Underground Car Park Recovery in London

Half the parking in central London is below ground, and almost none of it will take a recovery truck. Height bars, tight spiral ramps, pillars on every corner and no room to turn a long wheelbase vehicle. MPG Recovery works around it by bringing the vehicle up to street level and loading there.

Why a truck cannot come down

A flatbed recovery truck is roughly three metres tall. Underground car parks are commonly barred at 2.0 or 2.1 metres, and the bar is there to protect ducting, sprinkler pipes and the ceiling itself. Even where the height works, the ramp radius and the pillar spacing usually do not.

So the vehicle comes to the truck rather than the other way round. Where it rolls and steers that is straightforward. Where it does not, skates go under the wheels and a winch does the pulling, taking the ramp in stages.

Where these jobs come up

Residential blocks with parking underneath, which covers most new development in Tower Hamlets, the Docklands and along the river. Office buildings in the City and Canary Wharf. Shopping centre and supermarket car parks. Hotel parking. Gated estates where the barrier is as much of an obstacle as the ramp.

Cars in these places tend to have sat for a while — a resident away for a month, a company car nobody has moved — which is why flat batteries and seized brakes come up so often alongside the access problem.

What we need to know first

• The level the vehicle is on
• The posted height restriction at the entrance
• Whether the vehicle rolls and steers, and whether you have the keys
• How tight the ramp is, and whether there is a lift
• Who controls access, and whether a barrier or fob is needed
• Any time restriction on when work can happen

Photographs of the entrance, the height bar and the bay the car is in tell us more in ten seconds than a long description. Send them and we will tell you honestly whether it is workable before anyone travels.

Access and permission

On private land — which is what nearly all of these car parks are — the operator or building management needs to know the recovery is happening. Most simply want notice and someone to open a barrier. On gated estates it is essential, and without it the job cannot go ahead however straightforward the car is.

Part of our recovery work

Car park work is ordinary recovery with an access problem bolted on, and the access problem is the part worth planning. For everything we move on the bed, see vehicle recovery in London, or browse all our services.

Timing, and what it costs

Car parks come with rules about when work can happen. Residential blocks often prefer it outside quiet hours, commercial sites want it away from the morning rush, and some barriers are only staffed at certain times. Since we work 24 hours a day, that is usually something to work around rather than a problem.

Price reflects the extra work: bringing a vehicle up a ramp on skates takes longer than winching one off a driveway. The quote is free and agreed before we travel, and if the photographs show it cannot be done as things stand, we will tell you that instead of turning up and charging you for the trip.

Underground Car Park Recovery FAQs