I have a 9-5 desk job, and i'm thinking about an extra gig. I've always thought it would be fun to operate a tow truck, however the obvious constraint would be that I could only take calls between 6pm~7am and weekends (and hopefully most of my operating would be weekends). I don't know if there would be enough business during those hours to make it feasible to operate (and i have not yet done any research into overhead costs other than obviously purchasing a wrecker). Thoughts?
Lots of drunk people making business for you at that time of night.
Lots of drunk people trying to hit you while you work at that time of night.
Look into the requirements of operating a tow company. There is usually a minimum square footage of fenced storage area to go along with all the licensing and fees.
It's a ruthless game.
Indeed, a ruthless game. Up here in Ontario it got to be so bad, people getting shot by competitors and trucks getting firebombed. the provincial government has stepped in to try to curb the organized crime going on in the industry. On top of that, when you're working you are risking your life just trying to do a job.
Wally has experience in the field. Looking forward to seeing his response.
How is your boss at your 9-5 gonna feel when show up to work after 1 hour of sleep smelling like a dude who has spent all night pulling Altimas out of ditches?
If you wanna dabble, go get all the proper certs, get a few neck tattoos, get a likely stolen 9mm pistol, get a high vis vest that looks like it has been used as a shop rag for 10 years, throw out any belts you have, don't shave or shower for 2 weeks, and then go apply at a local tow yard and work 2nd shift and weekends.
Then when you are burned out after 3 months, you can quit and you dont have to sell your tow truck.
As others have said, hopefully Wally can provide some input.
As a side hustle, I think you'd be better off with a decent trailer and tow rig and just do pre-arranged vehicle moves. Around here there are several guys advertising on FB and CL, to do that type of move.
You get to schedule it when convenient and not get on the wrong side of the established local towing companies.
My buddy operates cranes full time and his dad at one point owned a junkyard in the Hinsdale, IL area (Hub Auto now defunct).
He bought a used truck and was fed business from the junkyard. He hired a helper for the day hours but it was dog-eat-dog. Sometimes the tows got him $35 for junk cars and it never got off the ground. He sold the truck.
Similar but different...
I once had an independent guy that I found via Uship to bring me a car from Jacksonville to Ohio. He had a two car trailer and a Super Duty.
He said Uship work like this is not his main line of work. He took down two cars to Fl. He bought a rust free car for his wife down there as well as hauled my car back. The wife and kids flew to Disney. He drove. He commented that the towing paid for the 3 airfare and the Disney hotels.
I asked what he did with this big trailer the rest of th time...
He has a deal with a few used car dealers and he hauls their auction purchases/sales. All running cars. Drive on, drive off.
Remember than any time you are taking payment and performing a service, you're a commercial business. That means commercial insurance, not your regular auto policy. I'm sure 99% of people doing low volume on FB aren't doing it right. It's all fine until the one time it isn't. Same with weigh stations.
Rollback/wrecker insurance is astronomical.
Be prepared to have a place to store cars and assume at least half of them will be abandoned by their owners. You won't even get paid for the tow.
You'd better be skilled on how to extract cars from places they don't belong. Know how to use snatch blocks, etc.
I worked for a shop that did towing. It was okay for him because he got work in the shop from it. But he also spent a lot of time on paperwork for abandoned cars that barely got $300 at the crusher. People rarely abandon anything that is worth a buck. I would not recommend it as a side hustle.
In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :
Since you brought it up I have a question or two. Say someone had a ramp truck for private use. What are the requirements for DL, weigh stations, and following commercial rules? I assume it's more than slap "Not for Hire" on the side of the the truck.
Every place I know is looking for operators, especially for overnights. Before getting too invested in equipment, insurance, etc go work for someone. As others have mentioned there's a lot of overhead, and a lot of arguing to get paid. It's going to be difficult to turn a profit part time unless it's something specialized. Rates in many areas have been kept low by government regulations and companies run by people that can't do simple math, so customers don't understand why you won't change the same $45 dollars they paid when they got their first cars. I toyed with getting back into it once I could freeze my pension and it seems to be an even bigger trainwreck than when I stopped 20 years ago. Pretty much one guy in my area is making good money and his trucks run 24/7.
In reply to ddavidv :
It's a different time now as far as disposing of abandoned cars but they were always a money losing proposition. Most would get cut up and put them out in our trash a little at a time instead of going through the headache of scraping them.
Stampie said:In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :
Since you brought it up I have a question or two. Say someone had a ramp truck for private use. What are the requirements for DL, weigh stations, and following commercial rules? I assume it's more than slap "Not for Hire" on the side of the the truck.
Private use is the key. "Not for hire" means not for hire = private. It's a private vehicle and it's your car. It's even ok if it's a buddy's car, as long as he isn't paying you - or will say he was paying you when things go sideways and someone official asks him why his car was on your truck.
If it's private, no weigh stations, etc. Unless the sign reads "all trucks, vans, etc must enter", such as the Florida agriculture station. I would stop rather than risk a roadside date to explain why I'm private.
Stampie said:Lots of drunk people trying to hit you while you work at that time of night.
My usual tow truck guy got hit and killed in broad daylight, early 2023 
In reply to budget_bandit :
1. Does your state allow you to buy insurance wrecked cars at auction?
2. Is your state easy for an idividual to convert a Salvage title to a Rebuilt title? Some states only allow approved businesses to do this.
Here is an example of $72 per hour of "spare time" effort. Socially accepted tax free "hobby" income too.
There's a little bit of a gambling element but I've won more than I've lost. Thirteen wins, one minor loss . Link to 2 wins and 1 loss
You gotta sleep sometime. Working 9 to 5, then staying up all night to respond to tows doesn't leave much time for it.
I agree with what Wally said about getting a job with someone to try it. It let's you try it out and it let's you learn with someone else's equipment.
I wonder how much of the feedback is location specific. I think the towing game in major cities is wildly different from rural areas. One of my friends has a rollback in rural SC. He owns a repair shop and only uses it for breakdowns, he does no collision work at all. He claims that the truck prints money. To be fair the way he talked it couldn't be his sole source of income but it paid for itself easily and gave him some extra $$ after that.
Datsun240ZGuy said:My buddy operates cranes full time and his dad at one point owned a junkyard in the Hinsdale, IL area (Hub Auto now defunct).
He bought a used truck and was fed business from the junkyard. He hired a helper for the day hours but it was dog-eat-dog. Sometimes the tows got him $35 for junk cars and it never got off the ground. He sold the truck.
I used to go to Hub all the time. We loved that place.
NY Nick said:I agree with what Wally said about getting a job with someone to try it. It let's you try it out and it let's you learn with someone else's equipment.
I wonder how much of the feedback is location specific. I think the towing game in major cities is wildly different from rural areas. One of my friends has a rollback in rural SC. He owns a repair shop and only uses it for breakdowns, he does no collision work at all. He claims that the truck prints money. To be fair the way he talked it couldn't be his sole source of income but it paid for itself easily and gave him some extra $$ after that.
1000% different if you are the only shop out in E36 M3sburg with your own rollback and not at the mercy of the other guys' schedules. Got a breakdown? Car won't start? Call Cooter's Towing, he has a repair shop too. Makes perfect sense that this method would draw a lot of business.
OP wasnt talking about getting a rollback to supplement his repair shop, he was talking about becoming owner/operator of an evenings and weekends tow yard as a side hustle. I know the job market is tough but geez thats a terrible idea.
In reply to budget_bandit :
What kind of town are you in. Big, small, college town or not. Someplace like Oxford MS-Ole Miss I could see it being pretty clean and straight forward. Listen to the scanner, pick up the night's dui cars, do unlocks, tow in the repairs, etc. Oxford has, I think 3 towing companies.
glueguy (Forum Supporter) said:Stampie said:In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :
Since you brought it up I have a question or two. Say someone had a ramp truck for private use. What are the requirements for DL, weigh stations, and following commercial rules? I assume it's more than slap "Not for Hire" on the side of the the truck.
Private use is the key. "Not for hire" means not for hire = private. It's a private vehicle and it's your car. It's even ok if it's a buddy's car, as long as he isn't paying you - or will say he was paying you when things go sideways and someone official asks him why his car was on your truck.
If it's private, no weigh stations, etc. Unless the sign reads "all trucks, vans, etc must enter", such as the Florida agriculture station. I would stop rather than risk a roadside date to explain why I'm private.
With RVs, yes. Rollback or wrecker, no. Although I know guys that get away with it, since police officers almost never know the laws.
And insurance, is brutal. Y S M V
(state) 
This looks like a canoe revival.
In any case... I worked with repo agents for a few years (I was on the bank side). The repo side (and illegal parking side) is a rough, tough business. In 2 years on the job I had 5 of "our" drivers have guns pulled on them. Obviously at the first sign of that we'd hand the account over to our legal department and tell the drivers to abandon immediately. It was also the reason I was never allowed to do a ride along.
At another job, completely unrelated, I had a manager (well, my bosses boss) who had had an incredibly interesting career - grew up in the circus (literally), ran away from home, and at some point started driving a tow truck. By the time I met him he was 20 something years into his corporate career and was making north of $250k (VERY conservative estimate, it was probably 2-3x that amount) at our Fortune 500 company. He STILL was moonlighting nights and weekends. He just really seemed to love it (and had no kids, and slept a maximum of 4 hours a night). He finally quit doing it when he had an old lady in the front seat (car broke down) and was on his cell phone approving a $24M initiative.
As others mentioned, it is incredibly expensive to start it from scratch, but the established places are seemingly always looking for drivers.
If you pursue it, post some stories!
In reply to mtn :
Yeah, this thread got zombied.
Still, let the conversation continue.
“The life of a repo man is always intense.”
In reply to mtn :
It's an incredibly entertaining job, I imagine more so if you're not as reliant on it as your only income. The repo/tow away side produced more exciting stories but even the regular crashes and breakdowns could be pretty funny.
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