Towing Issues: towing fees, tow fee, storage fees

Question
in California what is the total amount that a tow company can charge, say my car is worth $1500.00 can they legally charge me $1500.00 or more. is there a set limit or  of the total amount  they can charge to release my car to me or are theses towing companies the new pirates of the road.

Answer
This kind of question is one that shows that people do not understand towing fees...

First of all, there are "towing fees" which get the vehicle to the storage yard from the location of the accident, arrest or place it is illegally parked.

Then there are "storage fees" which are basically like a ground rental fee. You can get a $1500.00 "tow bill" but it is going to be say $200.00 to get the vehicle into the storage yard, but have $1300.00 in storage fees...

Reason storage fees are high is that only certain areas are zoned to allow for the storage of vehicles (mainly high priced industrial or commercial properties) and as such they charge (just picking numbers here) $ 50.00 a day for storage... (equate this to a hotel room)

Now if you leave the vehicle there 10 days then the storage fee is $500.00 and the tow fee is $200.00 which equals $700.00 dollars.

Now unfortunately for most people it takes time to get vehicles out, or they do not know it was towed for a few days... Each day the bill goes up. Now in California the tow company can also add in "administrative fees" which cover the costs of obtaining the "legal and registered owners" information for the vehicle and also fees for postage and things like that to notify the owners.
While this fee is not usually high it does add up on the tow bill.

Now under laws which regulate towing company operations they are also forced by law to keep vehicles for a certain amount of days, and this is also affected by value of vehicle, reason for tow and such, before they can begin to either start the paperwork process to obtain a "lien" on the vehicle which allows them to sell or dispose of the vehicle legally.

While some people consider tow companies to be "crooks or pirates", you will find that 99% of the tow companies are running legally and following the laws, and of course there are always bad apples in every bunch who do things illegally... The towing industry is no exception to this generalization.

California DMV has a great website if you want to drive yourself crazy trying to follow all the rules and regulations regarding towing, it has about 200 rules and regulations affecting the operation and paperwork required.

Value of the vehicle is also spelled out in there, but that section usually deals with vehicles towed by law enforcement agencies when dealing with abandoned vehicles.  If you were towed from private property for illegal parking then even if the vehicle was a $ 25 dollar beater it still has different rules to follow.

I hope this helps a bit, but even to me (I been towing for 29 years) the rules and regulations in California are to confusing at times.