Commercial and Business Fleets
Towing and Recovery Companies
The short answer
A wrecker that is down is calls you turn down, and a call turned down at 2am goes to the next operator and sometimes never comes back. We repair wrecker and carrier bodies, bed and subframe damage, corroded toolbox structure, and emergency lighting. You know this work already. We will show you the metal and argue the method with you.
01
What we see from this customer
Damage on a recovery truck is usually the truck doing its job. A carrier bed that has dragged a low car up a wet ramp a thousand times wears the deck and the rub rail. A boom that took a side pull it was not rated for shows up as an out of square subframe long before it shows up as a bent boom, because the twist goes into the mounting structure first. We look at the mount, the torque box and the frame attachment before we look at the visible dent, because that order decides whether the repair holds.
Corrosion on a wrecker body concentrates where you cannot see it. Toolbox floors hold water because the drains plug with grit. The underside of a steel deck rusts from road spray and from whatever leaked out of the last vehicle you hauled. Operators working the coastal runs through Long Beach and Oceanside get galvanic corrosion at every aluminum to steel joint on top of that. On lighting, most failures we open up are not the light head. They are a ground landed on painted steel and a splice that was crimped and taped instead of sealed.
You already know most of this, which is fine with us. Operators who do their own body work in the yard and bring us the jobs they do not want to tie up their own space on are some of our better customers, and the conversation is technical rather than a sales pitch. Tell us what you have already tried. If you want a section replaced rather than pulled, say so and we will price both. Everything happens at our Yorba Linda facility, so a truck sitting here is a truck not answering calls. We schedule accordingly.
Location: All work is performed at our Yorba Linda facility. We do not offer mobile, roadside, or fleet route service.
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What you are worried about, and the answer
Concern 01
Every hour the wrecker sits is calls handed to a competitor, including the overnight calls that pay
We schedule recovery trucks tight and we say no when we cannot hit a window. Parts get ordered while the truck is still working wherever the damage allows, and disassembly gets scheduled for the day the parts land rather than the day you drop it. Understand the constraint: all work is in shop at Yorba Linda, so the drive counts against your downtime too.
Concern 02
The boom or wheel lift took a bad pull and I need to know whether the subframe is still square
We measure it rather than eyeball it. A side pull twists the mounting structure first, so the check is the subframe, the torque box and the frame attachment points, including the fasteners and any elongated holes. That gets documented with numbers before anything is pulled. Correcting the visible bend on a boom that is bolted to a racked subframe is doing the job twice.
Concern 03
The deck and rub rails are worn and the toolbox floors are rusting out from the inside
Deck and rub rail replacement is straightforward. Toolbox floors are the job people put off. The drains plug, water sits, and the floor goes from the underside up, so the first sign is usually a soft spot rather than visible rust. We cut back to sound steel, replace, treat and coat, and clear or relocate the drains so it does not just start over.
Concern 04
Light bars and work lights keep failing and replacing heads has not fixed it
Because the heads were rarely the problem. We find grounds landed on painted or corroded steel, splices crimped and taped rather than sealed, and harness chafe where a run crosses a sharp edge on the body. We repair the circuit, seal the connections properly, and land grounds on clean metal. Mechanical and electrical labor is $260 per hour, diagnostics $285 per hour with a one hour minimum.
Concern 05
I know body work and I do not want to be talked down to or sold a method I did not ask for
Then tell us what you found and what you want. If you have already checked the mount and you want a section cut in rather than a pull, we will do it that way or explain specifically why we think it will not hold on that structure. You get photographs of what is under the paint either way, and you can look at the metal yourself.
Concern 06
Conspicuity and reflective marking on the body is chalked and I need it right without an inspection service
DOT reflective tape and conspicuity marking is in scope. We strip degraded material, clean the residual adhesive rather than laying new tape over it, and apply to the correct pattern for the body. What is not in scope is DOT inspection, engine, drivetrain or transmission work. Marking is a body-side item and that is the part we handle.
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Services you need most
Service
Structural Welding and Fabrication
Certified in-shop welding and fabrication on steel and aluminum structure. Covers frame repair, custom bumpers and racks, reinforc
Service
Frame and Structural Repair
Frame and structural repair corrects bent rails, cracked welds, failed outriggers, and out-of-square cage on RVs, trailers, and co
Service
Rust Treatment and Anti-Corrosion Coating
Rust treatment mechanically removes active corrosion, converts or encapsulates the sound pitted metal that remains, and applies pr
Service
Light Bar, Strobe and Emergency Lighting Installation
Emergency and warning lighting installation covers light bars, hideaway strobes, traffic advisors, sirens, and switch panels with
Service
DOT Reflective Tape and Compliance Marking
DOT conspicuity tape and compliance marking installs certified reflective sheeting and required lettering including USDOT numbers,
Service
Cab Body Repair, Door Hood Fender and Bumper
Cab body repair addresses door, hood, fender, bumper, mirror, and step damage on a commercial cab without opening up a full collis
Service
Fleet Collision Repair and Refinish
Fleet collision repair returns a damaged commercial truck or van to service after an impact, covering cab sheet metal, box structu
Service
Paint and Refinish
Full paint and refinish strips, corrects, primes, and resprays the exterior of an RV, van, trailer, or fleet vehicle in single-sta
04
Vehicles you run
Vehicle
Tow Trucks
Tow trucks take structural load from vehicles they carry and pull, so the deck, subframe, wheel lift mounting, and tie-down points
Vehicle
Flatbed Trucks
Flatbed trucks carry unprotected loads on an open deck, so the deck, headboard, rub rails, and stake pockets take the damage rathe
Vehicle
Utility Trucks
Utility trucks carry a compartmented service body loaded with tools, parts, and frequently a crane, and the compartments are where
Vehicle
Box Trucks
Box trucks put a separately built cargo body on a cab chassis, and the joint between them is where most failures start. Rear frame
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Questions
Frequently asked questions
Can you repair a carrier deck, rub rails and ramp wear?
Yes. Deck plate replacement or section repair, rub rail replacement, ramp and approach plate repair, tie-down pocket and D-ring repair or relocation, and the understructure underneath when the crossmembers have lost section. On a worn deck we check the crossmembers before quoting a floor, because a new deck welded to soft crossmembers will oil-can under the first heavy load and you will be back here inside a year. We price the deck and the understructure as separate lines so you can see the split.
Our light bar and work lights keep failing. Do you install emergency lighting?
Yes, and we usually find the failure is not the fixture. Grounds landed on painted steel, splices crimped and taped instead of sealed, and harness chafe at body crossings cause the majority of what we open up. We rewire the affected circuits properly, seal every connection, and land grounds on clean bare metal. Then the new heads last as long as they should.
Can you weld on a wrecker subframe or boom mount?
Yes. All structural welding is certified and performed at our Yorba Linda facility, with the correct procedure for the base metal. Aluminum and steel are not interchangeable, and aluminum structure welded with a steel mindset cracks at the heat-affected zone inside a year. Where the original design was the failure point we reinforce rather than restoring the exact condition that cracked.
How long will my truck be down?
A deck section, a rub rail, a light circuit, or tape and marking is measured in days. Subframe correction with welding and refinish is measured in weeks, and it goes longer if a carrier is involved and a supplement has to be approved. We give you the window after we open it up, because a schedule quoted before we see the mounting structure is a guess.
Do you do DOT inspections?
No. No DOT inspections here, and no engine, drivetrain or transmission work either. What we handle is body, subframe and frame structure, certified welding and fabrication, corrosion cutting and coating, refinish, emergency lighting installation, and DOT reflective tape and conspicuity marking. Most recovery operators already have an inspection provider and a driveline shop they trust, and we are not trying to replace either one. We are the body and structure side of that list.
Tell us what you run and what happened to it.