Towing companies are not allowed to open your car or go through what’s inside it. Their authority is limited to moving the vehicle from one place to another, and the only defensible reason for an operator to enter the interior is a mechanical one directly tied to safe transport. Anything beyond that — opening the glove box, going through the console, handling your belongings — falls outside the job. The rules shift only when police order the tow, because officers have separate authority to conduct an inventory search of a vehicle in their custody.
The Narrow Reason a Tow Operator Might Enter
A tow operator’s job is to hook up your car and take it somewhere. Entering the interior is only defensible when it’s necessary to make the vehicle safely towable: shifting the transmission into neutral, releasing the parking brake, or straightening the wheel so the car can roll without damage. Some operators use a slim jim or similar tool to accomplish this. Once the mechanical task is done, there’s no legitimate reason for the operator to keep looking around inside.
Plenty of towing companies avoid the question altogether. They use wheel dollies or flatbed trucks that lift the entire vehicle, which removes any need to access the interior. That approach protects the company from theft accusations and protects you from having a stranger unsupervised in your car. If a tow operator entered your locked vehicle and the reason wasn’t clearly tied to moving it, that’s a problem worth pursuing.
When Police Order the Tow
The picture changes when police are the ones directing the tow. Officers impound vehicles after arrests, at accident scenes, and when cars are abandoned on public roads. Once your car is in police custody, officers can conduct an inventory search: a systematic cataloging of everything inside. Most of the handling of belongings in a towed vehicle happens here, under police authority, not the towing company’s.
Why Inventory Searches Are Allowed
The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches, but courts have long treated vehicles as getting less privacy protection than homes because they’re mobile and used on public roads.1Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Annotated – Vehicle Searches In 1976, the Supreme Court took up inventory searches directly in South Dakota v. Opperman and upheld them as a reasonable exception to the warrant requirement. The Court gave three justifications: protecting the owner’s property while it sits in police custody, protecting police from false claims about lost or stolen items, and protecting officers from danger inside the vehicle.2Justia. South Dakota v. Opperman
The Court framed inventory searches as administrative caretaking, not criminal investigation. Officers are supposed to be documenting what’s there rather than hunting for evidence. When an inventory is done properly, anything illegal that turns up is admissible even though the officer wasn’t specifically looking for it.
The Limits on What Officers Can Do
An inventory search is not a blank check. In Colorado v. Bertine, the Supreme Court held that police discretion during these searches must be “exercised according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.”3Justia. Colorado v. Bertine A department can have a policy that lets officers open closed containers, but the policy has to exist in writing and apply uniformly.
The Court drew the line even more sharply in Florida v. Wells. Officers had opened a locked suitcase in an impounded car, and the Court suppressed the marijuana found inside because the highway patrol had no written policy governing whether officers could open closed containers during an inventory. Without standardized criteria, the Court said, the inventory process becomes “a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.”4Library of Congress. Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (1990)
If you believe an inventory search of your vehicle was really a disguised investigation, or was conducted without following (or without having) a written policy, evidence found during that search can be challenged. The question in court isn’t whether officers found something. It’s whether they followed their own rules getting there.
Private Property Tows
Getting towed from a shopping center, apartment complex, or restaurant parking lot is a different situation from a police-ordered impound. The towing company is acting on behalf of the property owner, not law enforcement, and it has no authority to enter your vehicle. Its role is limited to hooking up the car and taking it to a storage lot.
For a private property tow to be legal in the first place, most states require certain conditions. The property usually must have visible signage warning that unauthorized vehicles will be towed, typically posted at each entrance. The property owner or an authorized agent generally must provide written authorization for the tow, and in many jurisdictions a verbal phone call isn’t enough. A growing number of states also require the towing company to notify local police within 30 to 60 minutes of removing the vehicle.
If the company skipped any of these steps, you may have grounds to get your fees refunded or recover additional damages. About half the states allow some form of reimbursement when a tow was conducted illegally, and roughly a third of those also allow damages beyond the refund of fees.
What to Do If You Think a Tow Company Opened Your Car
Once a towing company takes possession of your vehicle, it becomes what the law calls a bailee, meaning it owes a duty of reasonable care over the car and its contents. If items are missing, if the interior has clearly been searched, or if the vehicle is damaged, the company can be held liable for negligence. The standard isn’t perfection, but the company does have to treat your property the way a reasonable person would.
The hard part is proving what happened and when. Most people don’t document their vehicle’s condition before a tow, which makes claims easy to deny. When you arrive at the lot to pick up the car:
- Photograph everything before you leave. Time-stamped shots of every panel, the interior, the trunk, and under the hood if you can, along with any new scratches, dents, or broken glass.
- Note missing items while you’re still at the lot, not after you get home.
- File a police report immediately if anything was stolen. A contemporaneous official record carries weight later.
- Send a written complaint to the company by email or certified mail, with your photos and a detailed description.
- Ask for the company’s liability insurer and file a claim directly with the carrier.
If the company or its insurer refuses to make you whole, small claims court is the practical route for most people. You’ll need to show the vehicle’s condition before the tow, what changed, and what it costs to fix or replace. Without documentation, it’s your word against theirs, and impound disputes without records rarely go the owner’s way.
Filing a Complaint With Regulators
Most states license towing companies, and the licensing agency is usually the first place to complain. Depending on the state, that could be the department of motor vehicles, a department of licensing and regulation, or a division of the state police. A complaint on file matters, because licensing agencies can investigate, fine, or revoke a company’s operating permit for repeated violations.
If the licensing agency doesn’t resolve things, your state attorney general’s consumer protection division handles complaints about deceptive business practices, which can include unauthorized entry, unauthorized towing, hidden fees, and refusing to release personal property. Many cities also regulate towing at the municipal level, sometimes with stricter rules than state law, so it’s worth checking with your city’s consumer affairs office as well.