ESC

Still here

I am not saying that I always have tied them off every time.... but you absolutely SHOULD tie everyone. Its a good use for one of the 1" motorcycle straps.

I buy good quality heavy duty 1" motorcycle tie downs. They work great. I keep 4 in my door panel of my truck. I use them for dollies and also all sorts of other things.... Strapping doors or hoods shut from crashes, etc.

I love that sort of call. I usually figure a I dont want to do it price and double that, especially for a long distance holiday tow. Id have shot them $2,500 on that one.

We have a beat up old trailer that we have been experimenting with. We do light duty only, and don't use it often, but it sure comes in handy when we need it. I think you will quickly find that you'll run out of room in a hurry. I have a trailer that is similar in size. Id get pics, but honestly, at the moment its a mess. I have a pallet of spill tackle stacked in there. Two power broom and a lot of brooms and shovels of all sizes on the walls. In the front we have 2 55 gallon disposal drums, a chainsaw, generator and a small torch. In the near future I would like to get a bigger trailer (prolly 8.5 x 16) and get it organized better. We just added a bunch of the waste management dumpster bags. They come in handy for a bigger cleanup to help haul away the debris. In my nest trailer I would add a 12v deep cycle battery and LED lights inside, and also a milwaukee charger setup with a chop saw, sawzall and some portable lighting. The milwaukee fluid pump also has my eye to pumping fuel tanks and such.

Extremely..... Right now I have around 20 in the salvage paperwork process and the state seems to be back to processing things extra slow once again. We have a small yard, and it really jams us up for room not being able to move these cars along faster. But not much we can do, as no one seems to care.

Im usually in a dodge 5500 mpl40..... I have done a little bit of everything to get the job done with a trailer. Sort of wing it depending on the situation. Many times on a tandem axle ill lift it, put a block between axle and frame and remove the bad wheel. Chain and binder axles, whatever it takes. Sometimes, ill stick it on a bed and hang over the edge. They can be a pain, but I charge accordingly.

I always hated to spend the money on the synthetic extensions, and years ago was too cheap. The first extension i bought was a 3/8 50" wire. It works, but was always a pain to coil up and store. I have an MPL40 that we went to 125' wire on the spools and i have about 10 lenghts of 20' chains in a crate on the truck. Later on as we made a little money, I added a 100' synthetic 3/8 extension. Its so much easier. Over the years as we have had the cash we added a 100' synthetic extension in each of our 6 trucks. So if i ever need it, I call for another guy to come help me and I have plenty of length. The extensions were about $400 ish. Every time i use one, im charging at least that.... so when you use it, add another one for a while till you have a few of them around for that just in case situation. Make sure to charge accordingly when you have to pull them out.

We stopped doing tire changes a few years back. We tow them to our shop or the shop of their choice. We will have the vehicle pulled in our shop and have a mechanic repair the tire or install the spare. Far too many hassles changing tires over the years. Spare tires buried in the trunk under all sorts of crap. Locking lugs with no removal tool. Spare tire winch mechanisms that are jammed up, and those stupid GM safety latches that dont work. No more for me. Im over it. Not to mention the safety aspect that is even far more important.

For the accident/recovery, we will send basic pics as requested as well... included in our 10% admin fee. My above reference was to insurance companies calling for vehicle photos after the crash. They have been asking use to take photos of the vehicle in our yard so they can do photo estimates of damage rather than sending an appraiser out to us. Those photos, we charge an extra hour for.

We have seen a lot of requests for pictures recently. Mostly for pictures of the vehicle in our yard so they can do photo estimates rather than sending an appraiser out to us. Once I caught on to what they were doing, I implemented a fee for our service. 1 hour at our recovery rate gets them up to 10 digital pictures emailed over to them. They typically want all four corners, inside, and a shot of the vin tag and odometer. Many companies will give us a hard time that I charge $175 to take some pictures, others pay it no problem. I figure I am saving them hundreds and a lot of time with my service.

Good job in having the courage to say no. Its a lot harder to make that judgment call than it seems. But you put safety over profit.... impressive! As far as helping in a big job like that, I have often wondered how it would work. Seems like a lot of hands in the cookie jar and it would get very complicated, and no one seems to worry about how the tow guy gets paid. The closest thing we have done like that was a local flood after heavy rain storms this past summer. We towed over 40 cars that night. We ended up just billing a flat rate per call. Our emergency rate with a two hour min. It was easiest to keep them all straight.

I used the Honk App for a while too... when we could set the rates on our own, we set them high enough to deal with the "typical road club bs". They paid the same day with a card, and things were great. I used to get $95 minimum. Then after a while I got an email that they were changing things and you could either accept or decline their set price which was always way too low. What I realized was that when Honk was new, they used us all to build a reputation. They allowed us to get paid high rates in exchange for excellent service. But what they were doing is using those service statistics for find new clients. Showing off how they had a fast service rate and high rate of happy customers, etc. They started to get busier and pickup bigger clients, then boom they cut the price down. The one thing that set them apart from other clubs, and they pulled it from us. When they pulled the plug on setting our own rates, I stopped working for them. I now have them blocked on my cell along with allstate and agero, so they dont wake me up when the phone calls are forwarded to my cell. However on occasion they call during normal hours and I give them a high rate with a card up front.

I love that spade kit!! I wish I had known about it when I built my MPL40's. My next truck will have it for sure! Thats a really sweet setup. So far, my trucks all have the sling... and I hate them always being in the way...they rarely get used, but that one or two times i need it, i really wouldn't want to be without it.... But, I really should take it off and get it out of the way.

Eagle Service Center Inc- Chester Springs Pennsylvania. Light Duty Wrecker or Flatbed operator... Ideal candidate would be running a twin line MPL40 Dodge 5500, but we also have a Hino Flatbed 258ALP that could be run as well. We need someone that lives close by. Full Time position available. Paid Hourly- 40 hour minimum. We are a small team, some on call hours. No AAA/roadclubs etc. Police and private towing mainly.

We have them.... they are a nice tool to have access too... but they arent always the way to go. Nice to get a high end car out of a tight spot or something, but honestly we dont use them often.

It always gets interesting with the police towing. Everyone always thinks we are too expensive and making a billion dollars off of their junk. We have a Chevy Avalanche here in about the same shape as what you have.... same deal, tow into the police garage for a search, then towed to our lot when they were done. Owner in jail on multiple drug charges, truck is junk with no insurance. Just towed another in today.... and Old F700 thats seen better days... not on Police hold for a DOT inspection later today..... its clearly going to fail in a lot of ways and odds are good it will be a scrapper in the end.

Sometime chaining the axle up tight while its on the ground before you pic will give you a couple extra inches as well.

I usually take pictures, usually minimal, and nothing that would show any bodies, etc. But they are kept for internal use, and sometimes for billing purposes, etc. Recently we have had someone complain that we posted a picture of their crash on our facebook page. There was nothing graphic posted at all, at it was NOT a fatality. They politely asked that we remove the picture, so I did.

It blows my mind that the fees are so low, most of those rates would have to be at about double to make things work in our area.

How did the load handle going down the road? I did it years back with one of our Chevy 6500 beds towing an accord that was stuck in park with no keys.... The truck didnt like it one bit and felt all over the road. I never did it again. Our newer trucks are built much better, so im sure it wouldnt be as bad, just not something I want to do if I can avoid it.

PSP in our area has a rotation... so it should go to the next up on rotation for abandon vehicles..... however they cant seem to keep track of the so called rotation on a good day... so anything is possible.

Pretty sure we have all made that bad judgment call before.... I know I had to call dad to get me out before. Now I have learned from it, and I charge accordingly if I have to get muddy.

I have had multiple stolen vehicle and fatal investigation tows for state and local police. Personally, I prefer to use wheel lift and dollies as I don't need to touch anything. In the past, I have had investigators insist on a flatbed, but normally it is due to them being uneducated on the way a wheel lift and dollies work. But, ultimately, the choice is theirs. Now many of our locals have no issue with wheel lift and dollies used as its usually a much better option. How many times have we all been asked to back a car into a tight police garage with no access for a flatbed, cars stuck in park with no keys and not being allowed to shift into neutral or move the steering. I saw the video of the Mustang being towed with a police escort and I think it was done in the same manor that I would go about it too.

His process wasn't terrible.... but he left some room for improvement. If i did it his way, he could at least have a safety vest or some sort of reflective uniform on. I also don't like to leave the car down low and bend down to strap it.... I pick it up higher so i can have more viability of oncoming traffic as well as be in a position to run out of harms way quick. Taking all that time to strap both sides on a busy highway at night isn't for me. If it was me running my MPL40, typically I would have been putting my wheel lift down a heck of a lot faster in a more fluid motion as i was pulling in and backing up quick. I would have scooped it up without leaving the cab and slowly headed off the next exit ramp where I would have installed straps and Towmate light bar. I would take the risk to get off the highway with no straps on a front wheel drive car.