What Is the Difference Between Light, Medium, and Heavy Towing?

Everyday towing companies are hauling hundreds of vehicles, of all types and sizes.  What’s the difference between light, medium, and heavy towing?

Towing companies can handle everything from a scooter all the way up to a large recreational vehicles or transport truck. Whatever it is, when it breaks down on the highway, someone needs to recover it, and that’s where companies such as Mountain Recovery step in.

However, not all vehicles are the same. We can, however, break it down into three main categories, light, medium, and heavy. In the following article, we’ll take a quick look at truck classifications and also the difference between different each types.

What Are Truck Classifications?

Truck classifications are based on the gross vehicle rating or GVWR of the vehicle. In total, there are eight different group classes.

•   Light-duty vehicles with a GVWR between 0-16,000 pounds. Class A
•   Medium-duty vehicles with a GVWR between 16,001 and 26,000 pounds. Class B
•   Heavy-duty vehicles with a GVWR between 26,001 and 33,000 pounds and above. Class C

Light Duty Towing Classifications

When it comes to light-duty towing, it’s quite common to find both regular and standard towing operations. Some of the duties involved in light duty may involve removing abandoned vehicles, private property, and also accident recovery. If you’re trying to picture what types of vehicles would be considered light duty, consider vehicles such as a Nissan Frontier, Honda Civic, or Ford F Series truck.

Medium Duty Towing Classifications

Medium duty towing would be vehicles such as RVs, box trucks, vans, and even motorhomes. For any of these vehicles, you would need to consider medium duty services. Tow trucks used to handle medium duty services would commonly be fitted with boom lifts, landolls, and also low-profile trailer options or flatbeds.

Heavy Duty Towing Classifications

Heavy-duty vehicles include vehicles such as dump trucks, garbage trucks, semi-trailers, tractor-trailers, and other heavy-duty vehicles, including machinery. All of these vehicles require some serious equipment. For example, heavy-duty trucks fitted with 25-ton boom lifts, winches, 6-ton wheel lifts, and even rotators.

When heavy vehicles are involved in an accident, heavy-duty vehicles are required to help recover vehicles, often having to lift the entire weight of these vehicles.

Conclusion

There you go! Everything you wanted to know about the different types and why towing isn’t a one size fits all operation. Then, if you need to have your vehicles towed, you’ll be able to tell the tow truck company exactly what towing service you require.

If you need any towing or recovery services, please don’t hesitate to call us at 970-476-1124 24/7, 365 days a year! Mountain Recovery is proud to service the following areas: Vail, Avon, Minturn, Vail Pass, Eagle, Gypsum, Eagle-Vail, Copper Mountain, Frisco, Silverthorne, and Dillon Breckenridge, Eisenhower Tunnel, Bakerville, Silver Plume, Georgetown, Colorado. Eagle, Summit, and Clear Creek County.