Industry News & New Products

A car carrier trailer is such an essential piece of equipment in the towing industry, whether you’re shipping vehicles to a new dealership or delivering a disabled vehicle to an auto repair shop. Make sure you are well-equipped to handle any hauling or transporting application, easily and confidently. Your customers are counting on efficiency and high-quality service, and when you can do right by your equipment, you can better serve your customers—this ranges from toolboxes, storage, towing accessories, straps, chains, safety equipment, snatch blocks, roadside service parts, lighting, electrical hardware, repair parts and much more! Check out our popular items for your car carrier rollback here.

A dead car battery can leave you stranded. A dead phone battery can leave you without a way to call for help. The solution? Zip’s supplies portable power boosts small enough to carry in your purse or stow in your glove compartment—and strong enough to not only charge large electronics, but jump-start your engine. This means power when you need it most, without the time and trouble of calling for roadside assistance. Zip’s also carries other impressive power packs in a range of sizes and power voltages, perfect for any member of your family, any time a battery charge is needed. Learn more about them here.

The Century 1150 is a powerful piece of equipment that is built to handle the toughest recovery and lifting jobs easier, safer and more efficiently. This 50 ton heavy wrecker has proven lifting capabilities—great strength with professional ease. With 360° continuous boom rotation, a 3-stage recovery boom, SDU-4 underlift and many other features, this wrecker is above the rest in the market. It’s been tested in a variety of climate conditions, so matter the weather, severe ice or extreme heat, operation won’t be stalled. It’s larger in reach, but lighter in weight—meaning it’s easier on your wallet without compromising performance. The Century 1150 is the front leader of rotator offerings, and Zip’s is proud to offer it to our customers. Learn more about it here. 

We’re giving you a special look at the latest custom shirts from Zip’s. With the release of new styles, including long sleeve or short sleeve and ladies or unisex options, you’re sure to find a style that suits you. Shop our fun designs and up-to-date styles for any family member, any time of the year. We want to help you find just what you’re looking for, so let us know if you have questions on sizing or availability. Grab them while they’re on sale. Check out the collection here.

Today hopefully is the last frigidly cold day we will have this winter. In Iowa and Michigan we have missed a great deal of the snowy weather endured by states south and east of us.  I’m sure that although cold snowy weather is good for business that our customers will like a break from it.

It seems like this has been a very long stretch of time that we have been under the gun to build new equipment to fill custom orders. We have been working a lot of overtime.  The guys are looking forward to and will enjoy more normal hours in a week or two as we wind down the rush season and as the weather warms and daylight savings time kicks in.

Zip’s is now getting quite current with production of new build to order wreckers, car carriers and service bodies. We are beginning to produce some turnkey units so our customers will find that they can get immediate delivery on flatbeds, multi-deck car carriers, and light and heavy duty wreckers. Carriers are already showing up out front and we will be moving a few of them to Zip’s Detroit store in the next few days.

Zip’s also has available a large number of chassis and bodies that can be custom built quickly as we can move them right into a production slot. Our sales force should be happy to have equipment that they can demonstrate.

We are really excited about building the new Miller Multi-deck 4 car carriers. This is no-brainer replacement for the conventional above cab 4 car carrier. We have a Freightliner that will be done yet this week. If you are in that market of clearing out wrecks for the pools, auctions and insurance companies check them out. They are so much more safe loading and unloading as the tie-down work can be done from ground level rather than having to crawl around loading the car above the cab. The controls are simple to operate. This makes it so much easier to hire operators and should affect your workman's compensation in a positive way. I know of way too many instances where drivers slipped and fell loading vehicles on the conventional above cab deck.
Most are built with pusher axles so that the DOT is happy. The decks are 30' long for maximum loading space still staying under legal length limits in all states that I know of. Handling of this vehicle is much improved over the traditional 4 car because the weight of the top car is well back from the front of the vehicle. There is no overhang over the windshield so the driver doesn't feel like he is in a tunnel driving the unit.
The main deck is a 16 Miller 16 series 16,000# capacity which is much lighter than the traditional 20 Series deck .

I hope your looking forward to the new season and change of pace as we are.

This is going to be interesting. I am not much of a writer but I feel it would be good for me and Zip’s if we addressed items that would be of interest to our customers in the towing and recovery field, automotive service industry and the truck transportation business.  

I may discuss current events, towing, equipment recovery, rigging, safe practices, equipment selection and maintenance, chassis, truck equipment, insurance, financing, business practices, Zip’s, or anything else that gets my blood flowing.  I hope you find what I write useful, entertaining or in the least, something to talk about.  

Presumably I will be able to solicit blogs from some of our staff. We have a number of people who have a good deal of expertise in several areas that they may want to write about and you will find informative or helpful.  
As for some background, I am the president of Zip’s. I started working at this very facility in 1974 and bought the company in 1986. There has been an awful lot of water that has passed under my bridge during that time. My wife of 40 years Margo has been supporting me the whole time. I have three children, Carolyn, Lindsay and David. Carolyn operates a salon/spa business in Rogers, Minnesota. Lindsay is a busy mother of three girls in Brooklyn Park and is married to Chris who markets industrial equipment. David has been working here at Zip’s for several years. He is married to Tiffany and they have two little boys. My five grandchildren are pictured on the right.  David and Tiffany have been instrumental in starting our Taylor, Michigan shop and store living in the Detroit area for over two years and just recently moving back to Iowa to help the old man. Tiffany has great skills in graphic design and marketing which she uses to help our sales efforts here at Zip’s.

More to follow as I get time to “BLOG”!

Cleaning your DPF is an essential step to keeping your truck running right, and it must be done carefully and thoroughly to avoid damage and guarantee performance. If you wait too long to clean your DPF, you risk damaging the DPF and may need to replace it entirely, which is a hit on your wallet. Zip’s has invested in a state-of-the-art DPF cleaning machine. At a much more reasonable price than a replacement DPF and small time investment, you can have your DPF thoroughly inspected and cleaned and your truck ready to hit the road again. Spend less time in the shop and enhance your truck's performance at Zip’s—click here for more details.