Long story short my vert got towed after I was pulled over Friday night.

Got it released Tuesday morning 10 am to be exact and had it towed back to my place.

But the in between part is what's funny.

The night I was pulled over as I was leaving the scene the tow truck arrived and I just glimpsed at him lifting it from the front.

The car was in gear and the parking brake was left on since it was a hill.

Go to the impound lot today and notice the 7 is facing.away from the fenced lot.

As I was paying the fees the driver that was going to tow it too my place started talking about towing it home by the front wheels. To which I informed him it was RWD which shocked him extremely .

He then proceeded to tow it properly while I was gone.as it is facing the right way in my driveway if he towed it like it is supposed to.

Get home from work this morning to find my beautiful vert in my driveway.

I wanted to start her up but it wouldn't and it had a lumpy turn over (very) now I was surprised as this car is my daily and it worked the Friday. The company said they started it up to "put it in place" which doesn't make sense if he towed it like he said he did. (From the front since there is no need to reverse it in since its a huge empty lot )

Anyways I called and the original tow truck driver that towed it on friday said he did it properly by.leaving it in neutral .

I told him in a the nicest way possible that if your other drivers can't figure it out if its rwd or fwd then how could he without asking.

He said it ran perfectly fine other than him stalling it.

He said that its probably just a starting issue and that his boss will call me. I said listen somewhere between the roadside seizure and you dropping it off at my house my car was ruined and that the car was not touched all day since the keys were in the mail box.

I have a severe feeling the motor and tranny are toast As it cant even shift In my driveway.

They probably will fight me the whole way but i am going to file a report with the police if the boss isnt understanding.

Just for everyone to know the car only had 69000km on it. d

 

Quote:The night I was pulled over as I was leaving the scene the tow truck arrived and I just glimpsed at him lifting it from the front.
.................
Why didn't you say anything then?You saw him lifting the car from the front.I would have stayed and watched him hook it up again.

 

Clearly I expect some common sense from a man that does this as a living. Plus I thought he would realize were on a hill. Either way manual says use dollies if going for long distances or over 40 km.

 

Nope, they see a Japanese car and assume it's fwd. Lucky for me, they only messed up my rear brake caliper doing it. Best of luck to you.

 

yeah if they were removing your car because you failed to pass legality of some kind than you dont have a foot to hop on as far as complaints are concerned. good luick thogh

 

Alcohol will inhibit the ability to make a judgment like whether to tell the tow truck driver that they are towing your car incorrectly.

 

Insurance problems. No alcohol involved.

 

My guess is you are SOL.

You saw them hooking it up wrong and didn't say anything. They will likely argue it since it's your word against theirs. You have no proof to say they did anything wrong other than you saw it and said nothing.

 

The car being towed for whatever reason doesn't rule out that the tow operator should demonstrate some reasonable competence, and not cause catastrophic damage to the car. They probably have insurance for that, but you might have to go to court to prove your claim. Which will mean having a mechanic assess the damage at the very least.

 

The tow company will have insurance. Likely their brokerage will be Hallmark/Navigators in Toronto (well now Markham) and Tim Farquhar will likely be the lead broker on their file. Tim is a big wheel in long haul trucking and tow truck fleet insurance. A large percentage of tow firms in the GTA are clients of his.

Now on to the more important part:

As soon as the tow company takes posession of your vehicle it is now in their 'Care, Custody and Control' at this point they are legally liabile for any damages to the vehicle until it leaves their CCC.

Their insurance has coverages in it for these such occurances. However they likely have a high deductible, in the vicinity of $5000 - $10,000. Because of the high dedutible it's likely they won't try and put a claim through their insurance and instead will try and dissuade you from claiming damages from them.

It is verly likely you will need to take your vehicle to a mechanic (TOW IT THERE) to document any damages that could be attributed to the original tow. Keep records of the new tow, the mechanic's estimate and place a dollar value on your time.

You're going to have to sue them in small claims court to recoup your losses.

-Geoff

 

Not exactly.

He's going to need to get in touch with the officer who stopped him. This officer will be able independently verify that the vehicle was operating in a normal fashion right up until the vehicle went into the tow truck operators posession.

This should demonstrate that when the vehicle left his control it was operational and when it returned to his control it was inoperable. During this time it was in the Care Custody and Control of the tow operator's company, any damages are their legal responsibility during this time.

-Geoff

 

I've towed my rx-7 and rx-8 plenty of times with the rear wheels rolling. However if you left it in gear that is another matter. They should have taken it out of gear, it is their responsibility. The engine was probably over-rev'd if that was the case.

thewird

 

Ironic!
TOW it to a mechanic to assess the damage!..(that is funny,though you have to admit!)
Anyone thinking that a Flat bed would have solved anything here?

 

Could have over-revved in 1st gear and tore up the transmission and engine
Or it's just flooded and you'll feel like a putz lol

 

Sincerely, Best of luck.
But don't ever "expect some common sense" it's really not common!

 

Brutal situation, sorry this happened to you!

I am way to OCD to ever let a vehicle I own be loaded or unloaded with out my being present. It is so not worth the potential hassle, not to mention the time to correct this type of situation will far exceed the time it would have taken to insure this didn't happen in the first place.

Hopefully by sharing you have saved someone on the board a similar issue. Good luck!

 

Any updates?

 

Just about to text ya and ask as well! I think I may have found a complete motor for ya

 

That's sh*tty! I would also like to know what happened with this

 

Call over a classic car appraiser.. Ask him for documentation supporting the value of the car if the car was in perfect running condition, and documentation supporting the value of the car as is.

You won't need to take the car anywhere, an appraiser is a solid source for determining value (since they are approved by insurance companies), and you get the advantage of playing the "ruined classic car" card which inflates the prices and dramatizes the whole situation (in your favor of course).

In court, make sure you grill them about towing procedures, and another big one is employee training. Nobody takes the time to train employees properly let alone document everything. You'll be asking a lot out of them for training documents. Make sure the drivers are called to the stand. Chances are they aren't going to be able to think straight under the gun, and will let something slip like "I don't have to check because I know all the cars in the world". You can poke holes in that all day. If the defense doesn't bring a driver to stand trial, what are they hiding exactly?

It doesn't matter if you got pulled over and convicted of murder, it's up to the police and courts to enforce judgement and punishment, nobody else. Just because you got pulled over going 246 km/hr doesn't give the towing company the ability to pass judgement by ruining your car and you're expected to take that **** like a bitch because you were speeding. The towing company is hired by the municipality to do a job, and they have to responsibly take care of your car. If they don't, then you had better do something about it.

 

Any update on this? I'm getting one towed tomorrow, and this has definitely reminded me what to pay attention to.

 

Ask for a flat bed and then its not an issue.

thewird

 

^^^ Thats what ive done and it makes everything easy. I dont think it costs any extra either.

 

It's been a while since I have been on this forum, but I am assuming that you don't have physical damage coverage (not sure if that is what they call it up North). You need to establish the cause of why your car isn't running properly. Having flooded my own RX-7 by just starting it up and moving it down the driveway, it is kind of embarrassing to admit and the tow truck driver/co. admitted to having started it up (means it was running) to move it, whereupon they probably just turned it off (which creates a flooding condition). Unless they actually damaged your sheetmetal, I would think that just de-flooding the engine would probably get you back to where you need to be. Sounds like Cloudpump knows the local laws and has given you some pretty sound advice if it isn't just a flooding situation.

I am a retired insurance adjuster here in the States and have handled claims like yours for various tow companies.