Tow a Volvo long distance (100 miles)

[abscate]

You can push them up with two people or use a winch or come-along. Easiest by far to brush up the social skills and get some help

16 year old guys with a female audience can move mountains by hand

[MrAl]

AAA requires 72 hours before service kicks in if I recall right. Can’t sign up and have an immediate tow. 100 miles would not be covered in base service either.

I’d look at renting a uhaul truck and flat bed tow trailer, assuming you have a way to get it on the trailer.

Hi,

Oh that's a shame but not sure how fast he has to have it towed from what i know the locals have been informed that the car will need to be towed out of there.

I checked with Pep Boys they get about $600 USD for a 100 miles tow, and only to a Pep Boys business.

[MrAl]

You can push them up with two people or use a winch or come-along. Easiest by far to brush up the social skills and get some help

16 year old guys with a female audience can move mountains by hand

Hi Steve,

Hey thanks anything would help at this point.
Not sure what he wants to do yet but somehow it has to get from here to there. I am positive he will be able to fix it but first it has to get to his home where he has all his tools and stuff.

Pep Boys gets about $600 for that kind of tow but only to a Pep Boys business.

[Sveedy]

Just call AAA and ask.
I broke down not long ago in my Cherokee, and I thought I still had AAA coverage. Called and was told that my membership had expired. They said I could sign up right then, and either wait ( can't remember if it was 48 or 72 hours ) or pay an extra fee to get towed right then. I think it was $75 more. And they will tow over 100 miles, though there might be an extra charge for that as well.

[jsrnsis]

To post an update for anyone wondering, emergency or not.
AAA will not tow a car without a current registration, as per their policy. If you are a cardholder already and have the tow truck on scene, it might be up to individual drivers discretion whether to let it slide, but just something to keep in mind. They did confirm that if you were a cardholder it didn't matter if a vehicle wasn't registered to you, just that it needs to be currently registered.

If you deal with a towing service, if you enter your details on a website to get a quote, you will be bombarded with XYZ logistics and ABC towing brokers. They have one national load posting board, and they post a job for drivers to bid on, depending on mileage of tow, winch required, etc. For my tow of 100 miles, with one bridge crossing involved, I was receiving quotes of between $250 and $399, taxes and fees included. As an example, for a quote of $350, the broker said the driver bid $250, everything after that is broker fees and taxes.
These brokers are really pushy, saying they can only hold a bid for 15 or 30 minutes, wanting paperwork signed just to post the job on the board, and once they told me they had a driver available, they wouldn't tell me what company the driver was, so I couldn't look up reviews. One broker even got nasty when he saw that other people had posted the job to the board.

U-Haul does not let you rent a pickup truck for an out of town 1 way trip. You will have to rent a box truck conversion van at the very least. This has a number of miles included, with fees per mile above that. U-Haul will NOT rent a trailer to be towed by Ford Explorers, no matter the year, due to the Firestone tire scandal.
Home depot will rent a pickup truck to you, unlimited miles, by the day. You just need to fill up the tank. All the ones in my area were diesel F-250s. I don't know if U-Haul would rent you the trailer if you show up in a Home Depot truck though.

A U-Haul car trailer is much cheaper to rent if you return it to the place you rented it, and seem to be unavailable in some areas, with not a single available trailer in the central Jersey area. It's worth it to price out a round trip vs one way, they had a discount if I returned it to a location a half hour away from my car's final destination rather than the store in town, but it was still cheaper round trip.

Hope this helps someone.

[yanga001]

From the great north the way it normally works is if you got plates on the car (not sure about those with registration stickers on dash windows or on plates) then they will take the car without issue.

Operators are usually on a commission basis and have no real monetary reason to not tow you. It is to their benefit to complete the tow. Be very direct to say the XC70 is an awd vehicle so they put the proper wheel dollies on the rear end. Last time i had my car towed into a field and deposited in a shed i gave the operator a decent tip.

For tow dollies you are a bit out of luck unless you pull that drive shaft. The volvos are surprisingly light for their size and at 3500 pounds +700 pound dolly can fall under some normalish suv's (Honda Pilot with tow package, large suv's, etc). The hardest part is winching it onto the dolly. A bumper push with a tire may work as well to push it onto the dolly.

[volvolugnut]

Out here in the Wild West (rural Oklahoma) almost everyone has a pickup. And, maybe one in ten have a trailer and one in 20 has a car hauling trailer. This does not help you, but shows the difference in the east and the west.
volvolugnut

[greg850r]

I 2nd that. Pickup and a car hauler. My car hauler logs a lot of miles without me because it gets loaned out a lot.

Before I pulled a driveshaft to tow with a dolly I would at least invest that much time pulling codes, checking for fuel and spark and trying to troubleshoot and repair on the spot. Whenever I hitch up to go get a dead one I try to bring another person with me. I find I follow about half of them home pulling the trailer empty because we make it run enough to limp away.

The pic of the car with the hitch reminded me of when I had a dolly. Bought an 850T wagon dead as is in St. Louis. Went to get it with a car dolly and my other 850T wagon. Wish I had taken a pic of the 2 of them. Saw more than one person slow down and stare.

[V50M66]

AAA is your best bet. It just has to have a plate on it, and they’ll tow it. They’ve never checked anything else for me. I use AAA to tow cars home all the time, usually when I buy them.

If going a different route, DO NOT try to tow with only one set of wheels on the ground. Everything needs to be off the ground on a full trailer with the AWD system

[MrAl]

AAA is your best bet. It just has to have a plate on it, and they’ll tow it. They’ve never checked anything else for me. I use AAA to tow cars home all the time, usually when I buy them.

If going a different route, DO NOT try to tow with only one set of wheels on the ground. Everything needs to be off the ground on a full trailer with the AWD system

Hi,

I guess with just FWD only the front wheels have to be off the ground? 1998 v70 non-turbo