the grey diamond plate type Harbor Freight ones when they were on sale for $50/pair. They are the plastic wheel version. I just took my usual approach of "if the HF tool ever breaks, then I will buy the real version". So far so good. My floor is also 70 years old however kind of the opposite of yours - smooth where it is intact, but with 3 large cracks of 1/4" height difference to navigate. The dollies have worked fine so far for 3 car swaps into and out of storage in the past year. Sweeping the floor first is a big help. It is easy to move the car with just one person.

Unfortunately I can't comment on how they work on rough/coarse concrete. If it's got pockmarks everywhere any dolly is going to SUCK to move, but the steel wheels will of course hold up better to the abuse.

Do you weld? Do you have any surplus stores around?

I built a set using unistrut and sixteen heavy duty industrial casters bought surplus. They've held up to a boatload of abuse, holding stupid heavy cars (1966 Pontiac Bonneville hearse) and being rolled on rough asphalt and smooth concrete.

It took me a few hours and about $50 to put them together but if you don't want another project I understand!

I bought a set of THESE from our local tool place, when they were on sale for less than $50CDN/pr. My current projects are a Locost Super 7 and a Pontiac Firefly (Chevy Sprint), so they won't be holding much weight. They were cheap.

SkinnyG wrote: I bought a set of THESE from our local tool place, when they were on sale for less than $50CDN/pr. My current projects are a Locost Super 7 and a Pontiac Firefly (Chevy Sprint), so they won't be holding much weight. They were cheap.

They bend real easy where the casters are. I just jack up the car, slap them in a vice and bend them back.

HF furniture dollies.

Gray diamond plate Harbor Freight ones here. After I sprayed some white lithium grease into the wheels, they roll pretty well on all surfaces I've tried them on. That includes crappy uneven asphalt, crappy pitted concrete, cracked concrete, and smooth concrete... pretty much the whole spectrum. I've also used them as heavy duty moving dollies when I don't trust the wood ones that I have.

Keith Tanner wrote: HF furniture dollies.

I put those under a 3200 lb car, gave it a shove, and 7 out of 16 wheels snapped right the berkeley off. Went back and bought the steel ones.

I've never tried to use them on a car that weighs more than about 2500 lb, but I've never had a failure. There are different models, mine are the 1000 lb version.

I like the HF positioning dolly, no need to jack up the car and set it on the dolly. Just put it around the tire, stamp on the lever a few times and it's up.

http://www.harborfreight.com/1250-lb-capacity-vehicle-positioning-wheel-dolly-61917.html

The other day I got a coupon for them at something like $60 each.

I move and store a lot of cars. This is my rundown of the Harbor Freight selections

These fight me every inch I try and push them on polished concrete All 4 wheels will never EVER point the same direction, you are always fighting 25-30% of the casters. If I happen to hit a crack in the floor? they stop dead. I hate these so much I threw them away

These guys are a little better. At least one person can get a car moving and two will be able to position it. At least one caster will fight you on a car and it will drift , usually the direction you aren't trying to go.

I love these. So convenient. So easy to use and push the car around. So fast to install, no floor jacks. So much more expensive Purely mechanical so not much to go wrong

I also have a very old set of Harbor Freight hydraulic dollies that are great but if you tip them on their side, you know like the storage rack that comes with them holds them, they have to have the air bled out of the system before they will function The seals failed after 8 years or so. They did push great though. No longer available

And like Keith I often use these

The 12"X18" 1000lb wood dolly. I use these for 1500-2200lb cars. Cradles a tire nicely, rolls straight. The 30X18 ones will not do the job, nor will the polypropylene. As good or better than the diamond plate dollies, much cheaper.

I had the black stamped Canadian Tire version and they sucked so bad I gave them away. Then I crossed the border and bought the Harbor Freight grey diamond plate version. Much better, I can move my 318i with one hand.

My shopmates have a few sets of older Harbor Freight skates, and reported some caster failures, so I splurged for Pentagon Tool Skates. US made, and I seem to remember finding them on sale for ~$200 for four. They are beefy, I can't imagine bending one or having it fail.

My one tiny complaint: they have no sides, so if you are pushing a light car across a rough floor, best to strap it down. The skates are drilled for a ratchet strap. It adds some time, but less than slipping halfway off, stopping to get the jack, jacking it back up, etc. Our shop is in an old industrial building with steel plate over part of the floor, and getting up onto the plate off the concrete puts dollies to the test!

I have these for my spitfire. Cheap, well built, free shipping, roll nicely on my old concrete floor and change direction without too much hassle.

http://www.tooltopia.com/merrick-machine-m998002.aspx

Thanks everybody.

I think I'll try the wood Harbor Freight dollies first. I have a coupon for them at $7.99 each. That's totally worth a try. I only need to move the car once or twice a year so the limited use works in my favor too.

TR7 wrote: I have these for my spitfire. Cheap, well built, free shipping, roll nicely on my old concrete floor and change direction without too much hassle. http://www.tooltopia.com/merrick-machine-m998002.aspx

That looks like a great deal for beefy-caster units for heavier vehicles. Only $10-$30 more than the steel HF ones.

Im a fan of the HF diamond plate dollies. Seem to work well even on my shops cracked floor.

So I recently tried the HF small wooden dollies and they didn't work. Very hard to push unless the wheels were aligned just right and one broke after about 10 minutes and three tries to push the car around.

For now. The car is back on the floor while I ponder my options.

Well, now you have some casters to make rolling bases for stacks of tires. That's what I did with the remains of mine.

Keith Tanner wrote: HF furniture dollies.

That is the method I tried. One of them broke. Fortunately it broke a front one while I was pivoting the rear around, so I was still able to put the car where I wanted it. They probably would hold up better with some reinforcement, but at some point it makes more sense to just buy the correct tool, you know?

I have the wooden dollies for a 2300 lbs car and they work fine for what I need. The floor is flat with only a few divots/chips out of it so no issues rolling the car around. For the price you can't beat it but on a car that weights more then 2.5K or on a less then ideal floor, I'd get something better.

Yup. Car is just about 2600 pounds and my floor is kinda crappy. It was worth a shot.

I can use the unbroken dollies for other things so it isn't really a loss.

I have multiple sets of the cheap, black steel H-F dollies. I first had the mentioned troubles with getting them to roll straight and not bind up. Taking the casters apart and greasing the crap out of the axles and bearings helped a lot. The steel wheels will stop dead on a nano-pebble, so you do have to keep the floor swept.

I also have some of the cheap H-F furniture dollies, but I mainly buy them as a cheap way to get 4 matching casters to make other things movable. I've never actually used them for their intended purpose.

FYI the harbor freight mailer i received today has a coupon for $40 per pair of the grey diamond plate dollies. Can't beat $20 apiece for those things.