They won't tow it for you. But they will usually pay for your car if it's in any reasonable condition, though not a lot. Maybe it's different in different countries
That's actually the weakest point of the other article - any towing company will be able to move your bricked car even if the wheels leave skid marks all the way onto their tow truck.
Yes, you've hit the stronger point: why should you have to pay $40k, and it's not covered by your warranty or insurance?
Just don't tell the service people if your car is still under warranty -- most North American non-truck vehicles are not rated for towing _at all_ even when their European counterparts are. This includes most so-called "crossovers" and small SUVs. Something as big as a Chevy Equinox (which is larger than the Isuzu Trooper we had in the 80s, which my family thought was massive for the time) is not rated for towing until you go up to the biggest engine and AWD.
Americans seem to love^H^H^H^Hdemand huge vehicles, but those huge vehicles rarely have the clearance and towing capacity to actually be "utility" despite being advertised that way :-(
Who pays to have a car towed by a tow-trucking company? I'm thinking mainly of business parking. Does the business pay? I assume the vehicle owner has to pay?
It’s not hard, use a tow truck. But getting a tow truck to every incident (especially in the bay area, not know for functional towing services) is the hard part.
Since there’s no driver present and the controls are presumably locked, you cant push the car to the side of the road which is what would normally happen with a stalled car.
Why he doesn't he just call a towing company? Then Amazon can sort things out there with a company whose job it is to hold cars until their owners sort such things out.
Then you have to go through some government entity for repossession etc. But for sure we don't have it where some tow truck driver comes to your property pulling out the car.
towing companies are inherently shady: they're stealing your car, with little to no proof of justification, with little to no recourse, and charging you to get it back (often with obscenely inconvenient and long waiting periods). My friend has had his car towed from in front of his house, because his neighbor called it in thinking it was.. I dunno, ditched there?
And there's no recourse. He paid up, because it'd cost more and be a massive headache to try to fight it. I'm not sure there's anything stopping me from calling it in on any neighbor I dislike. (AAA has a weird setup as well; they've never once properly verified I owned the car I was having towed.. but they're not antagonistic, and the caller is verifiable by their AAA account, so I'm not worried about them as much)
The only thing that keeps towing companies in line is that if they caused too much trouble with their bullshit, they'd see repercussion from populace/city. But as long as they're justified 70% of the time they take your car, they'll keep on truckin'
I mean shit, how do you even consistently verify that the car was parked at the wrong business... you watch someone park and go into the neighboring business? 5 minutes later he goes to the correct one, and whoops, there goes his car.
There's not much difference between a well-behaving towing company and misbehaving one.
You could be waiting for hours or overnight on the side of the US interstate (possibly in below freezin/0F temps) for a tow truck that may or may not show up. The salvage check may or may not cover the tow and replacement temporary transportation. A majority of Americans can't come up with $1000 for an emergency, which is somewhat close to the cost of a one way rental at the moment.
In response to your "towing isn't an option" comment, it most definitely is. Any decent tow truck driver will get that thing towed. Jack up the front end of the car, put a roller underneath, jack up the rear end, and winch it up the tow truck. My father used to tow cars and we would do this pretty often.
If you break down on the side of the highway, what then? Where does the car get towed?
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