Need a semi truck moved in Centennial? Centennial Towing dispatches around the clock across Centennial, CO. Towing a semi truck is not the same job as towing a sedan — it comes down to weight rating, deck length, and how the vehicle is secured — so we confirm what you are driving before a truck rolls, and quote the price before the hook goes on.
The right equipment for a semi truck
Sending an under-rated truck is how a tow turns into damage. Our dispatcher matches the load to the equipment — deck, wheel-lift, or heavy wrecker — and the operator secures it to the manufacturer’s tie-down points rather than whatever is reachable.
A stalled or jackknifed semi in Centennial needs a heavy-duty wrecker, not a car carrier — the tractor and trailer are usually recovered as two separate jobs, with air brakes released and rigging set at each unit's own tie-down points. Centennial Towing runs this call 24 hours a day, every day of the week.
A semi that jackknifes or drops a drive axle rarely comes to rest somewhere convenient. It's usually still straddling a lane, parked on a narrow shoulder with traffic sliding past at speed, or wedged into a ramp too tight to turn out of under its own power. The driver isn't weighing whether to call — they're weighing how long a loaded trailer can sit where it landed before someone hits it.
Centennial Towing treats a tractor-trailer as two recovery jobs riding on one call. The tractor gets its air brakes released and caged, then its own rigging; the trailer, once it's clear, gets pulled separately with straps set at its own frame points rather than the hookup a car call uses. That split is also why it isn't whatever truck happens to be free — a car carrier can't lift this weight, and a wheel-lift built for a sedan won't seat against a semi's frame. The line answers at (970) 432-4480 around the clock, because a rig blocking a lane doesn't wait for business hours.
Does the tractor get towed separately from the trailer?
Almost always, yes. Once the tractor and trailer are uncoupled — or dragged apart, if the jackknife bent something in the fifth wheel — each one is its own rigging job. The tractor's air system has to be bled and the spring brakes caged before it will roll at all; skip that step and the truck simply won't move under a hook. The trailer gets its own straps and its own line of pull, because a hookup sized for a car's frame rails does nothing useful on a trailer's undercarriage.
If the trailer is still loaded, that weight rides with it into the recovery — it isn't dropped or emptied roadside. What changes is where the straps go and how much clearance the wrecker needs to line up straight before it pulls, which is usually the slower part of the job, not the pull itself.
What happens if the rig is still blocking a lane?
A jackknifed semi sitting across a lane is a hazard call before it's a tow call — cones and lighting go up before rigging starts, and the truck works around live traffic rather than waiting for it to clear. That's also where the tractor/trailer split pays off: freeing the blocked lane is often just a matter of getting the tractor mobile and out of the way first, with the trailer recovered right after rather than holding up the road the whole time. Centennial Towing runs this call at any hour, across the 20 communities it covers, because a rig doesn't pick a convenient time to fail.
Will a regular tow truck move a broken-down semi?
No. A car carrier or a wheel-lift built for passenger vehicles doesn't have the rigging points or the pulling capacity for a tractor-trailer. This is a heavy-duty wrecker job from the first call, not something a smaller truck attempts and then hands off.
Do you tow the tractor and trailer together?
Usually not — they're recovered as two separate pulls with their own rigging, even though it's one dispatch. The tractor's air brakes get released first; the trailer follows once it's clear.
What if it jackknifed and is blocking traffic?
That's treated as a live-lane hazard from the moment the truck arrives — cones and lighting go up first, and the tractor is usually freed and moved before the trailer recovery finishes, so the lane opens sooner.
Is this available overnight or on a weekend?
Yes. Centennial Towing runs 24 hours a day, every day of the week, and a blocked lane doesn't get scheduled around business hours.