AAA responded to more than 404,000 roadside assistance calls nationwide during last year’s Labor Day travel period alone. That’s not a slow trickle of unlucky drivers — it’s a documented spike tied directly to the holiday, and the repair-order data from the shops that patch those cars back up points to the same handful of failures every single year. If you’re driving anywhere this weekend, the odds say your car’s weak point is already identifiable before you leave the driveway.

Gas prices are also running higher than the $3.19 a gallon recorded on Labor Day 2025, which means more people are choosing to drive rather than fly this year — and more aging, under-maintained cars are about to log more highway miles than they’ve seen all summer.

Battery and electrical failures cause the most tow-worthy breakdowns

Among vehicles that need a tow rather than a roadside fix, AAA’s breakdown data attributes 23% of serious failures to battery and electrical system problems, more than any other single cause. Heat is the quiet killer here: summer temperatures accelerate the chemical degradation inside a battery long before winter cold gets blamed for the same failure. If your battery is past the typical five-year mark, a five-minute load test at any parts store beats finding out at a rest stop with a dead dash and a car full of kids.

Cooling system failures spike right when you’re asking the most of the engine

Cooling system failures account for another 11% of tow-requiring breakdowns, and Labor Day traffic is engineered to trigger exactly this failure mode: stop-and-go congestion in late-summer heat keeps the engine working hard with less airflow to cool it. Check coolant level and color when the engine is cold, and if you’ve been putting off a hose that looks swollen or cracked, this is the week it decides to let go.

 

Tire damage rounds out the top three, and it’s the most preventable

Tire damage causes roughly 10% of breakdowns severe enough to require a tow, and AAA’s own advice for drivers is blunt: check pressure with a gauge, not a glance, since a tire can lose a third of its air and still look fine. Add in the fact that AAA separately lists flat tires as the single most common roadside emergency it responds to overall, and the five minutes it takes to check all four tires plus the spare is the single highest-leverage thing you can do before a road trip.

The check-engine-light repairs waiting on older cars

CarMD’s 2025 Vehicle Health Index, built from more than 31 million logged repairs, still ranks catalytic converter failure as the single most common check-engine-light repair nationally, averaging $1,348, followed by oxygen sensor replacement at $254 and ignition coil and spark plug work at $400. Mass air flow sensor failure ($323) and a failing EVAP canister purge valve ($144) round out the top five. None of these will strand you as dramatically as a dead battery on a Friday-afternoon interstate, but a check-engine light that’s been ignored for months is exactly the kind of small problem a long, hot, heavily-loaded drive turns into a big one — a marginal oxygen sensor or ignition coil that limped along fine on a daily commute can misfire outright under sustained highway load with a trunk full of luggage.

Empty tanks and locked doors round out AAA’s most common calls

Rounding out AAA’s list of most common roadside emergencies are running out of fuel and lockouts — both entirely avoidable and both spiking on long-weekend trips through unfamiliar territory where drivers push past the next exit and gas gauges get ignored in favor of making good time.

The Labor Day pre-trip checklist the data actually supports

Test the battery if it’s three or more years old. Check coolant level and hose condition cold, before the engine ever runs. Check all five tires with a gauge, not your eyes. Don’t ignore a check-engine light that’s been on for more than a week. Fill the tank before, not during, the drive, and keep a spare key somewhere other than your pocket.

None of these fixes are exotic, and none of them are new advice — that’s precisely the point. The same five failure categories dominate the data year after year because they’re the ones drivers keep deferring, and a holiday weekend is just the moment when deferred maintenance and maximum mileage finally collide.