Three Types Of Truck Towing And Why You Should Specify When You Call For A Tow

Truck towing is more than towing your standard pickup. There are three types of truck towing. When you call for a truck to be towed, you have to specify what you have, unless the towing company specializes in just one type of truck towing. Here are those three types and why you need to specify when you call for a tow.

Standard Pickup Truck 

A standard pickup truck is a passenger truck. Yes, you might use it to haul stuff for work, but you also drive it around as your personal vehicle. As long as you do not have any extra parts or cabinets built on or in the bed of the truck, you can call a standard towing company, inform them that you have a small to average-sized passenger truck, and then they can send the correct tow truck to retrieve your truck. 

Heavy Duty Truck or Utility Truck

The next type of tow truck is meant strictly for mid-size to heavy-duty utility trucks or heavy-duty pickups. (You know the kind; six wheels, double-wide, need a ladder to get into the cab, etc.) These trucks need a heavy-duty flatbed tow truck with a power winch to get them up onto the tow truck's flatbed. There is no other way to tow these work vehicles, and no other way to get them onto the tow truck except by power winch, especially if the problem is a flat tire, dead battery, or serious engine trouble.

The Towing Hauler for Construction Trucks and Vehicles

The most massive trucks and vehicles of all are construction trucks and vehicles. These vehicles weigh several tons. When they break down or get flat tires, nothing short of a flatbed cargo hauler used for towing is going to get these vehicles anywhere. They also have double the winching power because they absolutely cannot be moved any other way (unless you have a boom crane onsite, and that is pretty risky). The towing hauler is almost exactly the same as the cargo hauler used to move these massive construction vehicles from one site to the next.

Why You Need to Specify about What Kind of Truck You Have

Even if a truck towing company offers all three of the services above, most of the drivers are going to assume that you want a standard tow truck for a passenger truck, not a tow for the other two kinds of trucks or truck-like vehicles. The towing company will automatically send this type of tow truck unless you say otherwise. When you specify what kind of tow truck you need, you save a lot of otherwise wasted time and effort towing your vehicle to the repair shop.

For more information on truck towing, contact a company like River's Truck Center.