🫣😱 Towing Tips & How NOT to Tow a Mach-E (with video 🍿)

[scoopman]

I'm working on an extensive write up of my poor experience with towing and Ford Roadside.

In the meanwhile, I'm posting here some of the tips I learned from my "experience" today getting my Mach-E towed from my garage onto a flatbed and to my dealer.

And of course, the full tow on video! (I'm so happy I got my BlackVue DR950plus, special batteries for the cam, and a hotspot -- I downloaded all of this video while my car was sitting at the dealer today thru the clouds....)

• 12V: Having a functioning Tow Mode requires you to have enough charge in the LVB. If you have a battery charger or power supply, I would put your car on it ASAP so you have enough of a full LVB tomorrow to have max time for your tow.
• Figure out Tow Mode beforehand: Before your truck shows up, figure out how to get the car into tow mode. It's buried in the menus, and the user interface is really poor. It's wordy, and the instructions are in the IPA (instrument cluster). These instructions cycle very quickly with all the other critical messages you will have in your cluster, and they're easy to miss.
• Leave your front windows open. This will make it easy to hear your tow truck guy if you are in the car, and also will allow you to open the car if it self-locks or some other problem happens.
• Turn off "Walk-away Lock" if that is enabled. You do not want that on at any point when your car is getting on the truck, and/or when it gets to the dealer. That also is a buried menu item that is challenging to find when you are under stress.
• Print out the tow guide from this forum, as well as the Tow Manual from Ford. Know this yourself, because as I found out today, you never know what will show up. My lovely tow truck partner knew no English, didn't give a #^#$% about the manual (because he didn't read in English), and he had no idea of what he was doing. Tow Guide documents here.
• Get your FOB ready -- towing and dealers are incompatible with the world of PAAK. I am thinking I have to hide a key in my car in a metal bag somewhere accessible, because if I'm on a trip and something happens, really you are left giving the tow truck or the dealer your phone.
  
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• In thinking back, I will never get in my car to do a tow like this. It's up to the driver to do the tow and I put myself in danger and let the tow driver do something stupid. I'm sure the tow company's insurance and Ford's policies don't allow for customers to be doing what that guy had me do.

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[Mach-Lee]

 

[2FlyMache]

I would have asked this guy to leave and requested another one. Did your battery get damaged during this evolution?

 

[scoopman]

I would have asked this guy to leave and requested another one. Did your battery get damaged during this evolution?

Yes I should have. However, the amount of time for me to assess competence before my car was in the street was very short. I assumed the guy had an idea when he started pushing of what he wanted to do and that it wasn't to try and roll the car into the busy street and hope for the best.

But miraculously no damage! My tow stickers really were key.

 

[2FlyMache]

Yes I should have. However, the amount of time for me to assess competence before my car was in the street was very short. I assumed the guy had an idea when he started pushing of what he wanted to do and that it wasn't to try and roll the car into the busy street and hope for the best.

But miraculously no damage! My tow stickers really were key.

That's good news. Probably my biggest fear right now is if the car has to be towed.

 

[scoopman]

You should cover your battery rails and get tow stickers. They really worked.

And learn how to do tow mode.

I would have been so screwed if I didn't know so much from this forum and preparing.

 

[Chuck]

That's good news. Probably my biggest fear right now is if the car has to be towed.

Same.

If I ever need to get towed I'd ask for someone that's done it before. Then I'd grill the tower once they arrived warning them of $23,000 damage if towed incorrectly.

 

[scoopman]

Same.

If I ever need to get towed I'd ask for someone that's done it before. Then I'd grill the tower once they arrived warning them of $23,000 damage if towed incorrectly.

I thought it was $28,000. You won't find someone who has experience unfortunately. Without going into details I had some escalations placed on my tow by kind people at Ford, and I still got this moron. It also took almost two hours before he showed up, without any text messages from Ford or him.

 

[scoopman]

What's bad is that we represent a very small percentage of overall owners, who expect this to just be a car and don't obsess over knowing everything about things like towing. The car and Ford need to be better so that it is easier to tow these cars without the such significant risk of bad things happening.

 

[Logal727]

Can’t we just tell them there’s no tow points behind the front tires?

 

[scoopman]

Can’t we just tell them there’s no tow points behind the front tires?

The actual tow points are non-obvious -- and my tow truck dude couldn't properly communicate left, right, stop. Good luck leaving this to chance

 

[chrisGT]

Very useful write up. For the sake of completeness can someone add the links to the tow guide and tow manual?

 

[zvez]

Here's info from ford on tie down

 

[zvez]

and this is more info on towing

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