Call Us: 1-855-928-2611Towing a dead vehicle with a chain looks like the cheap, obvious solution. It is also one of the more reliable ways to damage two vehicles, injure someone, or collect a citation.
Here is what actually goes wrong, and what to do instead.
Chains do not stretch
This is the core problem. A tow strap is designed with a degree of give, so the load comes on progressively as the slack disappears.
A chain has effectively no stretch. Every time slack develops and is taken up again — which happens constantly in traffic — the load arrives as a shock rather than a pull. Those shock loads are many times the steady towing force, and they are what tears mounting points off vehicles.
When a chain breaks, it does not fall harmlessly
A chain under load stores energy. When it fails, or when a hook straightens and releases, that energy goes somewhere — usually back toward one of the two vehicles at high speed.
Chain and hook failures have gone through rear windows and windshields. This is the reason recovery professionals use rated straps and soft shackles, and why they keep people out of the line of the rope.
The towed vehicle may not stop or steer
People underestimate this one badly.
With the engine off, most cars lose power brake assist after a pump or two of the pedal. The brakes still work mechanically, but require far more force than most drivers expect. Power steering is gone too, so the wheel is very heavy.
Worse, if the ignition is off the steering lock may engage. A vehicle being towed with locked steering will simply go wherever the chain drags it.
It is often illegal
Many states regulate this specifically: maximum distance between the vehicles, a requirement for a visible flag on the tow line, restrictions on chain versus strap, and rules about the towed vehicle needing working lights and a licensed driver behind the wheel.
Some states ban chain towing on public roads altogether. If something goes wrong while you are doing it, insurance is unlikely to be sympathetic.
You will damage the attachment points
Hooking a chain to a bumper, a control arm or a suspension component distributes load somewhere the designers never intended. Bumpers detach. Control arms bend. Subframes crack.
If a vehicle has a proper recovery point, it is a specific reinforced eye — often a screw-in hook stored with the jack. Anything else is a guess, and on a car you are about to sell, a bent subframe reduces what it is worth.
What to do instead
- Call a tow truck. A flatbed lifts the whole car, so no brakes, steering or transmission concerns.
- Use a rated tow strap with proper recovery points, if you must move a vehicle a very short distance on private property — and keep the ignition on so the steering unlocks.
- Use a tow dolly for longer moves, which lifts the driven wheels clear.
- Check the transmission. Many automatics and most all-wheel-drive vehicles cannot be flat-towed with wheels on the ground without damage.
If the car is being scrapped anyway
There is usually no reason to move it yourself at all. Junk car buyers include towing, and the truck is designed for exactly this: a non-running vehicle with no brakes, flat tires or seized wheels.
Dragging a dead car across town to save a tow fee that you were not going to be charged is effort spent creating risk.
We tow junk cars free anywhere in the US, running or not, and pay you when the vehicle is collected. Leave it where it sits and let the truck come to you.
