This may drag on a bit, but I will do my best to keep it short. May save you a couple of bux down the road.

Spent the weekend in Ottawa helping Billy put a roof on his garage. On the way home, 20 minutes outside of Ottawa, the truck lost the optical pickup in the distributor, and we were stranded. 500+ kms from home!

We have CAA, so our options were thus:

Tow with CAA: 200 km free, $1.75 per km after that.

Called uhaul, the girl told me $20 for a truck and $75 for a trailer, plus $0.70 per km for the truck and the trailer, or a total of $1.40 per km.

Based on that info, we went with CAA, and spent $550 on a tow home.

Doing a little research after the fact, I've discovered the following:

1. The Uhaul girl was wrong. Only the truck is per km, the trailer is flat rate.
2. If you rent Monday to Thursday, the per KM cost is $0.50
3. If you go through their website and arrange a "one way move" you can get a flat rate that is even better.

So, next time you break down far from home on a meet, here is the absolute cheapest way to get home:

1. Call work, tell them you're sick, and won't be in on Monday.
2. Go online at uhaul, and book your "one way move" far enough to get a price.
3. start calling locations. most are open 7 days, and not all of them have a truck and trailer or dolly on site.
4. once you have a location with a truck and trailer, tell them your online price. they will either give it to you, or tell you to book through the site and bring them your confirmation.
5. crack a beer, and spend the night at the host's house.
6. go monday morning, get your uhaul truck and trailer, load up your car, and head home.

the trip home from Ottawa would have been ~$400.

 

I was driving through downtown Toronto when my brakes decide to go on me... yup no brakes at all in downtwon Toronto...

After I safely made it to a parking spot, I got CAA to tow me, but I didn't have the Premium package where you get 200 km free... I got 10 free.

Cost me 150$ from Toronto to my house.

Clearly not as bad as your situation in terms of towing, but for the folks out there, get the premium package if you can! It would have saved me $150...

 

man
at $550 for the trip home
I think I would've towed it to the friends house
spent the night
and got a new distributor in the morning!

 

Dude, you could have phoned me, i would have brought the extra parts ythat you randomly have lieing around for the beast.

 

That is a pricey tow, no doubt! Charr33 has extensive experience regarding tows...

At least Billy has a roof for his cars...

It could have been worse..

Lates,

 

There is a CAA platnium package as well. I got a letter in the mail a month ago asking if I wanted to upgrade. It gives you 6 tows instead of 4 a year. Also one of hte tows is good for 350 kms, instead of the 200 you get with premium. It was an extra 40 bucks I think.

 

Jeekers FEDs....If you ever get Stranded around My location..I can put you up..(if you want My number for Future Use..let me know..)..Glad to hear that you and your car made it home though.

 

Considered getting it fixed in O-town, but based on the nature of the failure, I knew the fix was not going to be cheap, or fast. Parts for a '91 Dodge Ram 50 are generally not lying around in a J-yard.

I did make an attempt when I got home to modify my dizzy to accept a DSM pickup, but the connector interfered with the intake manifold, so that plan failed.

Regardless, the donor car for project "Displacement Down" is at home now. Hopefully 8 more valves will be nestled between the framerails by Sunday.

 

Feds,

I think your forgetting the GAS cost on those UHaul Trucks. I've done the trip from Ottawa to Toronto in one with the RX-7 on the back and the gas cost me around $160 2 years ago. So I figure it would be over 200 today. So all in all the tow looks cheaper!

Raven

 

Yeah, gas would have been a bear. The kicker was that if I had got the UHAUL, I would have been able to pick up the Skacel Talon for virtually free, instead of having to rent a truck and trailer to get it.

 

Thanks to Aviator902S for helping me out a while ago! My wheel bearings seized up about 10 km from his place. I called a couple dozen towing companies and I paid nearly $150 for the 40 km back to my place.