Towing In Malay: What Tunda, Derek And Tarik Mean To A Tow Truck Driver
Most Malaysians say towing in English even when the rest of the sentence is in Malay — "kereta aku kena tow". The word comes from tow: to pull something along with a rope, a chain or a bar. Add -ing and it becomes the job itself — moving a vehicle that can no longer move on its own.
The formal Malay word is tunda. The verb is menunda, and the vehicle doing the work is a kenderaan penunda or trak tunda. That is why official notices from the authorities always read "kenderaan akan ditunda" and never "akan ditowing". If you see that word on a signboard or a windscreen sticker, it means your vehicle is about to be towed away.
The second word you will hear is derek. Strictly speaking, derek refers to machinery that lifts a load — a crane or a hoist. But in everyday Malaysian speech, "kereta saya kena derek" is understood exactly the same way as "kereta saya kena tunda". Both are accepted; derek is simply more accurate when the vehicle is genuinely lifted rather than rolled.
The third is tarik, and it is the loosest of the lot. "Kereta saya kena tarik" can mean it was carried away by a tow truck — or that a friend dragged it home behind another car on a rope. Two very different things in terms of risk and in terms of the law.
The short version: say towing in conversation and in Google, tunda in official letters, derek when something is being lifted, tarik when you do not want to be specific. Every workshop in the country understands "nak towing", so you cannot really get it wrong. The terms that matter come next — those are the ones that decide which truck rolls out and how long the job takes.
Types Of Tow Truck: Flatbed Towing, Wheel-Lift, Hook And Chain, Low Loader
When you WhatsApp for a tow truck, the first question is usually not "where are you" — it is "what vehicle, and what happened". There is a reason for that. The answer decides which unit gets sent.
- Flatbed (lori lantai rata, sliding deck) — the whole vehicle rides up onto a deck that tilts and slides down to the road. None of the four tyres touch the tarmac. This is the safest option for EVs, automatics that cannot be shifted into neutral, low-slung cars, 4WDs and anything badly damaged in an accident.
- Wheel-lift — a steel yoke slides under two tyres and lifts them while the other two roll along the road. Faster and more compact, so this is the unit that fits into basement car parks and tight city lanes.
- Hook and chain (cangkuk dan rantai) — the old method, with chains wrapped around the axle or the body. It scratches and bends the underside, which is why it is now used mostly for scrap vehicles and accident write-offs rather than a car you intend to repair.
- Low loader (lowbed) — a low deck with ramps, built for heavy machinery: excavators, forklifts, rollers and anything that cannot climb onto an ordinary flatbed.
- Wrecker or recovery truck — the big unit with a boom and a high-capacity winch, meant for lori, buses and pulling stranded heavy vehicles back onto the road.
Towing Service Jargon You Will Hear At The Roadside
Once the unit arrives, the driver starts using words that sound like a different trade entirely. Here is what they mean, so you are not left nodding blankly by the roadside.
- Winching — a pull on a powered steel cable, used to drag a vehicle out of somewhere the truck itself cannot reach: down in a monsoon drain, off a slope, on soft grass, or hung up on a kerb.
- Rigging — the strapping work done before anything moves: choosing strong attachment points, setting the angle of the line, locking off ratchet straps or chains. Bad rigging tears bumpers and bends suspension arms, so let the driver do his job.
- Dolly — a pair of small wheels slipped under a tyre that will not turn, such as a wheel locked up after an accident or an all-wheel-drive vehicle. The dolly lets that corner roll again.
- Snatch block — a pulley hooked to a second anchor point to change the direction of the winch pull and double its power. If your car went into a drain at an awkward angle, this is the tool that solves it.
- Towing eye (mata tunda) — the screw-in hook bolt that lives with the jack in your boot. It threads into a hidden hole behind a flap in the bumper, and that is the only point on the car designed to take a pull.
- Recovery point — a reinforced spot on the chassis that is rated for strapping. Not everything that looks solid is safe to pull from; anchor to the wrong thing and the chassis is what gets damaged.
Tonnage, Axles And GVW — Lorry Towing Terms For Heavy Vehicle Owners
One practical bit of advice before we get to the lori section: go and find your car's towing eye today, while you are not stranded. Two in the morning in the rain is not the moment to open the manual for the first time.
And if you are stuck right now — whichever word you use, send your live location, the vehicle type and what went wrong in one WhatsApp message. We match the right unit to the job, and the price is confirmed before anything moves.
For cars, the truck type and the distance are enough. For lori and buses, three other terms decide everything.
- Tonnage — the weight class that the job is measured in. We classify lorry towing work as 5-ton, 10-ton and 15-ton, and that class determines which unit is dispatched and which rate applies.
- Axle (gandar) — how many axles the vehicle runs on. A two-axle lori (4x2) is handled differently from a three-axle (6x4). The number and position of the axles decide which end can be lifted and how much weight transfers onto the towing unit.
- GVW (gross vehicle weight) — the weight of the vehicle including its load. On your JPJ registration card it appears as BDM, Berat Dengan Muatan; the unladen figure is BTM, Berat Tanpa Muatan.
Towing, Roadside Assistance Or Recovery — Three Terms People Keep Swapping
The gap between BTM and BDM can run to several tonnes. An empty 10-ton lori and a loaded 10-ton lori are not the same job — so if yours broke down with cargo on board, say so early. Sometimes the load has to be transferred to another vehicle before anything can be lifted, and that needs arranging, not deciding on the shoulder of the road.
Now the three words that get mixed up most often. Use the wrong one and you can end up waiting for the wrong unit.
Towing means transporting the vehicle from one point to another. Nothing is repaired on the spot — it is carried to a workshop, to your house, or to whatever destination you name.
Roadside assistance (bantuan tepi jalan) is about getting you going again where you stand: jump-starting a flat battery, swapping a punctured tyre for the spare, delivering fuel, or opening a car with the keys locked inside. If the vehicle restarts and is safe to drive, you do not need a tow at all.
Recovery is the work of getting a vehicle out of an abnormal position — in a drain, on its roof, stranded off the shoulder, or bogged down in mud. Recovery almost always starts with winching and rigging; the towing is only the last part, once the vehicle is back on the road surface.
There is one more situation people call towing that is not a service you book at all: your vehicle is towed by the authorities over a parking offence and taken to an impound yard. That process works completely differently, and we have a separate write-up on the steps to get your car back after a DBKL tow.
When you send that first message, use the right term and lay out the details in this order — six things, one message, done:
- Name the job: towing, roadside assistance, or recovery.
- Send live location from WhatsApp — not just a place name, because kampung names and highway exit names repeat all over the country.
- Describe the vehicle: model, automatic or manual, petrol, diesel or EV.
- Say what the wheels are doing: still rolling freely, locked up, or a tyre off entirely.
- Give the destination: which workshop, which home address, or which state if it is an interstate towing job.
- Mention the obstacles at your end: a basement with low clearance, a slope, a drain, or a busy highway shoulder near an R&R.
Quick Malay–English Glossary Of Car Towing And Motorcycle Towing Terms
Save this list in your phone. When you are on the line with a workshop, an adjuster or a tow operator, use the Malay term on the right — the job moves faster when nobody is guessing what you mean.
- Tow, towing — tunda, menunda
- Tow truck — kenderaan penunda, trak tunda
- Flatbed — lori lantai rata
- Wheel-lift — angkat roda
- Hook and chain — cangkuk dan rantai
- Low loader, lowbed — dek rendah
- Winching — tarikan wayar dawai
- Rigging — kerja ikatan
- Dolly — roda tambahan bawah tayar
- Snatch block — takal ubah arah tarikan
- Towing eye — mata tunda
- Recovery point — titik ikatan selamat
- Gross vehicle weight (GVW) — Berat Dengan Muatan (BDM)
- Unladen weight — Berat Tanpa Muatan (BTM)
- Axle — gandar
- Roadside assistance — bantuan tepi jalan
- Recovery — pemulihan kenderaan
- Impound, storage yard — tapak simpanan
Use These Terms When You WhatsApp A 24/7 Towing Service
None of this vocabulary is for showing off. It is there to shorten the conversation at the exact moment you have the least time to spare.
Say "automatic, front wheels locked, in a low-ceiling basement" and the operator immediately knows a wheel-lift with dollies makes more sense than a full flatbed. Say "three-axle lori, loaded, BDM in the 10-ton class" and the unit that turns up is one that can actually do the work. If you are still weighing up the two deck types, the full comparison is in our flatbed versus wheel-lift guide.
If you are down south, our Johor towing page lists the full coverage area — and every other state has a page of its own, which is also where interstate towing runs start from.
You know the words now; the rest is just using them. WhatsApp Abang Tow with the six details in the checklist above: we match the right truck to the job, and the price is confirmed in writing before the unit moves. On standby 24/7, across Peninsular Malaysia.
