ESC

We have been through the same.  They now get quoted a minimum of $375 credit card up front, no GOA for me to do any service for them... Its amazing, sometimes they bite.

11 hours ago, EdsTowing said:

The initial call out was 145hr/2hr min. The rock was off the road so we chose to go out in the AM to finish. The second call was hourly for the machine, the rollback & the Recovery Van, all on 2 hr min. The traffic arrow board gets billed individually at a set fee. All together with the admin fee it came out around 2300 if I recall. This billed under their Property Damage coverage but the repair was covered under a collision policy.

 

As for the "Free gratis service", honestly I would of did the same job weather it had insurance or not. I believe you have to set a precedent of doing the job completely and then work on getting paid. I want the organizations sharing the scene (police/fire) being used to see me do our "thing".... Sometimes I take it on the chin...but usually we do ok. Not saying I am Santa Clause or anything...I'm cautious with obvious POS vehicles but won't leave a mess or any "dirty laundry" for someone to judge me on.

This is fantastic!!  The more companies that get on board with this sort of thing, the easier it becomes.  We have been working at it the last few years and have had great luck.  So many customers are amazed at how far we go to clean things up that most would just leave for the insurance company to deal weeks or months later.  We struggle with manpower and time to do some of the cleanups being a small company.  I sure wish our workload and volume with bigger clean up jobs was higher.

They are doing you a favor. Get rid of them now. You’ll be better off. I have blocked their numbers, so no more annoying calls from them for $50 jobs 30 miles away.

But if you do go to the swoop app they will track you and send calls direct to the app. It will be the same (usually inaccurate) info they usually send on a fax or email but in the app. You’ll be able to accept and decline calls and update your eta.

I used to use swoop when Tesla used them for their billing. It was a nice system. I started looking more into it and then heard Agero was buying into swoop, so I ran the opposite direction.


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I am still astounded at the price tag on that. Like you said the truck is useless without it and the manufacturers know it. Just one of those deals where they know they have you by the short n curly ones. Hoping it goes back together easy and gets back on line to earn its keep for you. Good luck  

Here is a new “gold plated” tilt cylinder from miller.

With two new pins and shipping it was $2100. Took about a week to get.





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On 4/4/2020 at 8:43 PM, GRUMPS The Towman said:

Ok sorry I couldnt be of any help. For that price it better be gold plated... WOW

Ha, I thought exactly the same thing!   It is crazy overvalued, but the truck is a paperweight without it, so you know the deal.  We had to pull the trigger and get it coming.    Typically we have them rebuilt, but this one had some damage on the inside that our builder recommended not rebuilding this one.  I sort of figured 800-1000, but was really shocked when i found out it was over double that.  Our local dealer helped us out as much as they could on it, which I am grateful for.    I had hoped that someone here might have a new old stock one laying around or something, but what can you do.   Thanks for your effort!

I Thought I may have found one for you from a guy in town here that runs nothing but Vulcan equipment. But it turns out it is from an 894 Which if memory serves right is the 10 ton model. The 896/897's were 12 ton units. Another guy showed me the only one He has for the 896  and it is still on the unit, has been out in the weeds for years and the piston is very pitted and crusty. He still wants $500 for it... I told him he was out of his mind. I will keep a look out for you around here because almost everyone around here has Vulcan gear. I should be able to come up with one that can be rebuilt.  

This is the cylinder that I am looking for.  Supposed to be part # 896670000

I am in need of a Vulcan 896/897 wheel lift tilt cylinder and pins.  Our cylinder is damaged and not able to be rebuilt.  I am in the market for new, or remanufactured.  Possibly open to used that I can have rebuilt locally.  My local Miller dealer is getting me prices now, but I know retail price.  Just hoping someone might have some old stock out there for a more affordable price.

Education is expensive sometimes.  We all like to learn the hard way.   I, like you, have done the same, and will no longer accept Honk jobs.

On 3/22/2020 at 3:58 AM, Old Tow said:

Howdy Don. What we found out is if you don't accept their new terms you can not go any farther to file a claim. I told my wife to NOT agree to anything, then she called me and told me if she didn't accept it we would NOT get paid !!! Isn't that forceing you to accept? Is that legal??

Fortunately for us, we mainly had stopped taking Agero before the new contract terms and all of our calls were paid up.  That was the final straw for me.  Seeing all new terms in their benefit without any sort of pay increase for our long outdated rates was the end for me.  We now quote them $375 minimum credit card only.   But it really shows how scummy they are to FORCE you into agreeing to their new terms.

In our area in Southeastern PA we have seen a huge decline in the last few years with police impounds.   Most officers around us leave the vehicle parked in a parking lot, or driveway where the vehicle is pulled over.  Typically the next day, the property owner is calling us to remove an abandon car, etc.  I wish the police would just tow them in the first place, it would be alot easier.  Even in many cases we see them park a DUI car in a parking lot.  It blows my mind.    In my opinion, one of these days one of those parked cars will be damaged, or stolen and the police will have to pay for it and they will go back to the old way of impounding them.

2 hours ago, JoeD said:

Has anyone had any luck getting around Agero's Advocate support group and talk directly to a territory manager? For 10 yrs. we have been the primary for the west suburbs of Chicago.,,,,with the exact same pay rate. At the beginning of Feb., our call volume dropped to next to nothing. In going back and forth with people in the “Advocate Support”, we have found out we were dropped to #2 Primary at the beginning of February because a new company came into our area with a lower rate. They designate #1 & #2 primary providers, and the rest of the calls are through their algorithm. The only calls we get now are the ones the current #1 won’t take or the calls they have pissed off the customers by taking hours to get there, by saying their truck broke down, or there was a problem with the driver, etc. They appear to be sending guys from Chicago, which is 30+ miles from our area. We are a small business and Agero is the bulk of our business so to lose their call volume has hurt us drastically. We have offered to lower our rates, but they won’t let us. They keep telling us to wait and see what happens. Now when we submit support tickets, they are closed by saying they are reaching out to us. No one has reached out to us, and we just keep opening new tickets which get closed again with no resolution. We have requested to speak to the territory manager directly to discuss rates, but they won’t pass us through. This is our call volume from last Feb. compared to this Feb.

All Agero cares about is lower rates!  Don't fall for anything else they tell you.  I have been there.  Years ago we did AAA and Agero.    The best thing we ever did was let them go!

We used to have over 300+ calls a month from agero with 98% acceptance and 100% customer surveys, etc.   New guy came in cheaper and they bumped us to the back burner and we got stuck with all the cleanup calls.  Couldnt make any money with that sort of work with their rates.   You need to get out there and look for more business.  Do not base your business on Agero volume... it wont work.

15 hours ago, Moose said:

I keep seeing on Facebook where AGERO is behind on payments to some providers. We have not had a serious delay yet, just want to stay on top of it. Seems most of those commenting Facebook about problems are company drivers and not owners. Thought it best to ask in this member forum...... Too Many Rumors!

Over the last few years we hardly do clubs anymore.   But with the early Feb change in contract terms with Agero it was the final straw.  We no longer service them at all.  They are just a nightmare to deal with at this point.

Typically, I go to control arms, and i like to use endless loops in a lot of cases.  If there is sharp edges, or anything weird or heavy, I would use chain.  I have gone to a wheel here and there if it made sense.  The resistance is so little on a light duty job, that I would not be as concerned.  I wouldn't go to a wheel that had obvious damage either.

On 2/22/2020 at 10:15 AM, yoBdaBenO said:

We did that with a few select cars a year that ran. Got to where the charities were ungrateful so we stopped. Still donate some to the fire department, but it si getting to where they want cars in better condition. So, sadly that will end as well as they have gotten to where they call the day before they want a car. Our agreement was to give us at least a week. Does anyone else have these issues?

We regularly supply cars for local fire companies at no charge.   I do constantly ask them to give us notice, but as you said, they tend to call a day or two ahead and expect we can magically appear with 3 cars for them.  Sometimes it just doesn't work out in time.   When we deliver cars to them, I have my guys take a good picture and I make a good facebook post on our shop page.  I tag the fire co in it as well.  I always include a line about if people want to donate a car, that we will pick it up for free, etc.   I just ask for the title.  Then once the fire company is done with it, we take it to the scrap yard, or sell it to a scrap buyer that we work with.

I would think there is a way to get a donation letter from the fire company as well that we could use toward our taxes, but I have never bothered with it.  We do it as a courtesy for the fire companies that we work with regularly.   Not to mention that I want them well trained.  You never know when they could be cutting me out of a crashed car if i were to ever be in an accident.

I also took the time to listen.  I thought it was good and worth the time.  Its nice to see a club be active and get information out there.  I like the idea of Honk and where they are going with things.  I am just annoyed with them overall using "set your own rates" in the beginning to get us all working hard for them.  It gave them enough good results to land some better deals and now they pulled the prices that we had set and now give us a take it or leave it set rate that is much lower than we had set.   The way they went about it just bothered me, and now in my mind, they are just like the rest of the clubs.  We turned the app off after they pulled that one.

21 minutes ago, thtdon said:

Thank you guys.  I have several copies of it now.  It looks like a good read.  I'll save it to read when I am on the throne later on, LOL!

 

Thanks guys!

 

thtdon

Awesome!  I am curious to see what your feelings are on the issue.  I know you have always been pretty active with Agero and you don't seem to take much of their crap.

From what I see it is the same of stuff from them, with very little that is new in the contract.  For me, it was just the final straw with them.  This contract was forced upon us, with no mentions of any added compensation or raises, etc.  I'm over them.

Agero has been calling us this week asking us for help and we quote them $375 credit card only.  Some of the dispatchers are asking questions and they have even asked us if it had to do with the new contract, etc.  They must be seeing a trend.

1 minute ago, thtdon said:

Nope.  I can't open it.  Maybe you can send it as a regular attachment instead of a PDF attachment.  I seem to have difficulty opening PDF files sometimes.

I don't know how to convert to to anything else honestly..... i use adobe acrobat to open them.  they have a free download here: https://get.adobe.com/reader/

Once you download Adobe it should open up no problem.

23 minutes ago, thtdon said:

Hello there,  Could I get somebody to make a copy of that new contract and email it to me as an attachment?  No matter what I do, I can't open the link from my account page.   My email address is thtdon@msn.com.  If you could send me an email, with that page as an attachment, I would really appreciate it.  Thanks.

 

thtdon

I just sent it to you as a pdf attachment... let me know if it works.

"The adjusters know that going through their inside guys is too much hassle."
 
I can see that, why not just go ahead and take care of it all at one time instead of breaking it up. That is as long as there is a clear agreement on the cost of the secondary tow. I have heard far to many stories of tow companies that wanted twice as much for the secondary tow in an attempt to make up for their low bid on the police contract tow.
 
Far too many still playing the low bid with hopes to make it up in storage or secondary tows. I hear all the time about tow companies insisting vehicles go to their lot for storage or charging high rates to bring the vehicle out of their tow lot. Quite often those secondary charges are not in the police contract tow. So, are they legal in relation to the Police Ordered Tow. I have been told they are not legal unless the vehicles owner signed for the tow from the start. The Tow Company has to go by what the contract states. This may be why Police Contracts for towing continue to become more detailed.

GEORGE, WAIT WHAT.... Who did they go through?

On 2/16/2020 at 10:15 AM, KEN TOWTRUCK2020 said:

I want to buy a 2 car flatbed and haul cars for copart and IAA.

How much are the rates that sub hauler's make in the Cleveland Ohio area?

I had talked with Copart a few years ago and found their rates were ridiculously low.   They are 32 miles from me, and the rate to haul one from my shop to them was $55 per car.     Pretty scary that their are people running for those rates.

17 hours ago, yoBdaBenO said:

Thanks Dennis, we should all value a representative with any club/app or other company willing to put themselves out there on a message board.

It is impressive to see a rep on the board these days.   Ill give them that one!   Someone to help move things forward and make it better for everyone is a huge plus.... and there is no other place better than right here at Towforce.   But until they go back to the rates I had set up, I don't see being able to work for them.  I have no interest in a club giving me a pay cut.

16 hours ago, yoBdaBenO said:

Agree with the List... Would like to know more about GERBER who are they? Also, what does Tesla Require?

Gerber used to be known as Netcost.   They were pretty scummy to work with in my opinion.   Had a box truck tow for them in the snow an hour away going an hour north.  They paid us credit card up front, and we got there within our eta.  Found out they double dispatched and another company was on scene hooking.  We called in to change things up and they refused to cover our time at all.  They wanted a full refund.   I wanted paid for our two hours.  In the end they did a charge back to the card and we never got a dime.  I cut them off completely and will never work for them again.

Tesla is great.   They contacted us based on local recommendations.  We only do  a handful of jobs for them, but they agreed to my rates... they expect top notch white glove sort of service.  Going as far as taking a cold drink to a stranded customer during the summer.   They pay accordingly, so if Tesla calls, we jump and get it done.