Broken Down? Start With What You Drive.
A Peterbilt with no air does not need the truck a Prius needs. Find your make below and we will tell you exactly what has to happen next, what it costs you to get wrong, and who we are sending.
Heavy duty and commercial
Caged spring brakes, driveline removal, aftertreatment derates and mobile repair before anybody talks about a tow. A loaded tractor on the shoulder is a different job from a car with a flat, and it is the job this network was built around.
A truck with no air will not roll until the brakes are caged
Aluminium cab, and recovery that has to respect it
Aerodynamic panels are not recovery points
The older emissions system has a known history
A loaded vocational body changes everything
Automated transmissions make the driveline step mandatory
Heavy specification means heavy equipment
The cab tilts, and it needs room to do it
Parts and dealer support are harder to source than they were
Trucks and American brands
Pickups, work vans and full-size SUVs, including the spare-under-the-bed problem almost all of them share.
The spare lives under the bed, on a cable that rusts solid
OnStar can sometimes end the call before it starts
The Hummer EV is heavier than a lot of flatbeds are rated for
Cummins trucks refuse to restart on fluid, not failure
The transfer case, not the transmission, has to be in neutral
There is an inflator kit where the spare should be
The folding-seat floor took the spare's place
Most of them carry a compressor, not a spare
Big wheels, thin sidewalls, no spare
Electric door latches mean a dead battery locks you out
Japanese brands
Hybrids that jump somewhere other than the battery, transmissions that must not be towed turning, and the all-wheel drive that rules out a wheel lift.
On a Prius the 12V battery is in the back, and you do not jump it there
A dead Honda will not leave park without the shift-lock release
A failing CVT must not be towed on its own wheels
Flatbed only, with no exceptions worth taking
All-wheel drive is standard on most of the CX range now
Hybrids jump at a terminal, not at the battery
All-wheel drive on most of the range means a bed
The crossovers inherit the CVT failure pattern
The plug-in Outlander is a high-voltage vehicle
Korean brands
Including the theft-damage and engine-failure calls that dominate two of these fleets.
Electric vehicles
Flatbed only, no rolling neutral once dead, and a small 12V battery that causes most of the calls that look catastrophic.
European brands
No spare, a battery that is not under the hood, and an electronic parking brake that holds a dead car still.
There is usually no spare tire
Run-flats mean no spare, and no warning you would notice
Quattro means a flatbed, not a preference
A dead VW will not roll onto the truck
All-wheel drive on most of the range
Run-flats and no spare
Light enough to change the answer
Performance and luxury
Low noses, air suspension on the ground, and hook points that are not where they look like they should be.
The front will hit a standard ramp
Air suspension parks itself on the ground
Aluminium-intensive bodies punish a careless hook
Carbon fibre driveshaft on Giulia and Stelvio
Low front ends that a standard ramp will catch
Weight well beyond what the shape implies
Exceptional weight narrows the truck list
Bonded aluminium structure with specific load points
Supercars
Nose lifts, carbon structures and designated jacking points. The nearest truck is usually the wrong one.
