Dos and Donts for roadside assistance

[friendofjimmyk]

I was ready to strangle someone due to a similar incident. I told the person I was near the Highland Park bridge (right by the zoo), the street I was on, the cross street (which she couldn't find...because the city renamed it!), that there was an Exxon station on the corner, etc. and she *still* had no idea where I was!

I don't understand this either....my company has a great mapping system. Plus, the Internet at our disposal. There are so many ways I can find out where you are in a few points and clicks. In cases like the one you just described...there is definitely something amiss with the person you spoke to because there is just no excuse for that!

[Chanlin]

I've had similar issues as some other posters with roadside assistance being misdirected.

One happened to be when I was in a parking lot of a plaza from which the most visible store is Kohls. So I gave my directions as being in the parking lot of Kohls at Holland-Sylvania and Route 2.

The town I'm in has another Kohls on Sylvania Ave which is on the other side of town from where I was which I knew and why I included the route 2 reference as the cross street because Sylvania and Route 2 run parallel to one another and never cross. I figure that should be specific enough for anyone who knows the area.

Dispatch still managed to send the guy to the wrong end of town. Fortunately the driver called me directly and I was able to correct him as to where he should be.

[karma_gypsy]

I thought that sickness was confined to my country only friendof. Here people (unknowledgeable people) think the solution to anything is a jumpstart, and a jumpstart will solve any kind of car problem at all.

That ... and duct tape ...

[orpheuswaking]

Understandable....but not my department!

All kidding aside, the people who take the calls are in a separate department from those of us who dispatch the calls....so what you described ticks me off too because then I'm the one running clean up on a call takers mistake.

Hey now, don't you start... Dispatchers make just as many mistakes as call takers :P (Don't know how many times I've had to yell at them to read the damn notes my call taker put in the call)...

[Bliss]

That ... and duct tape ...

Now to be fair I've solved a few problems in Ivanna (my little russian car ) with duct tape, and a few lot more with what dad calls "universal replacement", that is, fence wire.

Edit: Heck if I'd told you what I've done with fence wire, friendof would have a heart attack probably.

[monolayth]

I need to add to this!

For the love of all that is holy, When I ask you where you are at, do not rant at me that your at this corner and that any tow driver will know where it is. I ask specific questions because the tow people want me to. And while htey may know where you are my mapping system that assigns what company comes and gets you does not.

I have an example from today. Man calls in and is at X and Y st. He is reapeating this as a chant. After more probing I find you that hs is actually two blocks from X and Y street. He also refuses to give more direction than this, calls me dumb, and rants about how I am wasting his time. he also has no phone number and is calling from a payphone. He disconnects before I get to call the tow company.

There are many many things that man did wrong. DO NOT DO THEM.

[Lil Bunny]

Now I know not all of you drink but...

If you're getting a jump for being a moron THREE freeken times in a week (*sigh* I left my dome light on 3 times...in my garage...and of course it was an awkward pull in behind a dumpster...I know you all hate me already) know that it's better to laugh with the driver than it is to do anything else.

And I've found it wins you brownie points if you're a.) sitting on your tail gate drinking a beer, b.) ask him if this is his last call, and c.) offer him a tall boy. LOL he was grateful and said it was the best (if not only) tip of the day. I miss that guy, he was awesome!

[venroses]

My boyfriend had his pos truck towed a couple of weeks ago...but as we were driving away we passed this one car that had stopped and apparently asked our driver to get a tow because AMA hadn't shown up yet. Except that they were driving around in circles around the area! How's the guy supposed to find you if you keep moving?

[Argabarga]

Dollies are tires kept on wreckers (wheel lift trucks) there are two sets. You set them on either side of the car and run two dolly bars underneath the car. The dolly tires weigh more than half my weight and the dolly bars, although lighter, are awkward as hell. You get the bars and dollies set and using a long metal bar - you lift the tires to a locking position, raising the end of the car up on to the bars. Long, heavy, tiresome, drawn out process for a girl my size. Not too mention, the highway, the large amounts of snow, and the impatient state patrol behind me who looked so upset because it was taking me so long. This was one of those moments I wanted to cry so bad - but I was a chic driving a tow truck - NO TEARS! Suck it up!}

And let's not even get into the headache that is trying to coax FLAT TIRES onto dolly axles, it's tough enough getting them to fit on tires that are still nice and round

Nothing makes me want to scream like when it takes 20 minutes to get the dollys set up, locked, lifted, and then to my dismay I find that the flat just falls though and rubs on the road, forcing me to disassemble the whole works just to move everything IN by 1 click on the wheelset. Those are the days my tools almost learn how to fly

Oh, and people, before you call me to change a flat, make sure your spare is not FLATTER than what's already on the car, and make sure you have the tools needed to get your tires off your car. I KNOW that car came from the factory with a jack and lug wrench and handle to lower your spare out of the back, if you threw that stuff away or put it in a corner of the garage at home, it's not going to do me much good out here at mile 141.4 in the dead of night now is it?????

Also, don't bitch to me about the 1 hour ETA, it WILL take me 1 hour to get a truck to you because you are 65 miles from where we are. Your roadside service apparently couldn't find anyone closer, that's why we got the call, we are the CLOSEST service who has a driver and truck free and is WILLING to take the call. I don't care if you can see another garage from where you are, either they aren't contracted with your roadside provider, or , they REFUSED to do the service. So you've got us now. I garuntee, if you cancell this call and call the provider back, the ETA is only going to get LONGER. If they could find someone closer, they'd have sent them, and the longer you mess around on the phone, the later, colder and darker it's going to get out there, the dealerships will all be closed, and you'll be sitting in a hotel lobby at 3am because you wouldn't take a 45 minute ETA back around dinnertime and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself when I'm dropping you off at the Greyhound station in some Godforsaken part of town where you're as likely to get shanked as you are to find a cup of coffee at this hour because it's now 4am on a Saturday and nobody is going to even LOOK at much less fix your car until at least 8am on Monday, have a nice day! ugh!

[tollbaby]

... make sure you have the tools needed to get your tires off your car. I KNOW that car came from the factory with a jack and lug wrench and handle to lower your spare out of the back, if you threw that stuff away or put it in a corner of the garage at home, it's not going to do me much good out here at mile 141.4 in the dead of night now is it?????

Wait a sec.... you're a tow-truck driver, and you don't carry a hydraulic jack?!?!?!

Seriously? You'd rather use the little fist-sized piece of crap that came with my car? I've known dozens of tow-truck drivers (it was the favorite night job of choice for the guys I went to college with, and a few of them stuck with it), and I've never met a single one who doesn't travel with a hydraulic jack in his truck. Now granted, I had all my tools, because I'd never gone under the floorboard in the hatch to get the spare out before (it was brand new, tow guy said he'd never seen a cleaner spare tire LOL), but I still would have expected my tow guy to have something better than I was lugging around.

[smileyeagle1021]

I was ready to strangle someone due to a similar incident. I told the person I was near the Highland Park bridge (right by the zoo), the street I was on, the cross street (which she couldn't find...because the city renamed it!), that there was an Exxon station on the corner, etc. and she *still* had no idea where I was!

When the flatbed finally showed up an hour later, the driver kept apologizing. He was relieved that I wasn't going to rip into him. Why should I? It wasn't *his* fault his dispatcher was a dumbass

I've had similar issues as some other posters with roadside assistance being misdirected.

One happened to be when I was in a parking lot of a plaza from which the most visible store is Kohls. So I gave my directions as being in the parking lot of Kohls at Holland-Sylvania and Route 2.
.

I can beat both of you... not tow truck related... a few years back (like 3 years) the truck I was driving caught on fire (not mine thank God... it was a work vehicle). This happened on Virginia St underneath the 395 overpass... for those of you not familiar with Reno's street layout 395 goes over Virginia 3 separate times. Oh my God was it hard to get it through the fire dispatcher's head that we were at the 395 overpass on Virginia St that was the closest to Meadowood Mall... ok, that didn't work, how bout the northernmost overpass... no that didn't help either, how bout we're next to Borders (there was only one in the city)... that didn't work either, how bout we're just north of Virginia and McCarren... which one you ask (actually if I hadn't mentioned the 395 overpass that would be a fair question because McCarren goes in a circle and does intersect Virginia twice, but only once near any freeway overpasses)... ok how about Virginia and Kietzke... ok, you know where that one is, now we're getting somewhere... we are about a quarter of a mile south of there... finally the dispatcher says "oh, now I know where you are, you're near (insert name of small mom and pop beauty salon that I had only heard of because my mother used them), I'll have the truck there in a few minutes"
Keep in mind the entire time we're trying to get the dispatcher to figure out where we are the truck is burning... in a traffic lane, completely closing the southbound lanes on the main north/south arterial street in the city.

[Argabarga]

Wait a sec.... you're a tow-truck driver, and you don't carry a hydraulic jack?!?!?!

I carry two jacks, a bottle jack and a floor jack, but that will only lift the car, to get the tire off and the spare on, I sometimes require the tool to remove any locking lug nuts on the wheel, as well as the crank tool you need to drop down the spare tire on drop-down syle spare setups, common on pickups and SUVs, without either of those tools, I can't perform the service, I can only offer a tow at that point.

And depending on how and where the car is parked, the ground sometimes makes it impossible to fit either of my jacks under the car, and I actualy need the car's scissor jack to at least get the first 3 inches so I can slide mine under.