From a dead battery to a loaded semi
Wimberley Towing runs light, medium, and heavy duty towing across the Texas Hill Country, 24 hours a day, out of three yards in Wimberley, Kyle, and Blanco. One phone call covers a jump start in a driveway, a flatbed tow to a dealership, a winch-out on a caliche ranch road, and a Class 8 tractor down on US 281.
What arrives depends entirely on what you are driving and where you are sitting, and getting that right on the phone is the difference between one visit and two. Tell dispatch three things when you call: where you are, what you are driving, and whether the vehicle is still on the pavement. Those three answers decide which truck leaves the yard.
Light duty towing
Cars, light trucks, and SUVs go on a flatbed. All four wheels come off the ground, which means nothing is dragged, nothing rolls, and nothing is loaded through the driveline. For an all-wheel-drive vehicle that is not a preference, it is the only correct method: towing an AWD car with two wheels turning can destroy the centre differential or the transfer case, and it is one of the most expensive mistakes a careless tow truck can make. That is flatbed towing, and it is what most of our light duty work actually is.
Medium duty towing
This is the class everyone guesses wrong. A dually with a service bed, a box truck, a sprinter van, an ambulance, a mid size RV. Too heavy for a light wrecker, nowhere near heavy enough to need a rotator. Guess low and the tow truck that arrives cannot lift your vehicle, so you wait twice. Out toward Johnson City or Blanco, that second wait is most of an afternoon. We keep the equipment for it, which is medium duty towing.
Heavy duty towing and recovery
Class 7 and Class 8 tractors, loaded trailers, buses, motorcoaches, and the big diesel pushers people call RVs but which are really buses. If it needs air released before it moves, it is heavy duty, and a standard wrecker will not touch it safely. Our drivers are WreckMaster certified, which is a recognised training standard rather than a decal, and it matters most here, where weight distribution, air systems, and whether the trailer is still upright all change the approach.
We run this equipment on the corridors that actually produce the calls: US 281 through Blanco County, Highway 290 from Oak Hill out to Johnson City, Highway 71, and I-35 between Buda and San Marcos. See heavy duty towing.
The vehicles that need a specific answer
Some vehicles are not about weight at all. A lowered, classic, or exotic car goes on the deck and only on the deck, because a wheel-lift under a low clearance car is how bumpers, undertrays, and exhausts get torn off, and the damage is done in the first hundred feet. That is specialty car towing.
Bikes are their own problem. A motorcycle has two contact patches and no parking brake, so it stays upright because of how it is chocked and compressed on the deck, not because of luck. Soft straps through the bars, never a ratchet over a fuel tank. See motorcycle towing.
And if the thing you need moved is an ATV, a UTV, a golf cart, a zero turn mower, or a compact tractor, you do not need to own a trailer to move it. A flatbed already has a tilting deck and a winch, which is the entire job. That is light equipment hauling.
When it is not a tow at all
Plenty of calls end with the driver simply driving away. A dead battery, a key locked in the cab, a flat tire, or five gallons of fuel is often the whole job, and an honest dispatcher will tell you that on the phone rather than send a wrecker you never needed. That is roadside assistance, and it is the cheapest call you can make.
The opposite is also true. Once a vehicle has left the pavement, lifting it is not the problem to solve. Getting it back up to the road is, and that needs line, an anchor, and an angle rather than a hook. Caliche packs hard and dry, then turns to grease the moment it rains, which is how most Hill Country vehicles end up in a ditch. That is off-road recovery.
Accidents, and what happens after
If anyone is hurt, call 911 before you call a tow truck. Afterwards, a damaged vehicle frequently cannot roll at all: bent suspension, a seized wheel, a collapsed strut. Dragging it is not an option and a wheel-lift will make it worse, so it gets winched onto a deck and taken wherever you need it, whether that is a body shop, a dealership, your insurer, or our own yard.
What it costs
Rates for police authorized tows are regulated by the county, not set by us. A police tow starts at $272 in Hays County and $300 in Blanco County, before hookup, mileage, or special circumstances. Everything else gets an upfront estimate from dispatch before a truck leaves the yard, and the number does not change on arrival. The real figures are published on our towing rates page, which is more than most towing companies in this market will put in writing.
Fleets, shops, and dealerships
The worst possible time to go looking for a heavy duty wrecker is at two in the morning with a loaded trailer blocking a live lane. Auto shops, dealerships, fleet managers, and venues can set up a corporate account with approved credit, so the call is already arranged, the terms are already agreed, and dispatch already knows who you are and what you run.
Where we run
The Kyle yard sits on I-35, which is what puts Kyle and San Marcos within a short run rather than an hour out from the metro, and Buda is six miles up the same road. Our home yard on Ranch Road 12 covers Wimberley and the back roads around it, and the Blanco yard reaches across Blanco and the US 281 corridor.
Wimberley Towing has been family owned since 2015, and in 2024 the Hays County community voted us Best Wrecker Service in the Best of Hays awards. Call (512) 375-1215 and dispatch will answer, day or night.
Commercial towing and equipment transport
Alongside breakdown work, Wimberley Towing runs scheduled commercial towing and heavy equipment transport: moving dead units between yards, auto auction transport, and machinery that cannot drive itself between sites. It is the quiet half of a towing service and it is the half that fleets actually plan around.
Truck towing, equipment transport, and a straightforward flatbed tow are related but distinct jobs, and which one you have decides the truck. Tell dispatch which it is and you will get the right one first time. Fleets and dealers should run a corporate account.