> Probably was in neutral without handbrake, otherwise: Holy shit, they gotta be liable for damage done.
Even in neutral, you'll damage the diff by having the wheels drive it without a load
"Normal" for a diff is to either have the engine drive it with a load (the road) or have the road drive it with a load (then engine). Applying a driving force on it while it freewheels without a load is not good.
This apparently isn't universally true; the manual for my rear wheel drive car says to lift it by the front wheels, put it in neutral, and leave the rear wheels on the ground.
The automatic version does have to be set to a specific gear, and there are speed and towed distance limits.
Eh, not full well. I myself have towed a Miata rear wheels down after removing the driveshaft. (In a parallel universe I very well could have been the tow operator that the commenter some levels up saw) My understanding is that re:Miata the diff isn't the problem, (since its always just kinda full of oil/grease that is flung around by the gears) it's that the transmission may only pump oil when operating normally. I think my previous comment replied to the wrong person actually. Things are getting blurry at 3am here...
I’d say it is always safer to fully load a car on a flatbed and tow it with none of the wheels turning. I never understood why it is allowed to tow someone else’s car with their wheels turning.
That does remind me of one time when I was living in Boston and my apartment window was right next to a tiny "golden street" - no resident parking restrictions, no street sweeping, no snow artery, nothing on restrictions. Room for maybe a dozen cars. Very secure because it was well lit with multiple cameras from an adjacent church. (and no one breaks into cars in front of God!) Near a train stop. You could leave a car there for weeks. Such a parking place is exceedingly rare in the Boston city core. Only threat was, after 72 hours, someone might call it in as 'abandoned' per state law.[1] Generally this wasn't done for neighbors and maintained-looking cars as a courtesy.
Anyway, someone who didn't seem to be a neighbor decided to park a big crusty step van there for a month and a neighbor must have took offence to that and called it in, because two non-flatbed Boston city police tow trucks showed up in the middle of the night to take it away. I became aware of this due to a horrible intermittent screeching sound - I opened my blinds and saw the two tow trucks, facing opposite directions and using one side of each of their hydraulic wheel lifts in tandem on the outer wheels of the step-van to pull the parallel-parked vehicle out perpendicularly into the street. Once it was out in the street they didn't bother to put it in neutral or anything, hooked the front on one of the trucks and drove away with the locked up rear tires just screeching all the way away into the night. Parts of the rubber tracks were left behind for years on that street.
The lesson to all who saw those tracks - Boston don't give no fucks about your street parked vehicle if it is deemed abandoned by the community!
