Can a tow truck tow you and your trailer?

Question

If your vehicle breaks down while towing a trailer can a tow truck tow both your vehicle and the trailer?

The tow vehicle in this case is rear wheel drive.

Answer 1

When requesting the tow, the user should clearly state

• The fact that there is also a trailer that needs to be towed.
• The weight of said trailer.
• The trailer hitch type.

Otherwise, the towing company may not be able to send a suitable tow vehicle to the site. Not all tow vehicles have a tow hitch of both types (ball and NATO), and not all tow vehicles have a sufficient total weight capacity to include the weight of the tow vehicle + the towed vehicle + the trailer. Ditto for the tow driver's licence, that may be restricted to a certain weight. This depends on the country - driving licence weight categories are not the same everywhere.

To take a couple of examples, a fully loaded expedition 4x4 can go up to 3500 kg for the vehicle + 3000kg for the trailer - not something many tow vehicles can handle all at once. You would need a medium truck for this one. On the other hand, a small city car with a small trailer could be just 1000kg + 300 kg, which a typical tow vehicle would just shrug off. I have seen this second case actually happen.

Another point to take into consideration would be the small print on the contract of assistance, which may or may not include stipulations for this situation.

Answer 2

Most of the time the tow company will do one of the following based on the equipment they have available at the time you call listed most common to least common:

• Put your tow vehicle on a rollback, and tow the trailer at the same time with the same roll back
• Send a second truck (sometimes a regular truck not a wrecker) to tow you trailer, this is done more often if your trailer is a fifth wheel or goose neck.
• Tow your vehicle while leaving your trailer hooked up to your tow vehicle, this is usually only done for short distances and or when that's the only equipment they have currently available If the vehicle is rear wheel drive they simply pull the drive shaft.
• Tow your tow vehicle with the trailer connected on a large rollback. This is getting into heavy duty (tractor trailer size) wreckers and usually isn't cost effective.

Pictured below is a rollback that can haul one car on the bed and another with the wheel lift on the back (red bar) the wheel lift also has a place to hook up a trailer, so your tow vehicle goes on top and your trailer is pulled behind it.

Here is another example of towing a vehicle while leaving the trailer (three trailers in this instance) hooked up. They could do the same with a medium duty wrecker for your car and trailer. Of course local laws will play a roll in what can be done in some cases. Especially once you get past towing something with double or triple trailers.

Answer 3

A number of years ago my Jeep blew a head gasket on the motorway whilst towing an empty car trailer. When I called for recovery and explained that I had a trailer, they sent a low loader with a tow bar. They strapped my Jeep to the flatbed of the recovery wagon and attached the trailer to the tow bar.

Some years later, my car trailer burst a tyre whilst at a motorsport event. I'd managed to get my race car to the event and compete but obviously couldn't drive it home on a trailer with a flat tyre so we loaded the race car onto a friends recovery truck and placed the stricken trailer onto another friends recovery truck.

I suspect towing a vehicle that is hitched to a trailer (and therefore also towing) to be illegal, it certainly would be dangerous as it would become very difficult to control.

Answer 4

Pulling tractor trailers may be safe with brakes to the tow vehicle, a car or light truck WITH A BALL HITCH is looking for trouble. As you pick up the front of the car, the back end goes down and lowers the ball and pulls down the front of the trailer pulling the ball out of the trailer,or lowering the hitch to dddrrrag over bumps. Play it safe and split them.