Last night, I returned from a week of travel. My car battery was empty: it had enough juice to run the interior lights and such, but not enough to crank over the motor. After trying, everything else in the car went dead and only gradually came back. Luckily, the car park had a jump start battery on a dolly, so we had the car up and running again in a jiffy. The empeg was noticably unhappy with the current it was receiving from the car, so I pulled it out. Whenever the engine went below 1000rpm or so, all the lights would dim. Wonderful. I paid for my parking, pulled out, and a traffic light went red. I put the clutch in, the engine spun down to idle, and promptly stalled. Clearly, the battery was not only dead, but wasn't recharging, either.

Great. At this point, I figured the car wasn't safe to even attempt driving home. I called BMW's "roadside assistance" and they promised to send a tow truck for me. Quickly enough, one showed up.



"You're here from BMW, right?" "Yup." He asks me to sign a form that says I agree to pay for it. "BMW's paying for this, right?" "Sure, no problem."

Away we go toward my dealer. We're about five miles down the freeway when my cel phone rings. It's BMW roadside assistance again. They say the tow truck is where I said I was, but I wasn't there. But I'm already in the tow truck! Maybe they dispatched two of them? Consternation ensued. Turns out, BMW's are only to be towed on flatbed trucks, never on hoist-two-wheels-and-drag-the-rest trucks. I have my driver pull over and unhook the car. Eventually the proper truck arrives and arranges for my car to get onto the flatbed.



The original truck driver thinks it's B.S. that he could have damaged my car, yet he refused to give me his insurance information or to admit that he wasn't, in fact, dispatched by BMW. "Then who sent you?" "Somebody called me." Maybe, maybe not, but he clearly misled me on whether BMW would pay or not.

The second crew of guys (business card tag line: "You flip 'em... We tow 'em...") ended up storing my car overnight as there was nowhere particularly secure to drop the car near the dealer. They dropped it off this morning and I explained to the service rep, over the phone, what happened. Do they have any loaner cars? No. I'll probably be carless for a week.

At this point, I have no clue what, if any damage, was caused to my car from the inappropriate towing. I also have no clue whether my electrical problem was strictly related to a dead battery, something in the car draining the battery, and/or some kind of alternator problem.

At least I had an intriguing adventure, plus I have numerous photos of the first truck, including its license plate and it's "TX DOT" (department of transportation) number, which should give me sufficient information to track down his insurance carrier, if need be.

Yeesh.