You already paid for the tow with your car. So why does the bill keep growing every single day your vehicle sits in the tow yard? Welcome to one of the nastiest surprises of having a vehicle impounded: the tow may happen once, but storage charges can keep piling up daily. In many situations, yes, a towing or impound facility can charge a daily storage fee. Exactly what it can charge, when those charges begin,...

There may be no four words more terrifying to hear about an impounded vehicle than: “It went to auction.” Until that moment, you may have been fighting storage fees, chasing paperwork, waiting for an insurance company, trying to locate a title, dealing with a lienholder or simply trying to scrape together enough money to get the vehicle released. Those problems are frustrating, but at least there may still be a vehicle sitting behind the fence...

When a wrecked vehicle is sitting behind the gates of a tow yard and the owner discovers it may cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it released, the tow company usually becomes the immediate villain. They have the vehicle, they are presenting the bill, and storage charges may continue increasing every day. The anger is understandable, but the company holding the vehicle isn't necessarily the company responsible for creating the financial mess. Let's...

The Impound Clock Doesn't Care If You're Waiting When Sue B.'s 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 4MATIC SUV was impounded, she didn't ignore the problem. She did exactly what most people would do. She started making phone calls, gathering paperwork, following instructions, and trying to satisfy every requirement she was given so she could get her vehicle released. Unfortunately, good intentions don't stop the impound clock. At the time, Sue owed $1,454.08 in impound and storage...

The Bad News Doesn't End When The Tow Truck Leaves Many vehicle owners make one dangerous assumption after their financed vehicle is impounded: if they simply walk away from it, the loan somehow disappears with it. If only life worked that way. An impound yard isn't a magical debt eraser. It doesn't care what you owe your lender, how upside down you are on the loan, or whether you're making payments every month. Its job...

The Real Question Is...Why Would You? Ignoring an impounded vehicle feels surprisingly easy during the first few days. Life gets busy, money is tight, and convincing yourself you'll deal with it next week sounds reasonable enough. Unfortunately, impound lots don't operate on good intentions. They operate on invoices, and every day your vehicle remains behind that fence, another charge quietly finds its way onto your bill. That's why the question isn't simply, "What happens if...

Most people assume that once their vehicle disappears behind an impound fence, they're the only person who can get it back, and that’s not exactly true! Depending on the circumstances, someone else may be able to purchase your vehicle directly from impound—or buy it from you while it's still sitting in storage. The problem is that most owners don't learn that option exists until they've already spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on storage...

When The Bill Becomes Bigger Than The Vehicle Most vehicle owners never expect to face a situation where the cost of recovering their vehicle exceeds the value of the vehicle itself. Unfortunately, that scenario plays out every day in tow yards and impound facilities across the country. What starts as a relatively routine tow can quickly evolve into a financial problem that leaves owners wondering whether recovering the vehicle even makes sense anymore. A vehicle...

Most people discover the idea of selling a vehicle from impound completely by accident. Usually, it happens after they've spent several days trying to figure out how they're going to get the vehicle back. They've called the tow yard multiple times. They've looked at the growing balance. They've checked their bank account. They've priced the repairs the vehicle already needed before it was towed. Somewhere during that process, a question finally appears: "Wait a minute....

Over 26 million people have “Googled” this search, and is THE most common question people ask after discovering their vehicle has been towed is surprisingly simple: "How long do I have before they sell it?" Unfortunately, the answer is not nearly as simple. Most vehicle owners assume their car can sit in an impound lot for months while they figure out their finances, gather paperwork, deal with insurance issues, or decide what to do next....