Towing in Clovis, CA

Clovis sits about six miles northeast of downtown Fresno, close enough that people treat the two as one city and different enough that the paperwork bites when something goes wrong. We dispatch the same trucks to both. What changes in Clovis is not the tow, it's what happens if the tow wasn't your idea.

Towing in Clovis: the jurisdiction difference

Clovis runs its own police department and regulates tow operators under its own municipal code rather than Fresno's. If your car is taken here, almost every detail differs from the Fresno process, and getting them wrong means a wasted trip.

• Different desk, different building. Call Clovis PD Records at (559) 324-2400 with your plate or VIN. Unlike Fresno, where you collect from the tow yard, Clovis processes the release at the Police Department.
• A flat $280 administrative fee. Fresno scales its fee by the reason for the impound; Clovis charges one number. Payable by cash, certified cheque, money order, cashier's cheque, Visa or Mastercard. Tow and storage are separate and paid to the tow company.
• You must show current insurance. This is the requirement that catches people out, because Fresno's published rules do not list it. The policy must be for that specific vehicle with current effective dates. No insurance, no release.
• Limited release hours. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8am-4pm; Thursday 8am-1:30pm. The early Thursday close is easy to miss.

What to bring to the Clovis Police Department

• Proof the vehicle is currently registered to you
• Proof of current insurance for that specific vehicle, with valid policy dates
• Photo ID: valid driver licence, state ID card, immigration card, or passport
• A licensed driver, if you are not one yourself. They will need to show their licence.
• The $280 fee, in an accepted payment form

Disputing a Clovis impound

You have 10 days from the impound to schedule a hearing, and you schedule it by calling Records at (559) 324-2400. Hearings are by appointment, Monday-Thursday 9am-2pm, held telephonically with a member of the Traffic Division — so you do not have to attend in person, but you do have to book. The 10-day deadline matches Fresno's, and it is just as easy to miss.

If the tow happened inside Fresno city limits instead, the impound help page covers that process, and the towed-car guide walks the full sequence for both.

Where Clovis breaks down

CA-168 is the spine. It carries commuters into Fresno in the morning, weekend traffic up toward Shaver and the Sierra, and everything back down again. Breakdown calls concentrate there, and in November through February the tule fog that plagues 99 settles over 168 too, turning routine merges into collisions.

Herndon and Shaw are the two big east-west arterials. Herndon moves faster, which means the breakdowns there happen at speed. Shaw is stop-and-go retail, which in a Valley July means overheating and dead batteries in parking lots.

Old Town Clovis has its own quirk: angled parking, event weekends, and a genuinely walkable core, so calls there are more often lockouts and dead batteries than collisions. Those are roadside jobs, not tows, and they cost less.

What we send to Clovis

The same equipment logic as anywhere: flatbed for AWD, EVs, lowered cars and anything crash-damaged; wheel-lift for a rolling car on a short hop. Given how many Clovis households run crossovers and trucks, flatbed is the more common answer here than it is downtown. Heavy-duty work covers the commercial vehicles along the Herndon corridor.

Price, before the truck moves

Clovis-to-Fresno is a short run, so most tows land in the ordinary local range rather than a long-distance quote. The number comes on the phone, out the door, before anything hooks up. Ranges for every job type are published in the 2026 cost guide, and if the tow follows a collision, check whether your policy reimburses it before paying out of pocket.

Property managers and businesses in Clovis

Apartment lots and retail centres in Clovis fall under the same state law as Fresno ones: CVC 22658 governs private-property towing statewide, including the one-hour rule and the 17-by-22-inch signage requirement. The liability lands on whoever authorises the tow. Details for managers are on the private property towing page.

Covering other towns nearby? The full jurisdiction map is on service areas.