Need a tow? Flatbed towing in Boulder, CO

Boulder Towing Company sends a flatbed when the vehicle has to travel with every wheel off the pavement: an all-wheel-drive wagon, an electric car, a lowered or classic car, a motorcycle, or anything that no longer rolls or steers after a crash. The call starts with questions; the answers pick the truck.

We ask the year, make and model; the drivetrain - all-wheel or four-wheel drive, electric or hybrid, lowered, or a motorcycle; whether it rolls and steers; where it is and where it is going. The front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive versions of the same car look identical and need different trucks; in a garage, the ceiling and the apron decide where the bed can come down.

If the car is in a live lane or on the shoulder of US 36 or the Diagonal, say that first. That is emergency towing after a breakdown or crash, and it changes the routing and the setup. Colorado's Move Over law, C.R.S. 42-4-705, tells passing drivers to give a stopped tow truck a lane or slow down; we set up as if they will not.

We give you the arrival window and the total on the call, at any hour: 24-hour towing in Boulder means the flatbed goes out at three in the morning on the same terms as at noon; in an upslope storm the window is longer.

On arrival the driver photographs the car and parks so the tilted bed lines up with it. The winch line goes to the tow points, or wheel straps over the tires, and the car climbs at walking pace. Bed level, four straps tight, every wheel off the road for the whole ride.

A flatbed you call for yourself is a consensual tow. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission caps rates for nonconsensual tows - private-property impounds and police-ordered tows - under 4 CCR 723-6; a tow you ask for is priced by the quote you agree to. State law still requires us to disclose every rate and charge, mileage included, and we do that as one total before the truck moves.

Distance is the first driver. Martin Acres to a shop on 28th Street is a local tow. Superior and Louisville, 8 and 9 miles out, Longmont about 16, Golden about 20 and Denver about 30, go by the mile. Nederland is only 17 miles, but they are 17 miles of Boulder Canyon at grades up to 10 percent, so the quote follows the road.

Where it goes matters too: a dealer with rules about the key, a body shop with a gate, a street with nowhere to set the bed down, or a delivery after closing add handling time, and we say so.

Loading time is the other lever. A car that rolls and steers winches up in one pull; one that will not - steering locked, a seized brake, a parking pawl stuck on a slope - needs dollies under the stuck corner, quoted before we leave. A car in a plow berm or down the bank on Sugarloaf Road needs recovery before the vehicle can be loaded, quoted as its own job.

Winter adds a line: when CDOT posts the traction law on US 36 or CO 119, or the canyon closes for a rockfall, the route and the time change. The cost page covers the mileage and distance drivers of a flatbed quote and the state maximums for nonconsensual tows.

All-wheel and four-wheel drive

A wheel-lift raises one axle and lets the other roll. On an all-wheel-drive car the axles are tied together through the center differential, so rolling one end with the other in the air turns the whole driveline. Subaru's 2020 Legacy guide says it plainly: because Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive "distributes power to all four wheels, improper towing may damage your AWD system," and its answer is a flatbed truck. AAA calls flatbeds "ideal for all-wheel and four-wheel drive vehicles."

Colorado's traction law, when CDOT posts it on a Boulder-area highway, lets an AWD or 4WD car through on winter, all-weather or M+S tires with at least 3/16 inch of tread; that same drivetrain is the one that cannot be dragged on a wheel-lift. For an AWD car we send the bed.

Electric and hybrid vehicles

Tesla's Model 3 manual says a flatbed truck "is the recommended method of transporting Model 3," that the tires must never be where they can spin because that can cause significant damage and overheating, that a wheel-lift with dollies is limited to 35 miles, and that damage from improper transporting is not covered by the warranty. Tow Mode keeps the parking brake disengaged for the winch up the bed, tires turning under 5 mph for less than 30 feet, so we ask whether the car will power up. Hybrids and plug-ins get the bed too.

Lowered, classic and low-clearance cars

A lowered or long-nosed classic cannot take a wheel-lift's boom under its bumper or a steep ramp. AAA calls a wheel-lift a "poor solution for exotic, classic or luxury vehicles" and the flatbed "ideal for towing exotic or low riding vehicles." Our part is the angle: the bed at its shallowest, the truck downhill of the car, wood under the ramp lip where a driveway drops away, a slow pull watching the front lip, and wheel straps rather than J-hooks.

Motorcycles

A motorcycle rides upright with its front wheel in a chock, held by four straps, two at the front pulling forward and two at the rear pulling back - U-Haul's tie-down arrangement for a bike that must not shift. The straps go on through soft strap extenders, never to the handlebars, which U-Haul calls too weak and flexible, and clear of brake lines and wiring. We compress the suspension without bottoming it out, which damages the forks, then check even tension, close the ratchets and tie off loose ends.

Not every tow needs the bed, and we say so. A front-wheel-drive car lifted from the front comes to no harm; AAA's rule is that with front-wheel drive "you want the front tires off the ground so that the rear tires roll freely." A short hop, Martin Acres to a shop on Arapahoe Avenue, is quick work for a light-duty wheel-lift, the smaller truck and the one for a tight alley or a low parking structure.

Dollies are the middle case: small wheels under the second axle so a wheel-lift can move a car that must not have either axle rolling - a front-wheel-drive car with a crushed nose, or an electric car with no flatbed in reach, which Tesla limits to 35 miles.

Sometimes no truck is the answer. A 12-volt battery that quit overnight - AAA puts a battery about 35 percent weaker at 32°F and 60 percent weaker at 0°F - a flat with a usable spare, or an empty tank is roadside help that avoids a tow altogether, and we would rather send that.

Long-distance and out-of-area transport

For long-distance towing the flatbed is the only truck we send: a wheel-lift asks something of the car every mile and a flatbed asks nothing. Denver, about 30 miles down US 36, goes on the bed. Nederland, 17 miles up Boulder Canyon at grades up to 10 percent, and Eldora, 21 miles out, are flatbed runs for a second reason: a strapped-down car does not care about the grade or the snowpack. We quote by the mile and give a delivery window.

Dealer and body-shop deliveries

Most long runs end at a dealer, a body shop or a specialist. We phone ahead, put the car where the shop wants it, leave the key the way they ask, and keep the loading and unloading photos with the job record.

We run the flatbed through the whole city: Gunbarrel and the 80301 side, the Pearl Street blocks from 11th to 15th, the Hill along 13th Street, Chautauqua under the Flatirons, and south through Table Mesa, Martin Acres and Shanahan Ridge to the Table Mesa Park-n-Ride, plus US 36 and 28th Street through town, Broadway as CO 93, Canyon Boulevard as CO 119, and the Diagonal toward Longmont.

The mountain roads are the other beat. Flagstaff Road climbs 9 miles to Gross Reservoir through hairpins; Magnolia Road averages 9.1 percent with inner corners at 25 percent before it turns to dirt; and CO 119 has closed for rockfall, as when five truck-sized boulders came down at the Narrows in April 2021. A car off any of those is a winch job first, and we say on the call whether a light-duty flatbed can reach it.

The same truck covers the neighboring towns: Gunbarrel, about 7 miles; Superior, 8; Niwot and Louisville, 9; Lafayette, 11; Broomfield, 13; Erie, 14; Longmont, 15 to 16 up the Diagonal; Lyons, 16 on US 36; Nederland, 17 up the canyon; Golden, 20; Denver, about 30; and Denver International Airport, about 42. Those are center-to-center figures; the quote follows the real route.

Two pickups come up often: a car that sat through a break at CU Boulder - 38,808 students in fall 2025 - or through a February storm, the month Boulder's snowfall peaks at 14.78 inches, and came back with a battery no jump will wake; and a car at a US 36 Park-n-Ride. Tell us the lot and the row.