Need a tow? Roadside assistance in Boulder, CO - or a fix on the spot
Frozen battery at dawn? Tire shredded on the Turnpike? Out of gas on the canyon climb, or keys sealed inside? Most of that gets fixed at the car. If not, the car leaves on our deck.
Boulder roadside calls start with a symptom and a location
Roadside assistance from Boulder Towing Company never stops for the night. We start with the key: turn it, and tell us what you hear. Then the car's exact position. Those two answers load the kit.
Symptoms sort the job, and each one changes what we load. A click with dim gauges means the battery. A long crank with no fire means fuel or ignition, which a booster cannot cure. A thump that quickens with speed means a tire. A door that ignores the fob means a lockout.
Then the where. Downtown or in a neighborhood, give a corner: Broadway and Canyon, 28th and Arapahoe, 13th up on The Hill. On US 36, the Denver-Boulder Turnpike, give the direction plus the closest interchange: Baseline Road, Foothills Parkway or the Table Mesa Park-n-Ride. Up Boulder Canyon on CO 119, read us a mile marker if one is in sight, or name the last turnoff. That places you above or below the Narrows.
Stopped on the Turnpike or the Diagonal shoulder? Flashers on; stay buckled. Since 2023, C.R.S. 42-4-705, the Move Over law, has required passing drivers to shift a lane away from any vehicle stopped with flashers going, or to slow down. We do our work from the traffic-free side of the car, and we tell you when it is safe to get out.
Price and arrival window come first. The kit is loaded on a wheel-lift or flatbed: jump pack, floor jack, impact gun, fuel cans, lockout tools. It solves most calls. When it does not, that same truck hauls the car, with no second dispatch.
A jump on a Boulder street undercuts any tow
A roadside visit bills for travel, labor and the fix. A tow charges for the hookup and every loaded mile besides. Starting a car where it sits in a Martin Acres driveway beats towing it across town on price.
The Colorado PUC regulates towing carriers under 4 CCR 723-6. Its rate caps apply to nonconsensual tows only: impounds from private property and tows police order. A roadside call you place, or a tow you request, is consensual, and no PUC schedule covers it. You pay the amount you approved, fully disclosed before the tow truck leaves, as state rules require. See roadside and tow prices side by side on the cost page.
A roadside price rises with:
- Distance from town. Nederland sits 17 miles up Boulder Canyon and Lyons 16 miles out US 36, so both cost more than a Pearl Street call. Drive time counts out and back.
- The fuel. Gas or diesel we bring is its own charge, apart from the call-out.
- Labor. Jumps go fast. Seized lug nuts, a trunk holding the keys, a wheel packed into a plow berm: slower, and we warn you up front.
- Round two. Car dies again at the next light? That is now a tow, priced and approved before the car goes up.
Boulder's four roadside jobs follow the cold, the canyon and the campus
Jump starts on cold mornings
More Boulder roadside calls involve batteries than anything else. AAA's numbers explain it. Cranking power falls about 35 percent at 32°F and about 60 percent at 0°F. Meanwhile a cold engine can draw up to twice its normal current. Batteries typically last three to five years. Age plus cold is the usual killer.
Boulder winters swing hard. Warm, dry Chinooks blow through often in the winter months. Upslope storms bring the deep snow; March 2021 left 15 to 20.7 inches at the Boulder stations. A tired battery coasts through the mild afternoons, then dies the next frozen morning.
We jump it, then put a tester on the charging system. Afterward, skip the short errand and take the long way home; the alternator needs the miles. If the engine stalls again, or the battery warning stays lit, suspect a frozen cell or a dead alternator. That car rides away on the tow truck.
Flats, spares and canyon rock
With a spare aboard, we gauge it first; one can sit flat in the well for years unnoticed. Then jack, swap, torque. Compact spares are slow, short-range tires: fine to a Boulder tire dealer, wrong for a Turnpike run to Denver.
Traction law matters here. It runs automatically only on the I-70 mountain corridor, but CDOT can switch it on for Boulder-area highways and post the signs. Then AWD and 4WD vehicles need winter, all-weather or M+S tires with 3/16 inch of tread, or chains, with fines and surcharges for violators. A compact spare is no winter tire, so in a storm the car may go to the shop on the tow truck instead.
Run-flats keep rolling at reduced speed after a puncture; watch for the tire-pressure light, because the ride may feel normal. Sealant kits fix punctures in the tread face. Sidewall damage is beyond them. Boulder Canyon drops rock on the road; in April 2021 five boulders the size of trucks closed CO 119 near the Narrows. A sidewall sliced on a canyon rock rides home on the tow truck. Locking lug nuts? Have the key in hand when we pull up.
Out of gas below Nederland
Empty tanks happen. Our fuel can gets you as far as a station; the fill-up is yours. Gas or diesel? Say which on the phone; a misfuel is a mechanic's job to undo. The repeat offender is the ski morning. Eldora sits 21 miles and about 35 minutes up the canyon, and a quarter tank can quit before the Nederland roundabout.
Most in-tank fuel pumps rely on the surrounding fuel to stay cool, so keep the needle off E as a rule. We wait until the engine fires. An EV with a drained battery goes to a charger on the flatbed.
Lockouts on The Hill
Dead fob. Keys in the trunk. Keys on the seat, doors locked. Our entry tools leave no scratches on paint, seals or lock, and the right one depends on the car, so give us year, make and model. The Hill and the campus, with 38,808 CU Boulder students enrolled, keep us busy.
Proof matters. ID first: a license now, the registration after the door is open.
Emergency services come before us: dial 911. A sealed car in sunlight overheats quickly; smash a window if it comes to that. We are en route either way. Do not delay that call for our sake.
Boulder breakdowns where towing comes first
These symptoms end the roadside idea. The tow truck goes first, and nobody tries jumper cables or the spare:
- Misfire under a dash warning. Check-engine lamp flashing, or oil pressure lamp lit? Shut it down and leave it down.
- Temperature pegged. Gauge at H, or vapor seeping past the hood seam. No kit we carry fixes a failed cooling system.
- Dies after the jump. Runs on the pack, quits by the next light. The alternator or charging circuit is done; jump it again and you get the same result.
- Off the pavement. Nose in a Magnolia Road snowbank, wheels off the Sugarloaf Road shoulder: winch first. Too heavy for light-duty equipment? You hear that up front.
Those calls get the emergency tow truck, dispatched first. AWD, electric and low cars ride a flatbed to the mechanic, nothing rolling underneath, as their makers direct. Subaru's 2020 Legacy guide says the wrong kind of tow can harm its all-wheel drive and asks for a flatbed. Tesla's Model 3 manual favors flatbed transport and caps dolly use at 35 miles.
Other calls sound worse than they are: a downtown-garage battery gone flat, a slow leak found in a Gunbarrel driveway, a fob locked inside at a Chautauqua trailhead. All of those end at the curb. A tow for them is money spent on miles.
Jump packs go from Boulder up the canyon and out to the plains
The roadside kit covers our whole Boulder tow service area. Downtown and Pearl Street. The Hill. Chautauqua. Table Mesa and Martin Acres. North and east Boulder, and Gunbarrel. Then Superior at about 8 miles, Louisville and Niwot at 9, Lafayette 11, Broomfield 13, Erie 14, Longmont 16 up the Diagonal, Lyons 16 on US 36, Nederland 17 up the canyon, Golden 20 down CO 93.
Parked cars make repeat customers: the Table Mesa Park-n-Ride on US 36 after a day on the Flatiron Flyer, the Chautauqua lots after a long hike, campus lots after a semester without a drive.
Parking garage? Give us the level. Low ceilings keep some tow trucks out, so we need to know. On Flagstaff Road, with its hairpins and slim to no shoulders, or on Magnolia Road past the end of the pavement, name the last switchback. The tow truck has to fit wherever you stopped.
Frequently asked questions
Cold Boulder morning, nothing but a click. Battery?
Most likely the battery. A single click with a dim dash points there, and Boulder Towing Company can jump it at the curb. Different story if the engine turns over and over without firing: that is fuel or spark, and jumping it is wasted effort. And if it fires on the pack but quits within a few blocks, the charging system has failed and the car gets towed.
Frozen morning, dead battery. Is the cold the reason?
Probably. A Boulder freeze works on both ends: the battery can deliver less, and the stiff engine asks more of it. AAA puts the loss near 35 percent at 32°F and 60 percent at 0°F, with the engine possibly needing twice its usual current. By NOAA's normals, Boulder's snow season stretches from September to June. That is a lot of cold starts for a battery three to five years old.
Blowout, and the trunk has only a sealant kit. Options?
The kit handles a nail through the tread face, nothing worse. A torn sidewall or a shredded tire goes up on the tow truck, bound for a tire store. Run-flats buy a short, slow drive on their own. Tell us what is in the trunk when you call, and Boulder Towing Company sends the right rig.
Tank dry halfway to Eldora. Fuel delivery up the canyon?
Yes, gas or diesel, and up the canyon too. One can is enough to get you rolling to the nearest pump. On the bill, fuel is a separate item next to the call-out charge. Colorado's PUC caps prices only on nonconsensual tows, private-property impounds and police-ordered tows among them, so fuel you order yourself costs what we quote by phone. Distance to you and the fuel type set that number. Eldora is 21 miles up the canyon, so say how far beyond Nederland you got.
Do you open locked cars on The Hill when the keys are inside?
Boulder Towing Company does, doors or trunk. The entry tool depends on the car, so give us the model year with the make. Our tools are picked to spare paint and weatherstripping. Show a license when we arrive, and the registration after the door opens. With a child or pet trapped inside, skip us and ring 911.
Cold car at a Boulder curb? Lead with these
Then we can price the visit and pack the kit.
- Key test: clicks, cranks without firing, stays dead, or lights up the dash
- Where you sit: two street names, garage level, interchange, or canyon mile point
- Car and fuel: model year, make, model, gas or diesel
- Wheel gear: a spare or not, plus the locking-lug key if the wheels need one