Fort Riley's Automotive Skills Center staff, Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, offer towing services in and around the Fort Riley area five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday.
"Every day we are open we do tows," said Bobby Kimble, automotive mechanic, Automotive Skills Center, DFMWR. "We will go off post as long as it's someone with a valid (Department of Defense) ID card. We will go to Junction City, Manhattan, even Topeka, as long as we have the OK to do that. Basically, our radius is about 100 miles. If somebody needs something taken to Kansas City, we've done that as well before. It's just a little extra when we do that, we charge mileage -- both ways."
For any incident on Fort Riley resulting in a tow, there is a flat fee of $65 plus $2 a mile if towed before 5 p.m. On the weekends that rate changes to $75 plus $2 a mile. Mileage begins once the vehicle is hooked and headed toward the location of choice, Kimble said.
"Most of the time it's either Manhattan or Junction City because there are a lot of Soldiers and civilians that we do the towing for and they want to go to a shop in Junction City," he said.
For those who prefer to work on their own vehicle, the tow truck crew can take it to the Automotive Skills Center, 7753 Apennines Dr., where they can drop it in a bay or in the lot.
Kimble said if the vehicle is dropped in a bay, the hourly rate of $5 for rental starts the moment the vehicle is unhooked, including any overnight charges -- $5 a night -- or if the vehicle is unhooked in the lot and left overnight a $4 a day fee is applied.
The towing service offered by the staff is not just for broken down vehicles. They also tow abandoned vehicles, which, if not claimed, go up for sale at auction like the one Feb. 27.
"They get towed to our abandoned vehicle lot which is off of Eighth Street behind the main PX down on main post," Kimble said. "We don't touch them until we get the proper paperwork from the MPs. Usually, once we have the proper paperwork -- the abandoned vehicle packet -- our guys will usually just either, with permission from our boss, come in on an alternate work schedule or they will go once we open and they will start picking up the abandoned vehicles."
Once in the abandoned vehicle lot, a $12.50 a day fee is applied to the vehicle which an owner will need to pay, plus towing costs, to claim their vehicle.
Paperwork is submitted to the owner of the vehicle via certified letter with a certificate of lease inside.
"We send the certified letter with the card on the back," Kimble said. "They pull the card off the back of the letter, sign it and that tells us they received the letter. Most of the time we get a phone call from them. But a lot of times, if they don't want the vehicle, they will send the certificate of lease back in -- so the vehicle belongs to us.
"If they want the vehicle, they will call us and want to know the price of it," he said. "We will give them an estimated price of what we are charging them. It's a matter of them coming in at their earliest convenience to get the vehicle."
There are 270 vehicles sitting in the abandoned vehicle lot which have gone through the process and are ready for sale, said Hedy Noveroske, skills and service branch chief, DFMWR.
In the past, abandoned vehicle auctions have netted $40,000 to $60,000 of funding, which is returned to DFMWR for programming for Soldiers on Fort Riley, said David Roudybush during the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Riley commanders address to the workforce Jan. 24.
"To being very new to this program and the very small personnel team that is running it, to have that big of an impact … MWR program, in a whole, is absolutely amazing," Noveroske said. "To have our division chief come in and say, 'We need you to do this. We are counting on you.' It's huge, it's amazing -- I think it's awesome."
Noveroske said the staff at the Automotive Skills Center take pride in ensuring everything is done properly.
"It is a huge operation," she said. "It's not just put a stamp on a envelope, send it out the door and then we make a phone call, it's sold and poof there's the money. There is a lot of time, energy, coordination with the auction company to make it all happen. In the end, the result, the money that comes in from that goes back into MWR is pretty sweet."
The auction will be online through IronPlant, www.ironplanet.com, where potential buyers will need to register for an account. The vehicles will be available to view for two weeks prior to the auction going live.
"They place their bid, the bid is open for five minutes, obviously it goes to the top bidder," Noveroske said. "All the bidding is online. Once that bidding closes, they've got three days to make that full payment for their vehicle, if it's over $5,000 they have to have a purchase order or they can use their credit card under $5,000. Then, the paperwork is sent to us, we open the gate and the person can get their vehicle."
All vehicles are sold as is, with no reserve -- with few exceptions, Noveroske and Kimble said.
"It would be a great idea to do that, but we sell it as is, no reserve," Kimble said. "Unless one of our bosses says put a reserve on it. In an ideal world you would like the audience to be the Soldiers because there are a lot of Soldiers looking for vehicles. We do get good looking vehicles in our lot."
Noveroske said her intentions are to keep adding to the auction.
"After two weeks, we will add any additional cars, but [any unsold] are staying up," she said. "My goal is to have a monthly auction and we will continue to do so until we are caught up and that abandoned vehicle lot (is clear)."
For more information about the services available at the Automotive Skills Center, the future auction or for a tow call 785-239-9764.
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