How much does car recovery cost in Ireland? An honest guide

What sets the price of a recovery job

Recovery is priced on the work involved, not on how worried you sound on the phone. When Mark takes a call, he is working out six things before he gives you a number.

• Distance: where the car is now and where it needs to go. A tow from Loughboy to Three Castles is a different job to a run from Mullinavat to a dealer in Carlow.
• Time of day: a job at 3 am on a Sunday costs more than the same job at 11 am on a Tuesday, because somebody has to get out of bed and the truck runs in the dark.
• Type of job: a jump start or a tyre change at the roadside is quick. Loading a dead car onto a flatbed, strapping it down and driving it somewhere takes longer and ties up the truck.
• The vehicle: a small hatchback is straightforward. A long wheelbase van, a heavy SUV, an automatic or an electric car that cannot be rolled takes more care and may need skates or dollies.
• Difficulty: a car in a level car park bay is easy. A car in a ditch off the R700, nose down in a field, or wedged in a tight underground car park with a dead battery is a winch job.
• Storage: if the car has nowhere to go that night, it may need to be held at the yard, and that is usually charged per day after the first day.

How much does car recovery cost? Typical ranges

We are wary of publishing a price list, because every job is different and a list gets quoted back at us in situations it was never meant for. That said, people want a sense of scale, so here are typical quotes seen online for recovery in Ireland in 2026. They match roughly what we see in the trade.

• A local roadside call-out (jump start, tyre, fuse, belt) is the cheapest kind of job. Typical quotes seen online run from around 150 to 300 euro, though a short local job with a quick fix can come in under that.
• A flatbed recovery within a local area is the next step up. Typical quotes seen online run from around 250 to 500 euro depending on distance and the time of day.
• A long recovery, for example Kilkenny to Dublin or Cork, is typically quoted online in the region of 400 to 700 euro.
• A night, Sunday or bank holiday job can carry a surcharge, and figures of up to 50 percent on top are quoted online.
• Recovery of a car that has failed the NCT from the test centre to a garage is a short, planned, daytime job and usually sits at the lower end.

Distance and car recovery price per km

Most operators, including us, work on a base price that covers a certain radius and then a rate per kilometre beyond it. Figures seen online put the per-km element somewhere around 2 to 4 euro once you are outside the included distance, and that is roughly where the trade sits.

Two things catch people out. First, distance is usually measured as the truck's round trip, not just the loaded leg, because the truck has to get to you and get home again. Second, the distance to the pick-up matters as much as the distance to the drop. A car at Junction 10 on the M9 going to a garage in Kilkenny city is a longer job than the map suggests, because the truck has to come out from Three Castles first.

Our base covers Kilkenny city and the nearby stretch of the M9. If you are in Castlecomer, Callan, Thomastown or Graiguenamanagh, you are still local to us and the price reflects that. If you want the car brought to a main dealer in Waterford, Carlow or Dublin, say so on the phone and you will get the full figure for that run.

Night, weekend and motorway recovery cost

Breakdown recovery cost in Kilkenny does go up at night, and it is worth being straight about why. A night call means the driver is out of bed, the garage is closed so there is nowhere to drop the car except our own yard, and motorway work in the dark is slower and more careful. None of that is padding, it is just what the job costs.

Motorway recovery cost is also higher than a town job for a reason. On the M9 we recover first and fix later, every time, because standing on the hard shoulder with a bonnet up is how people get killed. That means the truck is always coming out and the car is always being loaded, even if the fault turns out to be a loose battery lead that could have been sorted in a car park. We bring you off at the next junction and look at the problem there.

If you break down on the M9, note the junction number and your direction (northbound towards Kilcullen or southbound towards Waterford), get behind the barrier, and ring. Between Junction 7 Paulstown and Junction 9 Danesfort we are usually with you in 20 to 35 minutes. If the car is in a live lane or anyone is hurt, ring 112 or 999 first. For a car that is off the road but you want the motorway operator told, the Motorway Traffic Control Centre is on 0818 715 100.

Storage, waiting time and the extras people forget

The headline recovery truck price is usually the whole bill, but there are a few extras that can appear and you should know about them in advance.

• Storage: if the car is recovered at night, or after an accident where the insurer has not yet said where it should go, it may sit in the yard. Most operators charge a daily rate after the first day or so. Ask what it is.
• Waiting: if the truck arrives and has to wait a long time because of a Garda scene, a locked car park or a missing key, that time can be charged.
• Second move: a car recovered to the yard at night and then moved to a garage the next day is two jobs, not one. Where we can, we bring it straight to Webster's Garage in Three Castles and look at it in the morning, which avoids that.
• Difficult access: winching out of a ditch, recovery from a basement car park with a low ceiling, or a vehicle with locked wheels takes extra time and kit, and is priced as such.

Price before we move, and no call-out fee

Here is how we do it. You ring 087 288 2280, Mark asks where you are, what the car is and what happened, and he gives you a price for the job before the truck starts. If you say no, that is fine. There is no charge for the phone call and no call-out fee. If you say yes, the figure you were given is the figure you pay, unless something turns up on site that nobody could have known about, such as the car being in a ditch when you thought it was on the verge, and even then it is talked through before anything happens.

We think that is the only fair way to do it. Nobody on the hard shoulder is in a position to haggle, so the price should be clear and agreed while you still have a choice.

Why a local pay-as-you-go truck often costs less than you expect

People sometimes assume that calling a recovery truck directly is the expensive option and that cover is always cheaper. It depends on how often you break down. If you have a reliable car and break down once every few years, a single pay-as-you-go recovery from a local operator can work out cheaper over that time than years of membership. If you have an older car you do not trust, cover may well pay for itself, and we say so in our guide on breakdown cover. For comparison, the AA in Ireland quotes membership from about 60 euro a year, while a non-member who rings them from the roadside for instant help is quoted around 285 euro as of mid 2026.

One thing to be clear about: if you have breakdown cover, ring them first. Most Irish insurer-bundled cover only pays when you use their own assistance line, and a truck you arrange yourself is usually not reimbursed. Ring us if you have no cover, if they cannot reach you quickly, or if you want the car brought somewhere the policy will not cover.

The other thing worth knowing is that a local truck has no middle layer. When you ring a membership line, a call handler logs the job and passes it to a contractor in the area, who may be us or may be someone an hour away. When you ring us, you are talking to the driver, the truck is in Three Castles and the price is set by the job in front of us rather than by a national tariff.

How to get a quote by phone or WhatsApp

Ring 087 288 2280 any hour. If you would rather message, WhatsApp the same number with your location, a photo of the car if it is safe to take one, and a line on what happened. A pin drop from your phone's maps app is ideal. If you are on the M9, the junction number and direction is the single most useful thing you can tell us.

Have ready: the make and model, whether it is automatic or electric, whether it will roll and steer, where you want it brought, and how you would like to pay (card, cash or bank transfer are all fine). With that, you will have a price in under two minutes and a time to expect the truck.