Tesla Model 3 Towed Against Guidance, but Alleged Damage Remains Unproven

A red Tesla Model 3 in Tampa was photographed being towed with its front end lifted and its rear tires rolling on the road. That configuration conflicts with Tesla’s published instruction to transport the Model 3 with all four tires off the ground. The owner later documented two serious-sounding dashboard warnings, but no diagnostic or service record currently connects them to the tow.

Makyla Monroe says Target Towing removed the car while she was inside a Chipotle and required her to pay approximately $185 to recover it. She subsequently alleged that the company had “completely ruined” the vehicle. Target Towing’s account has not appeared in the available reporting, and the incident’s exact date has not been identified.

What the towing configuration establishes

Tesla recommends moving a Model 3 on a flatbed or comparable transport vehicle. If a flatbed is unavailable, the company calls for wheel lifts and dollies arranged so every tire remains clear of the road. Its guidance also says the tires must not spin during transport.

The photographed method therefore presents a specific mismatch: the car’s rear tires were shown on the road rather than supported by dollies. This is the strongest documented part of the dispute because the physical configuration can be compared directly with the manufacturer’s transport instructions.

Tesla also instructs operators to activate Tow Mode before winching a Model 3 onto a flatbed. That requirement governs loading the vehicle, but the available information does not establish whether Tow Mode was used here. Nor does it provide enough detail to reconstruct every step taken while the car was connected to the tow truck.

The broader engineering issue is controlled wheel rotation during vehicle transport. A battery-electric car is an integrated system whose wheel-speed sensing, drive hardware, braking controls and vehicle-state logic are designed around defined operating conditions. Tesla’s explicit all-wheels-off-ground requirement removes uncertainty by preventing the tires from rotating on the pavement while the car is being hauled. The photographed tow departed from that prescribed condition, but a departure from instructions is not itself a damage diagnosis.

The warnings identify faults, not their cause

After recovering the Model 3, Monroe photographed a “Park Assist Unavailable” message and a safety-restraint-system warning stating that “service is required.” Those messages establish that the car detected conditions requiring attention when she documented the display.

They do not identify what produced those conditions. The available reporting includes no Tesla service record, diagnostic scan, independent inspection or repair estimate. It also does not establish whether either warning existed before the vehicle was removed, precisely when each appeared or whether the alerts remained active after the photographs were taken.

Evaluating causation would require records that bridge those gaps. A useful file would include the vehicle’s diagnostic results, the technician’s findings, any identified failed components, the recommended repairs and an assessment of whether the observed faults are consistent with the transport event. Pre-tow photographs, earlier service records or vehicle records showing the prior condition could help establish timing. Without that chain, the warnings and the towing-method conflict remain two documented facts without a demonstrated causal link.

The roughly $185 charge needs an invoice

The fee dispute is similarly unresolved. Monroe recalled paying either $185 or $183, and no itemized invoice has been published. The cited Hillsborough County schedule sets a $160 maximum base rate for a Class A non-consensual or trespass tow, but it also permits qualifying additions. These can include mileage at up to $6 per mile, capped at 10 miles for a trespass tow, along with certain scene-time or recovery labor charges.

A total above the base rate therefore is not enough to determine whether the bill complied with the applicable schedule. That review needs the tow’s classification, the exact base charge, distance billed, any labor or recovery entries and the circumstances supporting each addition. Hillsborough County has also been considering higher regulated towing rates, but the reported proposal had not yet taken effect and cannot substitute for the schedule applicable when this car was removed.

The decisive records are now straightforward: an itemized tow invoice and a qualified vehicle diagnosis. The images establish that the Model 3 was transported contrary to Tesla’s all-wheels-off-ground guidance; those two records would determine whether the disputed bill was properly calculated and whether the towing method caused any repairable fault.

By Thomas Caldwell — AMI’s senior editor for mechanical and mobility engineering, covering vehicle electronics, systems integration, electrification, chassis systems, propulsion, and safety policy.