hearse repo

[Abnorml]

[youtube][/youtube]

[hotroddwayne]

What a jerk... takes off with the funeral home's hearse & tries to keep it from the repo men saying there's a body in the casket! Oh i remember those days doing repo work with the wrecker... but back in the 90's we didn't have the "Minuteman" wheel lifts. You had to get out & slide in the tire bars on your standard wrecker... which stuck out like a SORE THUMB anyway alerting the owner!!! Nowdays they have it made... "Minuteman" wheel lift hidden in a pickup truck bed, flips out @ the touch of a button, back up till you bump against the tires & hit a switch... the other 2 tire bars fold out, then you raise her up & you GO LIKE HELL & stop later to put on the tire straps... away from gunfire & baseball bats! These guys can be loaded & gone in 30 seconds or so. Back in the day it took 3 - 4 minutes if you were GOOD. I love the whole "incognito" concept of using a dually pickup... lives are saved when you can do this kind of work safe, fast, & in disguise. Repo work pays good but is the most risky thing I ever did in life!

[Morella]

I just thought that was funny as hell...a mannequin in there, and he jumped like it was a rattlesnake. I would play a trick like that, but I wouldn't steal someone else's hearse to do it. That just kicked ass, threatening to call the cops because they left a body in the hot sun. They weren't going to win, one way or another. It was a NICE casket too, probably $2000-$4000, and I'll be they stole it.

Remember the rubber sling wreckers on one-ton duallies, with chains, a PTO cable winch and no hydraulics? Once you picked up your load, you couldn't drop it. I got sent out to pick up a truck with one of those, and it was a big 2-1/2 ton truck, about three times the size of the wrecker, and filled to the brim with bags of yard waste. I didn't want to pick it up, but we didn't have cell phones back then. I was rolling up a hill on LBJ freeway, trying hard to steer it because my front wheels were barely on the ground. When I came over the top of a hill, the traffic at the bottom was at a dead stop.

OH FUCK!!!!!

I started slamming down gears, popping the clutch to bring the front end down and then getting on the brakes, and I just barely got it stopped. I got back and the boss had left for the day, so I dropped it right in front of his office door and put the tow truck away. I don't remember who ended up hooking it up and moving it, but it wasn't me. I left some nice rubber S-marks all over their parking lot and went home.

I was going to be a ferry pilot at one time, and I've handled a couple of "oh fucks" in the air as well, but when I think about that tow truck, and maybe getting sent 2000 miles away to pick up a 61 Aztec stuck in the mud with bent propellers, I changed my mind. I'd rather ride down sewer pipes on a surfboard for a living.

You know, I've done so many different jobs that I have to leave most of them off of my resumé or people would think that I couldn't possibly be good at any one thing, but I wouldn't trade most of the experiences for anything. I think it would be fun to do repos, as long as I had those big guys with me, but I'd probably get fired for carrying a gun. I look intimidating, but I can't fight. I have to shoot people.

Sometimes I feel sorry for those guys who are losing their cars, and I want to see the repo men get their asses kicked, but these hearse thieves should probably be behind bars. I noticed that they didn't want any part of the police being called.

-denise

[hotroddwayne]

The only thing fun about doing repos is the adrenalyne RUSH! Yes I remember the rubber sling & J-hooks well... my wrecker had a sling but I rarely used it... just kept it folded up & the boom set low... used the wheel lift 90% of the time. Other drivers used to poke fun 'cause I always kept my axle dollys on the bed too just in case... but when they were running back to the yard to get a rollback I had my accident vehicle MOBILE no matter how fucked up it was... one end on the sling, the other off the road on the axle dollys they chose to laugh at.
There's only 1 thing worse than being on a repo & hearing the "click-click" of a 20 gauge pump shotgun behind you... impounding illegal parks on campus of OSU. We sent 1 guy on foot into the fraternity & sorority parking lots looking for parking permits... all vehicles NOT having one were put on "the list" & we'd gang up with 4-6 wreckers, fly in, "hook 'n book"! Ever look up & see 20 angry, drunk college students running at YOU with whatever weapon they could find on the way out the door? Eesshhh gave myself flashbacks there. Of course I always got the car where they thought they were slick & cut the wheels ALL THE WAY to a side with a locking column so i supposedly can't tow it? LOL there's ways around that too. Ever buy a car that's got a locking column & the steering wheel don't lock? Slim Jim the door open, grab the wheel, 1 or 2 hard jerks & no more locking column... & i'm gone with your ride. Just doing my job because you chose to break the rules, be it a repo or an illegal parked car on a lot that says "Permit required, ALL vehicles not having permit will be towed at your expense". Yea it sucks to repo someone's only means of transportation no matter what the sob-story or situation is, but you have to remember i'm doing the repo because they chose NOT to pay for the car or can't afford the payment. Nothing in life is free, why should they be allowed to keep a vehicle they didn't pay for? I had to buy all my shit.
I still have my "grand master lockout set" & STILL have fun with it. Watched some cops struggling to help a woman who'd locked her keys in her car with her baby in a car seat. 3 of them were trying to unlock the car & the woman was freaking out. I walked up & asked "Would you like me to open that door for you officer?" He went to hand me his slim jim & a COLD look... I said "No thanks, I have my own" & got out the moneymaker kit. Had the door open in less than a minute & the officers said they were taking my kit... until I showed them they're licensed to me to this day.

[R U INJRD]

Hey Dwayne, you weren't with SHAMCOCK, were you?

If you were, I'll consider it water under the bridge. Ever tow a 69 Chevy station wagon back in the day?

[hotroddwayne]

YES YES YES

LOL yes sir I towed for Shamrock Towing out of the hub on Rt. 3 just north of Westerville!
Also drove for Mahr's Towing as primary driver for several years. No i don't remember hooking a '69 Chevy wagon for either company, but that don't mean I didn't. On call 24/7 you tend to forget some details...

P.S. All my repos were through bank One, usually had a bank rep in the truck & they HATED it, pussys wouldn't even get out of the truck to serve papers

[Morella]

I've paid off two new cars, and had to give one back, but I knew a month in advance that I couldn't make the payment, so I just bought an old 74 Marquis that needed a valve job, gave it new seals, and called the finance company and told them to take the car back. As it turned out, I liked the 74 Marquis much better than I did the 81 El Camino that I gave back. For one thing, there was no "check engine" light staying on.

I paid off my 2004 Marquis and still have it, but I've sort of gone roundy round. I hate that car so much that I bought a 76 New Yorker, and I'm much happier driving it. Tony says that the salesman took advantage of me, an accident victim who was still freaked out and on painkillers, into buying that 2004, and that is true, but ultimately, we still have to pay for the mistakes we make. Since my accident settlement paid off the car, I'm not as bitter about it, but still usually drive the Chrysler, or the hearse. Tony insists that we take the Mercury on long trips because there is still some warranty on it. Thank the Japanese for forcing the Americans to give us more than that crappy 1-year warranty we used to get. People used to have cars repo'd because they couldn't afford the repairs and the payments.

They liked to boot cars for parking tickets at the U where my little brother went to school, and the students figured out a way to get the boots off quickly and steal them. Since universities never provide enough parking space, and love to give tickets, I thought that was funny, and fair enough. I got a ticket because I went to the U's medical center and put in an hour's worth for a quick blood draw, and they ended up taking my clothes away and keeping me there for hours, then refused to appeal the ticket. Universities can be real assfucks about cars...I used to ride a bicycle and get there quicker than I could find a parking space and walk to class.

-denise

[R U INJRD]

LOL yes sir I towed for Shamrock Towing out of the hub on Rt. 3 just north of Westerville!
Also drove for Mahr's Towing as primary driver for several years. No i don't remember hooking a '69 Chevy wagon for either company, but that don't mean I didn't. On call 24/7 you tend to forget some details...

P.S. All my repos were through bank One, usually had a bank rep in the truck & they HATED it, pussys wouldn't even get out of the truck to serve papers

You'd think us college kids would be smart enough to come up with a better derogatory nickname for Shamrock Towing than "Shamcock", but that was the best anyone could ever do. I still hear people using it almost twenty years later.

I hated those green and white trucks. It took forever to find a parking spot on campus anywhere near where you lived, then you would get towed for something stupid and have to get a ride down to Whittier street with a fistful of cash that usually exceeded the value of your car, just to get it back. If you didn't, they would keep charging you storage fees. Luckily on the day I needed to go the local "Campus Crusade for Christ" guy was trolling the dorms for recruits, so I hit him up for a ride. He couldn't very well talk up the idea of being a good samaritan, then leave me hanging.

[hotroddwayne]

I hated those green and white trucks

Me too! Try being sneaky & fast with a BRIGHT GREEN & white wrecker & green light bar, especially on campus with a clattery 460 diesel. Mahrs had nice trucks, but we had a huge tunnel box between the bed & cab. It made the wrecker tow sweet with the extended wheelbase but it SUCKED towing into city impound on Whittier Street! The city's yard had small aisles.
Morella yes it is fun trying tostop & steer with a big load. We had a contract with Frito-Lay towing all their box trucks that broke down... good times hauling a 24 foot box truck as big as a motor home in city traffic!
Years & years ago a retired cop gave me his weapon of choice for self defense in the wrecker, it's a police-issue Bucheimer Blackjack, the "Texan" model (biggest one made) with a lead weight sewn into the end. Wore it on my belt while driving wrecker & went into city impound one day & forgot to leave it in the truck... they were all over me wanting to see it, looking at it, & wanting to take it away. I still have it... but they're illegal even for a cop to carry nowdays. Here's a Youtube clip, the one I have is featured first @ 01:35 into the video: