Founder · Owner · Still Driving
Meet Robert, The Man Behind RJ Towing
Founder
Robert
RJ Towing Service · 2010-present
The Short Version
Robert is the founder and owner of RJ Towing Service in San Diego. He started with one truck over 15 years ago and built a family-owned, fully bilingual towing operation covering San Diego County and the Tijuana border corridor.
He answers the phone himself. He knows the freeways like his own driveway. He has a 5.0 Google rating because he treats every customer the way he'd want to be treated if his car broke down at midnight.
If you want to skip the story and just call him: (619) 872-5285.
Robert's San Diego
Robert is a San Diego native. He grew up in the kind of neighborhood where you knew your neighbors, where the taco shop on the corner had been there longer than anyone could remember, and where being bilingual wasn't a skill on a resume, it was just how life worked. English at school. Spanish at home. Both on the street.
That bilingual, bicultural upbringing shaped everything about how Robert runs his business. When a Spanish-speaking family calls RJ Towing at 1 AM because their car died on the I-805 in National City, the person who answers doesn't transfer them to a “Spanish line.” Robert, or his team, answers in Spanish, naturally, without friction, without making the caller feel like an afterthought. That matters more than most people realize.
San Diego is Robert's city. Not just where he works, where he lives, where his family lives, where his kids go to school. He knows the rhythm of the city in a way you can only know from decades of driving it. The summer traffic patterns near Mission Bay. The winter flooding on Frieda Street in Ocean Beach. The way the 163 turns into a racetrack after midnight and the 805 crawls at rush hour from Murphy Canyon to the merge.
“People need help. That's the core of it. Every call is from someone in a bad situation. My job is to show up and take the worst part of their day off their plate.”
, Robert, RJ Towing
How It Started
Robert didn't fall into towing by accident. He worked in the industry before starting his own company and saw firsthand what the towing business looked like from the inside of operations that didn't prioritize the customer. The hidden fees. The indifferent dispatch. The drivers who handled vehicles like cargo instead of someone's livelihood.
He knew he could build something better, something where the owner answered the phone, where the price was honest, where the driver treated the car like it mattered. So around 2010, he took the leap. One truck. One phone line. His name on the door.
The early years were exactly as hard as you'd expect. Robert was the dispatcher, the driver, the mechanic, and the accountant. He took calls at every hour. He drove to every corner of the county. He built his reputation one tow at a time, not through advertising, but through the oldest form of marketing there is: doing good work for people who needed help, and having them tell their friends.
“When I started, it was just me and a phone. If you called RJ Towing, I answered. Fifteen years later, when you call at 2 AM, chances are it's still me, or someone in my family.”
, Robert, RJ Towing
What Drives Robert
Ask Robert why he's still in the towing business after 15 years and you won't get a speech about market opportunity or fleet optimization. You'll get something simpler.
People need help.That's the core of it. Every call Robert receives is from someone in a bad situation. Their car broke down. They had an accident. They're locked out in a parking garage at night. They ran out of gas on the freeway with their kids in the back seat. These aren't theoretical scenarios, they happen every single day, and Robert has answered every variation of them hundreds of times.
What keeps him going is the moment after. The relief in someone's voice when the truck arrives. The thank-you from the single mother who didn't think anyone would answer at 3 AM. The handshake from the guy whose classic Mustang made it safely to the shop on a flatbed. The repeat call from the body shop that says “we only use you guys now.”
Robert takes pride in the 5.0 Google rating, not as a marketing metric, but as evidence that the way he runs his business actually works. Every five-star review represents a real person who had a real problem and felt genuinely taken care of.
“Towing has earned its bad reputation. The predatory pricing, the runarounds, the impound games. I built RJ Towing to be the opposite of all of that.”
, Robert, RJ Towing
Robert as a Business Owner
Running a towing operation in San Diego is not simple. The regulatory environment is complex, CPUC permits, insurance requirements, safety certifications, municipal licensing. The competitive landscape includes corporate chains with ten-plus locations and predatory operators who undercut pricing by cutting corners on insurance and equipment.
Robert navigates all of it. He's built RJ Towing into a legitimate, fully licensed and insured operation with:
- A fleet of five or more trucks (flatbed, wheel-lift, medium-duty)
- Professional, background-checked drivers
- Two dedicated phone lines (San Diego and Tijuana)
- Bilingual dispatch available 24/7/365
- Partnerships with body shops, dealerships, and property managers across the county
- A 5.0 Google rating maintained over more than a decade
He didn't build this with venture capital or a franchise fee. He built it the hard way, one customer at a time, one tow at a time, one year at a time.
The Binational Bridge
Robert Operates on Both Sides of the Border
One of the things that makes Robert unique among San Diego towing company owners is his genuine connection to both sides of the border. RJ Towing is the only towing company in San Diego that maintains a dedicated Tijuana phone line, (664) 801-9382 , and offers true cross-border service between San Diego and Tijuana.
For the tens of thousands of people who cross the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings every day, knowing there's a tow company that operates on both sides, in both languages, with both phone systems, is the kind of practical advantage that no corporate competitor can replicate. It takes someone who actually lives that binational reality.
Robert is that person.
What Customers Say
Robert's Work, in Customers' Own Words
These reviews specifically mention the personal service that Robert's team delivers, pulled live from Google.
“RJ Towing arrived in less than 30 minutes and charged a flat fee of $160. Professional, fast, fair. The driver explained everything and handled my car with care. Highly recommend for anyone in San Diego who needs an honest towing company.”
“After a fender bender on the 805 in Chula Vista, Robert's team showed up, took photos for my insurance, and got my car to the body shop I chose, not one of theirs. That's the difference. Straightforward, kind, and they actually picked up th…”
“Mi esposo se quedó con la batería muerta en el trabajo y le recomendé RJ Towing porque mi mama los usa. Llegaron rápido, revisaron la batería, y nos explicaron todo en español. Precio justo, gente honesta. Gracias Roberto.”
Beyond the Business
When Robert isn't behind the wheel or on dispatch, he's still in San Diego, because this is home. Not a market to serve. Home.
The same neighborhoods where RJ Towing trucks respond to calls are the neighborhoods where Robert's family shops for groceries, where they eat dinner, where they watch sunsets. That's not a marketing line. It's the reality of running a family business in the city where you were raised.
Call Robert's Team
You can reach RJ Towing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. When you call (619) 872-5285, chances are the person who answers is the same person whose name is on every truck.
That's family-owned. That's Robert.
Hablamos español. Siempre disponibles. Llama con confianza al (619) 872-5285 o línea Tijuana (664) 801-9382.
Servicio en Tijuana: (664) 801-9382