Tow Trucks, Wreckers and Car Hauler Discussion

[towjoe]

My international gets better mileage than any other truck in my fleet. It's getting almost 12mpg. Yea 11.8 on last tank. Tows pickups and SUVs with ease, better visibility and a tighter turning radius than the old square body trucks I got. I'm thinking of buying another one for a primary truck and letting a K30 go. I got a friend here that has a 12 ton 95 international and he makes his living doing PPI work with it. 6-8 cars a night and a 90% take ratio. Heck he was PPI with a old international carrier last year with about same results. I'd add a few more pictures of new trucks but hard to with doing things on my phone, but you guys are welcome to look me up on Facebook under Joey Driscol and add me

 

[ScottyB]

Our medium duty wrecker gets around 12 as well. I did a 15k bus with it and averaged 11 with it and that had about 90 minutes on site idling (don't ask). Our Medium duty rollback is lucky to get 10. That was one of the reasons we got the Dodge which gets about 13.

 

[towjoe]

I can't afford any new trucks, not enough profit yet. The more I drive the medium duty more I like using it for everything. Only thing that sucks is it has the 4.5"x4.5" crossbar on wheel lift. Truck also came with 5 sets of forks and the spring forks so it's pretty handy. Has the 8500 lb wheel lift. I towed a caviler into the dealer yesterday with it. Was alittle overkill but hey why not

 

[ScottyB]

I can't afford any new trucks, not enough profit yet. The more I drive the medium duty more I like using it for everything. Only thing that sucks is it has the 4.5"x4.5" crossbar on wheel lift. Truck also came with 5 sets of forks and the spring forks so it's pretty handy. Has the 8500 lb wheel lift. I towed a caviler into the dealer yesterday with it. Was alittle overkill but hey why not

I did a Ford Festiva with ours. That was really overkill but what the hell. I got a few funny looks on that one.

 

[HotRodPC]

You guys are doing real good if you're getting that in Medium duty trucks. My Hino got 5.8-6.4. My C6500 I did good to get 7 but was usually about 6.5-6.8 and the Pete I used to pull Copart with only got 7.2-7.8 but of course I ran that truck 84 mph most of the time pulling out of town Coparts into OKC.

 

[towjoe]

I got a 2005 Chevy c5500 with duramax and a 21' bed that gets 10.5. My 454 K30 gets 4.6, my 350 K30 gets 7.4, and my F450 with IDI 7.3 runs 10. One service truck is a 1988 c1500 with the 350 tbi and it gets 17 other service truck is a 93 burb with a 350 and it gets 14

 

[ScottyB]

Legally, we are limited to 60 MPH here. That isn't to say we never go faster than that, but there is no way we are going to be hitting 84. Many of our calls are 20+ miles away on country roads so we don't have many stops and we get 45-60 MPH roads. Easier to get good mileage that way.

 

[Don5]

I've watched .23 seconds of the video, if he's as good as you guys say, I already know exactly what he's going to do. He's going to level off his bed and suck the truck under the Charger. That's how I'd be doing it. Put the truck in N and let the truck come under the car. I'll watch the rest in a bit.

EDIT. I've watched up to 2:29 now. He's already fuct up. He should be shot for fukin up that rear bumper. Totally senseless. We do not cause secondary damage to vehicles taking short cuts. Not even on a totalled vehicle 90% of the time. That vehicle belongs to the insurance company once it's totalled. That rear bumper HAD value to the insurance company. Sometimes you can't avoid it, and that chould have been avoided with a jack or using his bed and winch to lift the car on blocks to get his bed further under it before he started to lift. IDIOT already.

EDIT Up to 6 minutes now. WHAT A ******* !!! He's under the car and allowing a COP to operate the wrecker bed? I know what he's doing here, but that COP is NOT familiar with the controls and he's under the ****** car? One wrong push of the wrong lever, he'd a dead man. STUPID !!!


EDIT Finished watching it all. He did pretty much what I said he'd do at .23 seconds. I wouldn't have driven the truck backwards, I'd have let the winch pull the truck under the Charger. He also had a couple opportunities to get the truck closer for a bigger bite with the bed to get under the wheels much sooner and didn't take advantage of that. He was actually slow too. The guy video taping obviously wasn't a wrecker driver with his narroration. Other than the first EDIT's I made about him being a ******* he pretty much did it right for the most part, but secondary damage could have been 100% avoided, and you NEVER let someone operate your controls that is not familiar with them when you're under a car, especially without instruction and he didn't show her ****. The most I've ever done was ask someone to push this lever down when I tell you to, and that was my winch line. JMO Of course had I done it, someone would have said I did **** wrong too. Noone got hurt and he's going home tonight so all is well. Secondary damage can also be repaired at a cost.

And that is why I said that I would wait until you weighed in since I am not a professional wrecker driver. I was wondering what you would say. I would have never got under that vehicle myself unless it was cribbed up more. I agree with you also on letting someone else run the levers. If I am going to get killed on the job, I prefer it to be by my hand not some other *******'s. Not that that is a possibility but you get what I am saying. People let you down all the time. That is the way it is. I won't give someone else the chance to make a mistake and kill me accidently if I can help it.

 

[towjoe]

On the video I'd been guy who got in trouble for driving in the grass to recover the car. Sad part is I could have recovered the car with very minimal extra damage and not tore off rear bumper. Whole recovery was went around wrong from my view. To many risk were taken that was unnecessary.

 

[HotRodPC]

We will get permission to drive on someone's grass and warn it very well could leave some tire ruts and have bought 8-10 bags of top soil a couple of times before and spread it in the ruts and smoothed it out, then apologized and said the grass will be back by mid spring at the latest and have even offered to buy a few strips of rolled sod. Most are happy you asked permission and satisfied with top soil filler if needed. The cost of sod or top soil is just added to the recovery bill. Sometimes people will even say, yes, but it'll cost me XX to fix it and we write them check and add that to the bill too. Whatever to keep everyone happy.

We've also been told NO before doing a stolen recovery found in a river. They guy would not allow us access to his property to get closer to the vehicle. We ended having an assload of 100 foot cables made and ended up pulling that truck almost 1/4 mile up river to the nearest bridge where we had access. It ended up being a 3 company recovery, one them being an equipment company with backhoes and skid steers. That bill for State Farm was $25,000 to recover that one. The equipment company got the biggest portion of it at $10K, the other 2 tow companies split the $15K left over. That ordeal lasted 4 days to get that one. The equipment company with operators was only there for the last 2 days off it, but they are the ones that actually got the most work done. We broke our winch line trying to pull it up on the flatbed. It was so damn heavy. It had to be pushed up on the bed with the backhoe. Once on the truck, it bent the bed locks. The airbags on the truck looked like squished marshmellows. I drove that one back real slow avoiding every pot hole I could not to pop the air bags.

 

[ScottyB]

Red letter day in the tow business. Local tribal police called for an impound on a boat and trailer. Rules on this Reservation are that the tribe owns the driveways for the various homes. When they decide that a vehicle is no longer serviceable they can call for an impound right out of someone's driveway. Now if the owner wants to walk away from it (as was the case today) then it is a win win as long as you aren't the tow company. The owner gets the crap gone without paying a dime and the tribe pretends they are beautifying the neighborhood.

So the boss is out of town with the call comes in for this impound. As I wasn't busy, I didn't see a way of walking away from this one so I rolled out on it. I roll up to find the trailer facing the street (yea me) and the 14' fiberglass Jon boat was facing the house. As I look over the trailer I find there is no cable on the winch and the single axle is missing the left hub. The boat might still float, I wouldn't chance it myself though. There is no motor or tanks any more. The inside has been hacked up, as in the fiberglass is missing from large areas of the interior. I speak with the officers on scene and it gets better. The out of state license plate on the trailer doesn't come back to anyone. The registration number on the boat has the same issue.

I am seeing a nightmare with a muddy titles and confused ownership so I asked for a hulk ticket on each vehicle as well as an impound slip. That gives the boss the option of just cutting his losses on it and scrap it if he doesn't think it will get cleared to go to auction or even sell at auction. With the hulk ticket, ownership isn't an issue anymore.

That part settled, It was time to tackle the actual work. I took the missing wheel and slide it onto the axle. About a 1" shaft and a 4" hole in the wheel. That'll work. I pulled the trailer onto my deck and then chained it so it wouldn't pull any further forward. I routed my winch cable over the trailer winch guide and hooked on to the front of the boat. The boat spun around and with a little help from the officers lifting the bow about 2" the boat loaded onto the trailer. Another 20 minutes of securing the whole shooting match.

Given the distance traveled and unload time and paperwork I was into this for 2.5 hours and wrote a bill for about $450 that we will never collect. Boss comes back Monday and he can decide what to do with it but I made the best call I could on the whole mess. Best solution would have been to walk away when the call came in but that really wasn't an option on a LE call. Wonder how much grief I'll catch over this one. Oh well. Another day another dollar. I'm just glad I didn't have to do that one on commission.

 

[HotRodPC]

Big bossman has to suck it up and wear his big girl panties. You did the right thing. Do the public service and take the LEO call and treat it just as if it's going to be paying call. Never EVER jeopardize pissing off the LEO''s and possibly losing or being temporarily suspended from Law Enforcement rotation or area calls. Bossman is aware he's going to eat a couple from the LEO's. I've pulled in murder investigation vehicles without even touching them. Just touched the hooks and anchored them in the frame. Drug it up, and shook it off. 4 days later, call the CSI garage to see about picking up the vehicle and was told the owner came and got it 2 days ago, we didn't find enough evidence on the vehicle and released it to it's owner.

 

[ScottyB]

Big bossman has to suck it up and wear his big girl panties. You did the right thing. Do the public service and take the LEO call and treat it just as if it's going to be paying call. Never EVER jeopardize pissing off the LEO''s and possibly losing or being temporarily suspended from Law Enforcement rotation or area calls. Bossman is aware he's going to eat a couple from the LEO's. I've pulled in murder investigation vehicles without even touching them. Just touched the hooks and anchored them in the frame. Drug it up, and shook it off. 4 days later, call the CSI garage to see about picking up the vehicle and was told the owner came and got it 2 days ago, we didn't find enough evidence on the vehicle and released it to it's owner.

Problem with the tribe is how they handle it. LEO calls are a crap shoot, no doubt. But when they can impound out of your driveway with no consequence to the owner that just makes it too easy to make the crap someone else's problem.

On your murder car, I would have thought there would have been an invoice attached to the impound even if it was going to PD. Fees would still have had to be paid to get the car back. Seems odd that you would be working for free on that one.

LEO calls in general we do what we can for them. Occasionally we have to turn them down but that is due to being stretched too thin as opposed to picking and choosing. Timing can be a bitch when you have a total of 4 guys (most of the time only 1 guy on) and you cover 90 miles wide by 30 miles deep. The only true highway there is all the way on the west side of the county and we only cover that for AAA. Well, we would do private there but that doesn't come up too often. LEO calls there go to others that are closer.

 

[towjoe]

I'm still trying to get county rotation here. One company pretty much controls police departments. I'm getting closer, but having trouble finding any good help. I can't run it all with just one other driver and I. I have enough equipment but not enough man power. I was hoping to get on to get some decent parts cars for a friends u pull yard and me some free Junkers. Plus police calls pay 3x what regular tows do in my area. I'm sure I could afford to eat just a few of need be

 

[HotRodPC]

Problem with the tribe is how they handle it. LEO calls are a crap shoot, no doubt. But when they can impound out of your driveway with no consequence to the owner that just makes it too easy to make the crap someone else's problem.

On your murder car, I would have thought there would have been an invoice attached to the impound even if it was going to PD. Fees would still have had to be paid to get the car back. Seems odd that you would be working for free on that one.

LEO calls in general we do what we can for them. Occasionally we have to turn them down but that is due to being stretched too thin as opposed to picking and choosing. Timing can be a bitch when you have a total of 4 guys (most of the time only 1 guy on) and you cover 90 miles wide by 30 miles deep. The only true highway there is all the way on the west side of the county and we only cover that for AAA. Well, we would do private there but that doesn't come up too often. LEO calls there go to others that are closer.

Oh hellllll NO. We NEVER EVER pass on a LEO call. That is a major sin. I have dropped cars in a parking lot to go get a LEO call. I try to use places where I know someone that works there. Drop, run it real quick, and say I have a LE call, I'll be back in an hour or so to pick it up. If I have to drop it somewhere else, then it's at least dropped in a safe location and then call dispatch and let them know where I dropped it to go get the LE call, and then the dispatcher can have another driver go get it too as soon as he's done with his current call if need be, but I've always made it back. We don't pick and choose LE either, you take them ALL.

We would have got paid on the murder CSI car had the PD called us to come pick it up when they were done, and we would have added the secondary tow to the bill too. But that expense would have been on the owner of the car and that's not really fair either being they were innocent. What we ended up doing on that deal, was telling PD to give us another call to make up for it and they actually ended up giving us 2 more and kept our same place in rotation, so the revenue was made up. No big deal. It rare we do FREE LEO tows.