What are the usual vehicles found in a fleet dedicated to the assistance and transfer of vehicles or machinery? Here are the most common ones in the sector.
A professional tow-truck service will, where possible, have the largest fleet of vehicles it can afford. Roadside assistance can put us in very different situations: from a car that refuses to start in a car park to a huge articulated lorry stranded at the side of a secondary road after a spectacular accident…
Each situation requires a specific tow truck, with its corresponding equipment and tools, which we discussed here at the time. But not only that. In addition to rescues, the companies grouped in REAC usually transport vehicles (nationally and also internationally), store vehicles, carry out minor on-the-spot repairs, and so on.
A selection of REAC members' fleets
- Bilbao-based Gruauto Asistencia, for example, has a scoop tow truck with dollies, tow trucks for industrial vehicles (lorries, platforms and buses), assistance tow trucks for motorcycles, tow trucks for vans, tow trucks for cars, and a mobile workshop service for on-the-spot roadside assistance.
- Fermoauto, in San Martín de la Vega (Madrid), has an excellent fleet of vehicles for heavy and light transfers. For high-tonnage vehicles they have low-loaders, tractor units and tow vehicles, as well as forklifts to transfer loads from one lorry to another.
- From Córdoba, the long-established Grúas Mata offers its customers a wide range of platform tow trucks (split, rigid and rotating), special tow trucks for motorcycles, off-road vehicles, towing trucks, crane trucks, mobile workshop vehicles and upmarket executive taxis (VTC).
- Guipúzcoa Cargo, in Donostia, showcases on its website a fleet of lorries able to carry between 18 and 12 tonnes, vehicles with iron and aluminium platforms, as well as other types of lorries and off-road vehicles. Fulfilling the service, whatever it may be, is its main mission.
- Girona-based Grues Viñolas has transport for boats (up to 8 metres long), agricultural and public works machinery, a car transporter able to carry up to eight vehicles, vehicles for carrying mobile homes or caravans, as well as vehicles for repatriating lorries and coaches from abroad across Europe. No mean feat.