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This is the story of Buddy, and his aforementioned truck.
See, Buddy owned some late 70’s – early 80’s Ford Bronco and had jacked it up to an ungodly height so that it was probably 3 feet off the ground and then had put some equally huge monster truck style tires on his ride (Google image search for “super swamper” to get an idea) Buddy then decided to start illegally parking said truck at his friend’s apartment, eschewing getting a permit, and apparently believing those big tires made the truck tow-proof. Much like believing in Santa Claus, said notion was charmingly innocent, and promptly crushed by reality as he was towed out.
Buddy must’ve thought that was simply a statistical anomaly, and promptly returned to where he had been towed from. I don’t think I’m giving out spoilers to tell you that this was the first in what would be several re-tows from the same lot for the same violation.
After a few of these, Buddy started trying other things in a bizarre running experiment to see if he could eventually find the secret combo move that would make it impossible for us to tow him. (Don’t tell anyone else, but it’s “A” “A” “B” “B” “Up” “Up” “Down” and then press “START”)
Among the permutations
-Buddy placed a large cinderblock behind one of his tires. He apparently figured that we’d never think to simply move it out of the way…
-Buddy started cranking his front wheels all the way to the left or right, (to his credit, he apparently knew or just luckily guessed that the dolly wheel sets we have don’t extend out long enough to pick up trucks with huge tires that do this, as the tires then will be sticking almost a foot out of the fender wells) But, all this meant was a second truck had to follow the first with it’s emergency lights on because Buddy’s truck would be going down the road ahead of it at a funny non-straight angle.
-Buddy then started enabling the truck’s 4x4 system to lock up the front wheels. But, because of the truck’s age, it predated electric push-button 4x4. Too bad his aforementioned 3 foot lift made it easy to essentially walk under the truck, reach up with your hand and manually pull down on the transfer case lever and knock it back into 2WD mode.
-Buddy then started backing into the spot, so we couldn’t dolly the drive wheels. The shift link on the transmission was reachable by hand (again, due to all that lift) first click is “R” and second click is “N” and he’s gone again….
-Buddy then took his most heroic action. He took both rear tires off the truck and stashed them inside the apartment. (The were visible through the window) and left the rear end sitting up on jack stands. Believe it or not, this just made the tow easier. The truck was simply grabbed by it’s exposed rear axle (there’s an adapter that fits over the tow bar on the tow truck to recover vehicles that have lost their wheels in wrecks in this manner), lifted, and then taken, jack stands and all, back to the shop.
Oh, he also had to pay for a second tow to bring the truck back to him when he found it gone the next day, he had no way of transporting those two humongous tires the 5 miles from where he was towed to our garage, as without a vehicle, he was now on foot.
His ideas now exhausted, he simply returned to his old standby of parking and hoping not to be noticed, or assumed we'd simply get bored of towing him again and again. We never did, and he racked up a couple more plain vanilla style tows before he finally went nuts and tried to attack one of our drivers with a ball-peen hammer one night
(Amazingly, it wasn't Twitch, it was Skippy, who's pretty fast on his feet and got back into the tow truck and locked the doors before anyone got hurt)
Fortunately, the cops responded and made it very clear to Buddy that he had made a poor exercise in judgement, and they never wanted to see him around again. Buddy finally got the message, and now only lives on in our collective memories, filed under "Tool, massive"
See, Buddy owned some late 70’s – early 80’s Ford Bronco and had jacked it up to an ungodly height so that it was probably 3 feet off the ground and then had put some equally huge monster truck style tires on his ride (Google image search for “super swamper” to get an idea) Buddy then decided to start illegally parking said truck at his friend’s apartment, eschewing getting a permit, and apparently believing those big tires made the truck tow-proof. Much like believing in Santa Claus, said notion was charmingly innocent, and promptly crushed by reality as he was towed out.
Buddy must’ve thought that was simply a statistical anomaly, and promptly returned to where he had been towed from. I don’t think I’m giving out spoilers to tell you that this was the first in what would be several re-tows from the same lot for the same violation.
After a few of these, Buddy started trying other things in a bizarre running experiment to see if he could eventually find the secret combo move that would make it impossible for us to tow him. (Don’t tell anyone else, but it’s “A” “A” “B” “B” “Up” “Up” “Down” and then press “START”)
Among the permutations
-Buddy placed a large cinderblock behind one of his tires. He apparently figured that we’d never think to simply move it out of the way…
-Buddy started cranking his front wheels all the way to the left or right, (to his credit, he apparently knew or just luckily guessed that the dolly wheel sets we have don’t extend out long enough to pick up trucks with huge tires that do this, as the tires then will be sticking almost a foot out of the fender wells) But, all this meant was a second truck had to follow the first with it’s emergency lights on because Buddy’s truck would be going down the road ahead of it at a funny non-straight angle.
-Buddy then started enabling the truck’s 4x4 system to lock up the front wheels. But, because of the truck’s age, it predated electric push-button 4x4. Too bad his aforementioned 3 foot lift made it easy to essentially walk under the truck, reach up with your hand and manually pull down on the transfer case lever and knock it back into 2WD mode.
-Buddy then started backing into the spot, so we couldn’t dolly the drive wheels. The shift link on the transmission was reachable by hand (again, due to all that lift) first click is “R” and second click is “N” and he’s gone again….
-Buddy then took his most heroic action. He took both rear tires off the truck and stashed them inside the apartment. (The were visible through the window) and left the rear end sitting up on jack stands. Believe it or not, this just made the tow easier. The truck was simply grabbed by it’s exposed rear axle (there’s an adapter that fits over the tow bar on the tow truck to recover vehicles that have lost their wheels in wrecks in this manner), lifted, and then taken, jack stands and all, back to the shop.
Oh, he also had to pay for a second tow to bring the truck back to him when he found it gone the next day, he had no way of transporting those two humongous tires the 5 miles from where he was towed to our garage, as without a vehicle, he was now on foot.
His ideas now exhausted, he simply returned to his old standby of parking and hoping not to be noticed, or assumed we'd simply get bored of towing him again and again. We never did, and he racked up a couple more plain vanilla style tows before he finally went nuts and tried to attack one of our drivers with a ball-peen hammer one night
(Amazingly, it wasn't Twitch, it was Skippy, who's pretty fast on his feet and got back into the tow truck and locked the doors before anyone got hurt) Fortunately, the cops responded and made it very clear to Buddy that he had made a poor exercise in judgement, and they never wanted to see him around again. Buddy finally got the message, and now only lives on in our collective memories, filed under "Tool, massive"
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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