5 Towing Myths Savannah Drivers Still Believe
Most people don’t think much about towing until the exact moment they need it — which means a lot of what we “know” about it comes from secondhand stories, old assumptions, or just guessing under stress. Some of that conventional wisdom turns out to be right. A surprising amount of it doesn’t hold up at all. Here are five towing myths that come up again and again, and what’s actually true instead.
Myth #1: All Tow Trucks Do the Same Thing
It’s an easy assumption — a tow truck is a tow truck, right? In practice, there are meaningfully different ways to move a vehicle, and the right one depends on what you’re driving. Wheel-lift towing, where a hydraulic arm lifts one end of the car while the other rolls on its own tires, works well for a huge share of everyday vehicles. But it’s not the right call for every car. All-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles can be stressed by having only two wheels moving while the other two stay still, low-clearance sports cars can scrape against wheel-lift equipment trying to get underneath them, and older classic cars often weren’t built with modern towing hardware in mind at all.
Flatbed towing solves all of that by lifting the entire vehicle off the ground, so nothing is under mechanical stress and nothing needs to fit underneath the car. It’s not that one method is universally “better” — it’s that different vehicles genuinely need different approaches, and assuming any truck can handle any car is where damage sometimes happens.
Myth #2: If Your Car Can Still Drive, It’s Fine to Get It to a Shop Yourself
This one feels intuitive — the car’s moving, so how bad can it really be? But “the car can technically move” and “the car is safe to drive” are two very different things. A grinding noise, a warning light for engine temperature or oil pressure, a burning smell, or fluid leaking from underneath are all signs that something is actively going wrong, not just already wrong and stable. Driving even a short distance with a problem like that can turn a repairable issue into a much more expensive one — or worse, become a safety risk to you and everyone around you on the road.
The general rule worth remembering: if a warning sign showed up while driving, address it before driving further, not after you’ve already reached your destination.
Myth #3: A Tow Truck Can Only Reach You on a Major Road
Somewhere along the way, a lot of drivers picked up the idea that roadside help is really only built for highways and major streets — that a breakdown in a parking lot, a driveway, or a smaller side street somehow doesn’t count, or won’t get the same response. It’s not true. Towing and roadside assistance cover exactly those situations just as often as highway breakdowns — a dead battery in a grocery store parking lot, a flat tire outside someone’s house, a car that won’t start in a downtown parking garage. None of that requires being stranded somewhere dramatic. If your car needs help, wherever it happens to be sitting, that’s a legitimate call.
Myth #4: A Jump Start Means Your Battery Problem Is Solved
A jump start feels like a fix because, in the moment, it completely is — the engine turns over, the dashboard lights come back on, and you’re back on the road. But a jump start restores power; it doesn’t diagnose why the battery died in the first place. Sometimes it really was a one-off — headlights left on overnight, a cold snap, an isolated event. Other times, a battery that needed a jump once is already on its way out, and the same problem shows up again within days or weeks, often at a less convenient moment than the first time.
If your battery needed a jump and you’re not sure why, it’s worth having it tested rather than assuming the issue is fully behind you. A quick check is a lot less disruptive than getting stranded a second time.
Myth #5: Every Roadside Situation Requires a Full Tow
This myth tends to go the opposite direction of Myth #2 — instead of underestimating a problem, it overestimates one. Plenty of common breakdowns don’t require a tow truck at all. A dead battery, a flat tire with a usable spare, an empty gas tank, or being locked out of your own car are all situations that can typically be resolved right where you are, without ever needing your vehicle loaded onto anything. Assuming every roadside problem automatically means a tow can mean a longer wait for a bigger truck than the situation actually called for.
The simplest way to figure out which category your situation falls into: if the problem is something missing — charge, air, fuel, access — it’s usually a roadside fix. If the problem is something wrong with the vehicle itself, it’s usually a tow.
The Bottom Line
Most towing myths come from the same place — not knowing exactly how the process works until you’re standing on the side of the road needing it. The reality is generally more flexible and more capable than the assumptions: the right equipment exists for specialty vehicles, help isn’t limited to major roads, and not every bad moment with your car requires the biggest possible response.
If you’re ever unsure which of these situations you’re actually in, On Point Towing and Roadside is happy to walk through it with you over the phone before anyone’s dispatched.