What is the sight of utmost relief when you are strangled in the middle of nowhere in the Sierra…read morefoothills on a dark night, a Sam Berri Towing truck with flashing lights. And if it is manned by Zak, that much better.
I have a class-B RV that is built on a Mercedes Bens Sprinter 3500 chassis. On my way to town last month on a curvy hilly section of Hwy 26 between Moke Hill and Glencoe, it developed a severe fuel leak. I managed to back the vehicle off the highway with timely assistance from a couple of passing Samaritans. "I guess I need to find a tow truck", I said to myself. What I did not realize at the time was that it was the start of a 4-hour saga.
I first called AAA who referred me to a "capable local towing service", an operation that, I later found out, is operated by a remote dispatch center outside California, as a matter of fact, somewhere back on the East Coast. That service quoted me a firm fixed price, asked for a 50% deposit, and promised a tow truck in an hour. Almost tow hours later, a "real dispatch" called and asked for more details of my RV which were all provided already in my first call, e.g., 25' long and 11' tall. Thirty more minutes passed before another call form a "real dispatcher". It is now 9 pm in the evening. "There will be an additional charge because of the size of your RV." Mmm, here comes the ransom. "Well, how much more?". "One thousand Dollars". !!!!! "Thank you very much and please cancel my towing request" I hung up.
I started to look for other options through my phone with the off-n-on T-mobile cell signals. Sam Berri popped up on Yelp. Now, this is important. Sam Berri was NOT the first company that popped up in Yelp search. I first called the towing service that was listed on top of my Yelp search. My call was routed to the same "capable local towing service" that wanted to charge me $1,000 additional fee earlier. That was when I realized that it is a "sponsored" listing in Yelp who must have paid advertising fees to gain preferential listing.
I dug deeper and found Sam Berri, a real local towing service. After listening to my problem and getting all vehicle information, the office of Sam Berri quoted a firm price and promised to arrive within one hour. Zak showed up with a shinning tow truck in 40 minutes. I was expecting a sizeable flatbed, but Zak came out with a small "wrecker". Mmm, interesting. It turned out that the wrecker was the perfect and only feasible choice.
The RV could not be started due to fire risk from the leaking fuel lines. With its new electronically-activated transmission, the RV could not be shifted into neutral. Zak had to disconnect the drive shaft to free its wheels to be towed, all in the darkness of night. Efficiently executed, about twenty minutes later, the RV was all hooked up and we were ready to move.
To tow the RV back to my ranch required passage through a winy, narrow, unpaved driveway of about 1/4 miles with a couple of steep climb and descend. Zak maneuvered to towed RV meticulously through all the curves and dips. On a steep short uphill climb, he gingerly adjusted and re-adjusted the towing lift height every 10-ft of travel or so multiple time so we do not scratch the RV bottom. Back at my ranch, Zak deposited the RV and reconnected its drive shaft. All these were accomplished seemingly effortlessly with one hour after he showed up with his tow truck, AND all at the firm price the office quoted me.
I CANNOT imagine a more proficient operation!
There is a second part of this long sage. We had to tow the RV again a few days later to a dealership in Sacramento for repair. It was over a long weekend and Sam Berri's truck was not available to help us. I had two other towing companies showed up at the ranch and decided that they could not do the job. It was Sam Berri again that coordinated a two-vehicle tow to get my RV to the dealership, one "wrecker" tow out of the ranch and one big transport truck through the freeway.
My conclusion: Proficiency, Professionalism, and Integrity.
One cannot find a better towing service than Sam Berri.
