Hey Guys, I ran over something on the highway Friday that slashed my tire and cracked my rim. When I called for a tow, I let them know I had an AWD car. Once the truck got there, I saw it wasn't a flatbed, and let the driver know I needed a truck for an AWD car, and he let me know he had dollies to put the rear tires on. I was trying to arrange a ride in the truck, when the driver jumped in, started driving, and let me know he couldn't get the dollies on so he was pulling my car to the next off ramp about a 1/4 of a mile away. Obviously I let him know that was okay and he was going to damage my car, but he keep driving and saying it would be fine. We got about an 1/8 of a mile (and probably up to 35 mph or more) before my car started swinging back and forth trying to pull of the truck, the driver then stopped and put the dollies on. The driver had no idea why it did that.... When we got to the shop, I told the shop manager what had happened, he said he would look into it. The looked into the damage from what I had run over, but when I asked what about the damage from improper towing he said he was sure it was fine, it may have been an issue if they had towed it 8 miles or something. Basically all they were going to do was see if the car still drives once I get the new wheel. At this point I'm not sure what I should do; It seems to me there is a very real change there was severe damage to my drive line, but that wouldn't necessarily show up right away on a test drive. I know the shop isn't going to go out of there way to see if there was any damage, and they keep saying that towing it such a short distance was no big deal. Any advice on where I should go from here? Thanks.
wow...i saw the same thing happen one night to a green wagon. I did a u-turn just to tell the driver that he shouldn't tow the car like that. He said he had dollys too, but i took off not waiting to see if he even had them on the dolly. Do what Bielke55 said. I would
Thanks for the replies guys. I've decided I'll be calling a dealership tomorrow just to confirm that this could/would cause damage to my car. After that I'll be calling the company and asking them to pay for an inspection at the dealership and we'll go from there. If they aren't willing to at least do that I'll be taking Subie Lover's advice and getting a lawyer. I'm going to give this company a chance to make this right before I put there name out there, but they are a pretty well know company in the metro area. Thanks again.
Chance or not, they should know how to handle an AWD vehicle if they don't want to be paying for damages.
Agree to disagree on the proper etiquette here I guess... I would think others would appreciate to know who NOT to call in case this is needed. Bottom line is he didn't do the right thing. I know if the company I worked for did the wrong thing just once, there would be 200 people marching about it before you could drop a differential.
Just a quick update for you guys; I'll called 5 or 6 dealer's service departments around the Twin Cities and all of them said not to worry. I was a bit surprised by this, but they all said at that short of distance the likelihood that anything happened is really low. If something did occur, they said it would be readily apparent during a test drive. This seems to be against most people's thoughts and expectations around here, and definitely mine as well.
