What roadside assistance covers
Roadside assistance is tire work performed where the truck is sitting rather than in a service bay. That covers a blowout on the shoulder, a flat at a loading dock, a damaged trailer tire at a yard, and a unit that cannot safely be driven to a shop.
The work is commercial tire service: removing the failed tire, fitting a replacement or a serviceable spare, and getting the unit legal and moving again. Each Purcell location sets its own coverage area and keeps its own inventory, which is why you call the location nearest the breakdown rather than a central number.
When to call
Call as soon as the unit is stopped and safe. A tire failure gets worse with every mile driven on it: a flat run even a short distance usually destroys the casing, which turns a repair into a replacement and takes a retreadable casing out of the fleet.
Common reasons drivers and dispatchers call Purcell:
- A steer, drive or trailer tire has failed on the road or in a yard.
- A pre-trip inspection finds a tire that will not pass.
- A unit is loaded and due out, and a tire has to be changed where it stands.
- A trailer has been sitting and needs tires before it can be moved.
What to have ready when you call
Having these on hand when you call gets the right tire on the first trip:
- The exact location of the unit, including the highway, mile marker or yard address.
- The tire size and position, for example 295/75R22.5 in the right rear drive.
- Whether the unit is loaded, and what it is carrying.
- The company name, the unit number, and who authorizes the work.
- A phone number that stays reachable until the technician arrives.
Who this service is for
Roadside assistance is written for people who are paid on uptime: owner-operators who lose the day when a truck stops, fleet managers running scheduled freight, dispatchers covering drivers across several states, and municipal and construction fleets with equipment they cannot leave on a shoulder.
Fleets that run with Purcell usually pair roadside assistance with fleet services, so the tires fitted at the roadside match the program the rest of the fleet runs. A casing pulled at the roadside can go into the Purcell retreading program rather than being scrapped, which is where a surprising share of the cost of a roadside call comes back.
Roadside assistance and mobile service
The two sound similar and are different jobs. Roadside assistance is unplanned work on a unit that has stopped. Mobile service is planned work performed at your site, such as a scheduled tire change across a yard full of trailers. Several locations offer both, and the location pages say which.