About

About cheap car tow

A booking and price-publication service for UK vehicle recovery. Operator panel, editorial standards, compliance posture and contact details.

Editorial summary

About cheap car tow

Last reviewed
17 May 2026
Reviewer
cheap car tow editorial team
Reading time
~6 minutes

cheap car tow is a booking and price-publication service. The recovery itself is performed by an independent PAS 43 compliant operator dispatched at the published rate. See terms for the operator-panel arrangement.

About

About cheap car tow

section

What we built and why

cheap car tow exists to put a published price on every UK vehicle recovery. The recovery market has long traded on bait pricing: "from £X" headlines, mileage uplifts that nobody mentions until handover, and surcharges that have no published basis. We took the opposite design choice.

Every quoted figure on the site resolves to a single source-of-truth pricing table. The dispatcher reads the same band the customer reads on the page. The operator agrees to attend on the published rate. There is no surprise at the scene.

This is a small promise that is hard to keep. It requires an operator panel that has accepted the published rate, a dispatch process that does not allow per-booking margin tweaks, and a transparency posture that has to be policed by us continuously. The framework is set out in our terms of service.

insight

Editorial standards

Every page on the site cites primary sources. The allowlist is fixed: gov.uk, legislation.gov.uk, nationalhighways.co.uk, bsigroup.com, hse.gov.uk, ico.org.uk, citizensadvice.org.uk, police constabulary domains, tfl.gov.uk and which.co.uk (the last only for empirical industry data). We do not cite review sites, aggregator directories, AI-generated content farms, or competitor marketing pages.

Sourcing rule. Every factual sentence carries a primary-source URL. Where a sentence has no source it is either an editorial observation about the site (which is acceptable in editorial commentary blocks) or a statement of brand promise (which is governed by the terms of service). Statements of fact about UK statute, regulator guidance, or industry standard always carry the cited URL.

No-invention rule. Where a fact cannot be verified against a primary source the data field is set to null in the data layer (lib/cities.ts, lib/services.ts, lib/pricing.ts) and the page renders a graceful fallback. We do not invent council pound addresses, ATF names, operator identities, customer testimonials, star ratings or population figures.

Review cycle. Each page carries a published-on date and a last-reviewed date in the page schema and visibly in the page header. Pages are reviewed every twelve months for substantive content (legal, policy, glossary) and every six months for operational content (pricing, how-it-works). The review checks each cited primary-source URL still resolves and still says what the page claims it says. Where a source has changed, the page is updated and the last-reviewed date bumped.

Author attribution. Every page is authored and reviewed by the cheap car tow editorial team. We do not publish individual author bylines until each editor is willing to be named publicly; the team-level attribution is the current default. Editorial qualifications: UK road law, PAS 43 audit experience, recovery operator panel coordination, UK GDPR practice. The team is responsible for the sourcing rule, the no-invention rule, the review cycle, and the corrections procedure set out below.

Corrections procedure. Reader-submitted corrections are handled through the complaints policy. A reader emails hello@cheapcartow.co.uk with the page URL and the proposed correction; the editorial team verifies against the primary source and either updates the page (with a dated note in the relevant policy change log) or replies explaining why the existing text is correct. The standard turnaround is three business days for the initial acknowledgment and ten business days for the substantive response.

Conflict of interest. Editorial does not accept payment from recovery operators in exchange for favourable mentions on the site. Operator panel membership is decided on the published admission criteria (PAS 43, LOLER, PUWER, insurance, acceptance of the published-rate framework) and is not influenced by editorial coverage. The pricing table is set by the commercial team within the framework published on the pricing page; editorial reviews the framework but does not set individual band figures.

Generative AI disclosure. Editorial uses AI assistance for drafting and copyediting only, never as a primary source. Every claim of fact is verified by a human editor against a primary-source URL before publication. No page on the site is published from an AI-generated draft without that verification step.

by the numbers

What we are not

Not the AA, RAC, Green Flag or Start Rescue. We are not a breakdown subscription; nothing is paid annually upfront.

Not a National Highways operator. Motorway and police-instructed recoveries are dispatched under the National Highways recovery framework and the rate is statutory.

Not a scrap-yard reseller. End-of-life vehicles are routed to an Authorised Treatment Facility licensed by the Environment Agency; we do not buy the metal.

Not FCA-regulated. Vehicle recovery is not an FCA-regulated activity. Consumer protection runs through the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Citizens Advice consumer-rights framework.

the moment

Compliance posture

PAS 43 status: PAS 43 operator panel: onboarding in progress. The operator panel is built to PAS 43 compliance as the entry bar; we may claim "PAS 43 compliant operator panel" once the panel agreement template ships. Until then we dispatch to PAS 43 compliant operators where available.

Data protection: registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under fee number TBC. The privacy notice on the privacy policy page sets out the lawful basis for each processing activity.

Companies House: TBC. The registered office is published on the contact page.

in the press

Operator-panel admission criteria

Operators are admitted to the panel under a published agreement that requires: PAS 43 compliance, LOLER and PUWER thorough-examination records for lifting equipment, current motor trade insurance with goods-in-transit cover for the recovered vehicle, public liability cover at no less than £5 million, and acceptance of the published rate framework.

Operator identification on the recovery sheet records the legal name, the PAS 43 panel reference, the LOLER thorough-examination date for the lift equipment used, and the driver's CPC reference where applicable.

Panel exit: operators are removed from active dispatch where they materially breach the agreement (failed PAS 43 audit, lapsed insurance, refusal to attend at the published rate). The complaints policy describes the customer-side route.

Key takeaway · 06

How we handle a complaint

The complaints policy describes the procedure: written complaint, acknowledgment inside three business days, decision inside 28 business days. Decisions are made on the recorded evidence (recovery sheet, dispatcher log, operator identification).

Where the customer is dissatisfied with the decision, the next step depends on the nature of the complaint: a billing issue follows the financial chargeback route, a safety issue is referred to the Health and Safety Executive, a data-protection issue is referred to the ICO.

section

How we treat vulnerable customers

The vulnerable customer policy sets out the adjustments we make for customers with health, cognitive, language or economic vulnerabilities. The standard procedure is not changed; the dispatcher offers an adjusted communication channel and longer attendance windows where helpful.

Where a vulnerable customer is at the roadside with no companion, the operator stays with the customer until the recovery completes; this is part of PAS 43 working procedure.

insight

Accessibility commitment

The site is built to WCAG 2.1 AA. Pages are tested at five breakpoints (sm, md, lg, xl, 2xl); contrast is verified against the WebAIM tools; semantic HTML structure underlies every page so screen readers and keyboard navigation work without ARIA additions on most pages.

Where we fall short of the standard the accessibility statement records the issue, the workaround, and the planned fix.

by the numbers

How to contact us

By phone on the booking number published on the contact page. By the form on the same page. By email at hello@cheapcartow.co.uk (general) or claims@cheapcartow.co.uk (post-recovery correspondence).

For media or partnership enquiries the same channel applies; use the form with the subject "media" or "partnership" and the message routes to the right inbox.

the moment

Review and change history

First published 2026-05-17. The about page is reviewed every 12 months or sooner if the cited primary source changes. Material changes (new lawful basis, new escalation route, new scope) are added below with a date and a one-line reason. Editorial corrections (typo, broken link) are not logged here; the live page is the source of truth.

If anything in this about page reads as inaccurate, out of date, or unclear, email the editorial team at hello@cheapcartow.co.uk with the page URL and a description of the issue. The editorial team replies inside three business days; a material correction is published with a dated note in this section. External escalation routes (ICO, Trading Standards, Financial Ombudsman Service) apply where the relevant complaint is in scope for the regulator.

Primary sources cited on this page

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

Who runs the website?

Cheap Car Tow Ltd, registered in the UK. Companies House number TBC; ICO TBC.

Are you a recovery operator?

No. We are the booking and price-publication layer. The recovery is performed by an independent PAS 43 compliant operator dispatched at the published rate.

Are you regulated?

Vehicle recovery is not an FCA-regulated activity. Consumer protection follows the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Citizens Advice consumer-rights framework.

Do you have staff in every UK city?

We do not need to. The operator panel is the workforce; we coordinate dispatch from a central team.

Why don't you have testimonials?

We will not publish testimonials, reviews or star ratings until a verified Trustpilot or Google Business Profile feed is wired up. Inventing them would breach our binding rule.

How do you make money?

A platform fee on each booking funds the dispatch and price-publication service. The fee is included in the published band; there is no separate platform charge to the customer.

Need a recovery?

Published price, PAS 43 compliant operator, 24/7 dispatch.

Book recovery on the TowManVan app