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I recently donated a 28 mile tow to one of the local high schools to transport their Fast Five kit car project car from their technology department where a group of kids have assembled the car to a body shop that has offered to do the body and paint work for free as well. I am told the car will compete in the SCCA races held at Watkins Glen this year with a pro driver that is involved with the project. The kids did a great job on it, It looks awesome

This is just a "Sneak Peek" of our new project. We purchased this F550 from our local Fire Company and we are going to make another Crash Clean up truck for Emergency Responses... I'm excited to start on this one. It's a 550, 4wd, Power Stroke Crew Cab... Truck is litterly like new with only 11,000 miles on it... 12,000lb Warn Winch on the front... Lots of Emergency Lights... I'll update as we go but I think it will be a huge asset to our company.

Picking it up tomorrow Thx Tom

Another one I had to plow to recover a Mercedes...

Got a call the other night from a customer that had a disabled Explorer parked on the side of his property. The Township told them it had to be removed because it was on their Right A Way. We went up with the Plow Truck & Wrecker to dig it out... I had to shovel the corner a little to find the boundaries. Once the rear was accessible, I did the same thing to another car in his driveway. Then while Eddie recovered, I plowed the driveway & yard to put these vehicles in... Luckily it had a hitch so we didn't have to fuss too much ge

Eddie had 1 where an engineer doing testing on a cell tower got stuck about a mile back a woods road. He went to where the guy was but was having difficulty getting back far enough so he called for reinforcements. I went down to open the road with the plow truck... I had a hell of time getting through it. The trucks were wider then the banks and it was a sheet of ice under the snow. Eddie backed in behind me & stayed near in case I got stuck... Which I did...LoL Once out, He hooked him up backwards &

Yea they interviewed the "Prince" today...LoL They stopped by and asked if they could do a piece to add to their snow story. Some free publicity is always nice though...

Took this call from the post office annex today. This LLV lost the r/f lower ball-joint as he was backing out of a driveway, leaving him stranded right in the middle of the road. This road is up on the top of the highest mountain in the area and the wind gusts up there regularly exceed 40 mph. It was slightly warmer today ( thank god ) so it was only about 20 degrees up there. I got him moved back so we could open at least 1 lane and then had to wait for his replacement LLV to arrive. I took the wait time as an opportunity to snap a few pics.After the transfer of parcels, I completed the load

Just another vehicle I was told I need a flatbed for Not!

We get a call from very depressed sounding customer at the end of the day.His ranger was stuck in back yard apparently tried all day to get it out. When we got there truck was sunk up to frame and differential was actually buried.It was a pretty straightforward winch out with the happiest customer I have seen in a while.Was only about100 feet

The "Towing Information Network" known as Tow411.net Marks 20 Years of Service to the Towing & Recovery Industry. On this date in 2001 the Towing Information Network was established and within 3 years became the only active Message Board in the Towing & Recovery Industry. This was before many other Social Media Venues came on the scene. With nearly 7000 members in 2011 Tow411 was going strong, but by 2014 Tow411 had out grown the system and was Forced to make a change. In December of 2017 a New Force in the Towing & Recovery Industry was born from the

These are some of the tough questions every business owner has asked...at least to themselves. In my opinion, there are some fundamental necessities that have to be understood before a capital purchase such as this. First off, buying a used unit isn't necessarily the right choice. Due to the rapid increases of new equipment, it has drug the used market up substantially. Guys selling their 5 year old rotators are getting dam near what they paid for it new...which is great if you're the seller...not so much for the buyer. Financing will be more difficult for a used machine just becau

Took yet another call for a LLV stuck in a driveway off a private road. The driver said he realized he was in trouble and attempted to do a k-turn and drive back out. From the looks of it though, if he woulda just went to the end like he planned he may have been able to swing around and drive out the way he went in. The choice to back into this driveway turned out disasterous for him.. lol A quick rig up and he was up n out in no time... BTW... This was my 43rd LLV winchout since winter hit...

Pretty simple just ran a two part line to the front of the trailer and winched him back to the road. The street he was turning on had been plowed for a while and the wind had drifted it back in.

Well this guy made it less then 2 miles before his tie downs proved to be unsubstantial. OUCH !!! A tractor trailer turned left in front of the car hauler... The tractor trailer wouldn’t have had any substantial speed at all since the odds are he just left the Petro and would have only had 100 yards to accelerate.

Got a call from one of our customers that had a plow truck with the brakes locked up. Didn't have too many particulars so I took the big truck just in case... On the way back, the shop radioed that they had a TT winch out in a lot that we were going to be passing in about 30 seconds... Had them secure the payment & we drug the guy a few feet to get off the ice... Simple job...took longer to write the invoice...but a nice "cherry" on top...LoL

Got a call for a classic car shell going for restoration, but it had no frame as in it was removed at some point.Also it had been sitting there for several years on a couple boards and rotten mix of tire and wheel assys with random things thrown underneath. Slid the deck back till it was under the trunk brace, placed a tire and wheel between the bridal and trunk floor brace to prevent the quarter panels from crushing, and long planks under the rocker sills, kept working the deck further under it , also wasn't straight on so had to "steer" it using a snatch block . No progress pics from on sce

I got a call today to an old state park near the shop. This is about 2 miles back in and down a long steep hill to this lake. BIG sign that says no winter maintenance, yet these three college students thought Monday was the day to go for a ride and see the lake they had heard about since the snow canceled classes for the day. Car sat there from Monday when they could not get it out after the snow, then Tuesday we got another couple inches............I guess they had classes yesterday, then they call me today to come get it out. I got down there with no problem but then could not

We are still running at "999" every day.... It's snows in some form or other, every day.... Had this plow truck get too far towards the edge & got sucked in... It had a good jag of material in the box that blew out when it went over... A heavy single axle can be unpredictable. They aren't very stable to start with. I under estimated my 1st "bite" since we were working in a tight quarters. Set up with a high line to the low side to lift out of the ditch and a lower pull to a rim sling to roll it back over & control...

Thanks. I try to help out the local charitable organizations and schools as much as I can. I ended up hauling this the day after that big snow storm ended, So I was a bit concerned about the salt/road spray getting all over it. ( hence why my truck looks disgusting ) but it turned out ok. Nothing got kicked up on it really. We are big time involved with the Cops,kids and toys project every Christmas and have been for 8 years now. We help transport all the donation bins throughout the county and give out discount road service/local towing cards that are used as prizes in the big raffles th

We have been getting smashed here for the past two days with a snow storm that has dumped 16" on us so far. Now work has been some what steady but not crazy.. Most have been staying home and off the roads. Took this call from the city pd this afternoon. The driver of this highlander was going way too fast through this section of road, lost control and pounded a utility pole. Luckily, the 4 occupants were unharmed. It turns out, this was a family who flew up here from Texas and rented this vehicle at the airport to go see their daughter who is attending college here. This was their first time e

We have been lucky in a way I suppose. Between Covid, This storm and The fact the colleges havent opened yet, There really isnt all too many people out and about. I have spent majority of this storm pulling post office LLV's out of the snow banks all throughout the county..I just did my 14th one since yesterday about an hour ago.

The other evening while it was snowing, we got a call for this Honda CRV that slid into this barn. I only took the time to take one photo, so you can't see the damage real well. It did do quite a bit of damage to the barn wall. We hooked to the back and used a snatch block off the back of our bed to slide the back end over to clear the rocks on the right. There was also a tree stump right to the left of the car also. But with a little winching around we got it out with no more damage. Thanks for looking!

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We got called by the police for a 2 car accident on Friday afternoon. It was a fairly heavy rear-end collision. When we got there the driver in the Nissan SUV in the front thought maybe he could drive his away once we pull them apart. ......Umm I think not......when we pulled them apart it was obvious that it was damaged to far to be driven, and the exhaust and some other pieces were dragging the road. So he left us tow it then. We loaded the vehicles, and then swept the road clean of all debris and oil dry. We then put cle

What began as a day that Team Doug Yates worked a Fatal Motor Coach Recovery, scared us all today. This Loaded Tanker narrowly missed us all and flipped in median beside us. Thankful God was watching over us all day!

Nothing much......just one of the calls we got in yesterday's snow. They slid off the road and into a tree.

On The Hook is an American Towman Feature with John Borowski If you have a industry issue you believe would be a good subject for this series send John an email.

From Geri Roskopf's Blog: I met a wonderful, young female tow operator the other day. I told her how proud I was of her to take the initiative to learn the towing and recovery industry and become a tow operator. It’s not an easy profession for anyone to come into, let alone a woman. As women in a predominately male profession, we face a few more challenges than just learning how to tow and recover vehicles. Guys, do you remember how you felt when you went on your first tow or recovery all by yourself? Do you remember the first time pulling up on an incident scene where

Well it's been snowing of some sort pretty much every day....which has been great for daily wrecks... DUI Impound on top of a snow bank... Rollover right up the street... 2 car during the storm...

Yea that little truck has worked out good. It gets used every day in this weather. We have used it on a number of accident clean ups as well. It's great for plowing our property as well. The V plow is very versatile. This is our second one and I'm glad I didn't go with anything else. We just took another strait blade Fisher from my shop truck and modified it to hook on the Skid Steer... I got to get hoses & fittings made up on Monday but I think it should work well.

Strongly disagree with Bushwacker. Even business brokers will only do 5X profit, not total income, actual verifiable profit. More info is needed though ... do you actively manage the business, and are you also the lead employee/boss/owner? How many employees? How long in business? Do you have actual contracts with law enforcement or shops? Most businesses where the owner is also the manager, lead employee, chief bottlewasher and bathroom cleaner have very little value beyond the value of the actual property and hard assets. Without contracts in writing that actually include clauses that allow

I have successfully released them on a few occasions. I used my cordless impact battery and some speaker wire the first time. I keep a couple jumper wires with a 20 amp fuse in the truck now. You can hear if motor is releasing/ or applying. It strains when applying, and runs quieter when releasing. MAKE SURE TO BLOCK/CHOCK the front wheels first. Just do the tap, tap method, and only run it back until it frees up. When dropped I use a Sharpie and write "Parking Brake Disconnected", on windshield. I also write it on the work order, and leave a business card. I plan on making a tool spe

Took a call from one of my regular repair shop customers yesterday stating they had a customer way out in the back country who told them that her Honda van "just stopped going" and when she pressed the gas pedal, the light on the dash would start to flash. Now, both the tech at the shop and myself were kinda leaning towards maybe a mis-fire issue or something given her vauge description. The driver left the van there and caught a ride back to town. I was not super familiar with this road but I did know where it was so I headed out to get it. It is a steep, poorly maintained road but doable in

This driver was in a rush to get home at the end of the day unfortunately bald tires and Ice don't mix. His boss was extremely happy we stopped to help.

Moved this to a shop here in town. No biggie just had time for a pic.

Got a customer request out of our normal coverage area for a Dodge truck that left the roadway for some reason, over a rock wall, snapped a big power poll, through the trees and into a parked car in the property owners driveway... You can see the pole snapped like 20" up... The truck was destroyed...suspension falling out of the front...a real lobster. Couldn't do much clean up due to the power company being there so I went back in the morning to evaluate & tidy up... Blasted tha

There are two types of guys around here that haul for Copart & IAA . the first type use those as filler jobs and haul here and there for them. the second type are fly by night guys running ragged 3 or 4 car carriers that run all over gods green earth dragging wrecks around for them. Their trucks are barley road worthy and poorly equipped to deal with most of the wrecks they haul. These auction houses just simply dont pay enough to get any decent companies to haul for them.The numbers mentioned by yoBdaBenO above are pretty accurate with what I have been told by the guys running for them a

Happy Anniversary !

Happy 20th! Thanks for the great message board! I learned a lot from here.

Happy Anniversary and Thank You

When dealing with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Roll's owners, you know just how difficult and picky they can be? If your tow business serves the, "exotic and custom", niche, I'll pass to you a gimmick that I've used for years in serving these difficult personalities. Have you ever seen a chimney sweep do-their-thing in-cleaning your woodstove or fireplace chimney? The purist sweep wears an old-style (tails and top hat) uniform that oftentimes includes wearing white, parade style, formal gloves. For years, when I'd begin loading someone's expensive exotic or custom, I'd wear clea

I got a few yesterday too, everyone of them had tires like that. One of them was a Subaru Forester and the guy couldn't figure out why he slid off the road rounding a corner because he had 4wd. I pointed to the tires and politely told him 4wd doesn't matter with worn out tires. stupid people get stupid prizes

SLIGHTLY DISAGREE- THIS RANKING SEEMS TO BASED ON THE FACTORS OF PROVIDERS WHO CAN ACCOUNT FOR - VOLUME + DISTANCE + PAY = VOTES

I thought GEICO sub contracted the service out to another company AAA in my area "We got it covered" I would agree Agero ranking as Agero insurance requirement are the highest making it impossible for the small operator to purchase

Of those that I service I would agree

Thanks for the support. I’m just glad to help out.

This is getting ridiculous, move over has to be enforced and mandated in all 50 states with serious punishment like DUI,its the same principle of putting others life in danger . God bless both of them

Got a call from a friend of mine with a neighboring tow company that was on a scene for a customers accident but the police showed up and said they would have to call us for the impound. I told him to have his driver wait until my guy got there...it was 3' deep in the marsh and his guy had waders on! We recovered it to the road with the rollback... Brought it back to the shop. The police were involved due to the owner not on scene and presumed it may be a DUI situation. Thought it would make a good repair

What do you mean by hidden antennas??