Just from what I’ve seen: tow truck operators would put back wheels on a cradle (with wheels), then lift and tow from the front.
IF.....that is the only damage, put on a new tire and drive it to the shop. IF......it really needs to be towed with no access to the front for the wrecker, then yes they either put the car in Neutral if it "runs" or they jack up the front and use dollies to get it out into the street.
Yes. True. But rolling or pushing it backwards far enough to get TO the front hardly qualifies as "towing".
... or just drag it out of its parking space far enough for the wrecker to get better access. The locked-wheel drag won't hurt the car at all, and the distance ought to be short enough to be of little consequence to the tires. The response did say "towed", and there was more than one way to read it, so the clarification could save a few readers some grief.
It's no big deal to drag the car for better access. Many tow drivers carry a jumbo bottle of dish soap to lube the tires & pavement when they need to do this.
Towing instructions from the manual. That's not to say you can't at least MOVE the car backwards for the sake of access/positioning.
So the original guy that towed the vehicle to my house from the accident scene said he owns 2 Prius and said the car needs to be in neutral to tow it. Then he strap tied something inside the cars steering wheel to stop the steering wheel from moving put the car in neutral and lifted the back and towed it to my house pulling it from behind. When it got towed from my house to the body shop they used a flatbed . Do you think this damaged my tranny and how will I know ? How do you think i should to handle it should i tell the claims adjuster? The original tow from the accident scene was not connected to my insurance it was just some random tow company I googled and called.
I don't see anything about being able to tow from the rear if in neutral. You may want to call your local dealer to discuss the matter and what the ramifications are (if any). EDIT - forgot to mention, as the Prius does not have a torque converter (it uses a variation of a CVT), there is no "slip" as would be allowed in an old style transmission with a torque converter - plus the fact that the transmission has some pretty sensitive stuff related to the hybrid system.
A couple of guesses why they don't want you towing backward, even in neutral: 1) Possible excessive speed of motor-generator #1 (for either structural or back-emf reasons); 2) Lubrication issue in the transmission. Obviously rolling the car backward a very short distance at very low speed is harmless; I do that practically every time I go anywhere..
Car looks totalled anyway. Won't matter unless u do like we do in NY and body fill it til it looks like a cab
Prevention of mechanical overspeed of MG1 is the reason why the ICE must spin when the car is moving above some threshold speed, even if it burns no fuel. That max speed varies by generation and model, and is about 46 mph for Gen3 Liftbacks, a bit lower for Gen2, about 60 for Gen4, and higher for plug-ins than there non-plugin siblings. Since a towed car cannot spin up the ICE to protect MG1, this places a cap on the allowed tow speed. For Gen3 and earlier, this max speed is significantly lower than highway speed. There is some built in safety margin, we don't know how much, other than some coast-in-Neutral daredevils have exceeded this max speed a bit without admitted damage. This isn't to say that MG1 overspeed protection is the only reason to limit tow speed, there may be other factors demanding lower max speeds. The 18 mph limit in the owner's manual excerpt above does strongly suggest some other limiting factor is also present.
