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The impound process can take a minimum of three hours. Therefore, full details may not be immediately available to know whether your vehicle was towed by the City of San Diego or where it has been taken.
When calling for information be prepared to provide:
You will be given the name of the towing company, the vehicle location, and amount of fees due.
Registered owner identification and driver's license is required to recover the vehicle.
Vehicles towed from private property may not have been towed by the City of San Diego. Therefore, the City would not have a record of the vehicle being towed. Look for information posted at the site where the vehicle was towed for how to retrieve your vehicle.
Vehicles can be impounded for several reasons including:
The San Diego Police Department also recover stolen vehicles. If found, an officer will attempt to call the registered owner to let them know about the recovery.
If we are unable to contact the registered owner or if the owner takes over 20 minutes to get to the vehicle, the vehicle will be stored at a City of San Diego contracted towing company until the registered owner can recover the vehicle.
For questions concerning an impounded vehicle, please contact SDPD Tow Administration at 858-495-7830 or email at Tow-Admin@pd.sandiego.gov.
Every person who has their vehicle towed by the City of San Diego is afforded a vehicle Post Storage Hearing per 22852 California Vehicle Code. The registered owner/legal owner of the vehicle impounded will be sent a notification by the City of the impound.
In order to obtain a Post Storage Hearing, the registered owner/legal owner of the vehicle must call SDPD Tow Administration at 858-495-7830 or mail back the notification they received to the address listed on it, within 10 days of the mailed notice.
The hearing will be conducted over the phone and is an evidence-based hearing. Tow Administration will provide the person whether the tow was a valid tow or not within 48 hours (excluding weekends and holidays).