Breakdown recovery

chris954

chris954

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Last week I had the misfortune to break down on the A1 and was stuck with about a quarter of the car width in the carriageway. I called the AA and was told they would be with me between 60-90 minutes. After an hour or so they sent me a text saying they were very busy and would be delayed. 2 1/2 hours after calling and numerous near misses someone turned up, he looked at the engine, scratched his head, took the auxiliary belt cover off them said he had no idea what was wrong so called for a recovery truck. He said they would be about 45 minutes. An hour and a half later I got a phone call asking me where I was and he would be about 20 minutes. In total 5 1/2 hours waiting for the AA, the fourth. Emergency service. Fast forward to today, I tried a few things to fix the car and they didn’t work so I arranged with a local garage that I would drop it off tonight while the roads were quiet and I wouldnt cause any problems If I broke down on the way. So I set off, got about a mile and it konked out so I phoned the AA and was told they were going to charge me £50 + £2.50 a mile for recovery which would be with me in about three hours. Big shouting session down the phone and got the charges dropped but still a three hour wait. I accepted this then decided to call an independant recovery company. He turned up in 40 minutes and charged me £75. So if your still reading this my question is what experiences have others had of rival breakdown services, RAC, Green Flag e.t.c.
 
Tried AA ,RAC ,and green flag ,the latter being the best by far when needed .currently with Brittania rescue via my insurance as they also cover my caravan while towing .which green flag also do .the first pair of wankey firms don’t they won’t even come out to a caravan puncture
 
My biggest gripe is that as a man I'm put to the back of the queue as apparently women get priority. Nice one. That was years ago as I haven't broken down for a long time but I doubt things have changed.
 
woof woof said:
My biggest gripe is that as a man I'm put to the back of the queue as apparently women get priority. Nice one. That was years ago as I haven't broken down for a long time but I doubt things have changed.
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Women arenta given priority unless they are alone and approaching the hours of darkness iirc.
 
I had a 3 and a half hour wait for green flag, I knew it was a fuel problem the way they engine just puttererd out and died, green flag guy just looked under the bonnet and 2 seconds later said it's electrical problem. Loaded car onto truck to garage, fuel pump was knackered. Next time if the wife is with me she will be making the call.

Daughters called aa when her ford focus broke down, aa guy said her timing belt had gone. I loosened the top of the timing case cover and there was sod all wrong with the timing belt. It seems mechanics these days don't want to try and fix a motor these days, I'd go as far as saying they're glorified fitters, they just guess the problem and fit a new part whether you need it or not.
 
I have seldom had to use a recovery service but never had any problems personally. However around 15yrs ago my mate broke down on the way home from work on a Saturday afternoon. I was following him at the time and as neither of us had a mobile phone, I gave him a lift a couple of miles further along the road to a service station. He phoned his recovery service, the RAC, gave his vehicle details, where it was etc, he then phoned his wife to let her know he had broken down Then I gave him a lift back to his car. It was probably around 13:30 that he had phoned them. Around 17:30, I had a feeling my mate might still be waiting, so armed with a flask of hot soup and my wife' s mobile phone, I went back to the spot he had stopped and sure enough he was still there, parked in a layby on the A13, just after a slip road from Wennington and just before the M25 junction on the Southend bound carriageway , all the details he had given the RAC. My mate phoned the RAC and said they were having trouble locating him, so he repeated his location and said he couldn't be missed as his vehicle was a bright mettalic turquoise Seat Alhambra, not exactly hard to spot sitting in a layby at the side of the road. He then phoned his wife again to let her know he was still waiting. I sat with my mate for an hour, expecting them to turn up soon he told me to head off home myself. It was gone 22:30 by the time they finally turned up and then towed him home the 50 odd miles home.
 
We're obviously well served with AA patrols around here as the longest I've had to wait was 45 minutes and usually it's under half an hour (I used to have a spectacularly unreliable Audi A6). The app uses the GPS on your phone to tell them exactly where you are, so no more "can't find you" problems.
 
I've had a few breakdowns in the firms van recently covered by RAC, shortest time was less then an hour from calling them to back on the road, dead battery that
was replaced.
Longest was a broken belt that drives alternator, water pump etc. tensioner had seized that took nearly 2 hours for them to get to me, another hour whilst
he went and got the part, 10 mins to fix and another 15 mins for the paperwork.
Other times have varied, prior to that it was 2 hours with for a flat tyre to be replaced, we aren't allowed to carry spares
The RAC do give priority to lone females and vehicles in an unsafe location where they may cause an accident.

It also depends on how busy they are at the time, and the driver giving the correct location, I've been told a few times by
they guys that come out about them having to drive miles out of their way to find someone who gave the wrong details
 
Gave up on the RAC after they just became a sales organistation, the few times we used them they always wanted to sell us oil or a new battery or window wash or whaterver. Switched to Green Flag, have used them twice and they have been pretty good both times.
 
I have been with green flag for years & won,t be changing anytime soon.:banana:
 
viv1969 said:
Women arenta given priority unless they are alone and approaching the hours of darkness iirc.
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That's not been my experience or what I've been told by the guys who've eventually turned up.

Personally I'm all for equality and a weighting for risk assessment if the person who's broken down is in a dangerous place etc but to give priority solely on gender does seem a little off in this day and age.
 
Rac have always been good here. Generally quick apart from the obvious peak times.

They take the pee at renewal with hiked prices but will always drop them back down if you phone up.
 
Never taken Breakdown cover out myself as such, I always had it as part of car warranty or annual service, Audi and Nissan both give you 12 months breakdown cover as part of their service/MOT's once the car is out of warranty.

Audi use their own dedicated Audi Assist if you really want them to or the RAC if that's quicker. Used the RAC twice on 2 different cars, both times they were quick to attend and diagnosed the correct fault.The really good thing though with the Audi one is that if the fault you called them for requires your car to be in their garage Audi Assist provide you a like for like hire car for the time yours is being repaired.
Never had to use the Nissan one and the current car is still in warranty.
 
We are currently with RAC but have been with AA as well.

Most recent breakdown was on a family holiday 2 years ago. We are in the southeast and had travelled up to yorkshire for a week, with a couple of days of the holiday left the car broke down (as it turned out the gearbox went) on a fairly narrow bit of road. Someone stopped and helped me push the car into a gap by a gate in the hedge and we got the kids out and into the field away from traffic. I can't remember exactly how long the RAC took to arrive but it was pretty reasonable, he did a very brief examination and declared that the clutch had gone, phoned a couple of local garages and found one that said they could fix it before we finished our holidays and towed us there.

The garage phoned the next day and said that it wasn't the clutch but the gearbox and that they wouldn't be able to fix it in time before we had to leave so I called the RAC, initially they didn't want to give us another tow as we had already been towed to the local garage from where we broke down. With a bit of discussion and as they had misdiagnosed the issue, they agreed to tow us back home. So the end of our holiday ended with a tow back from yorkshire to kent with five of us in the cab with the driver for a 250+ mile journey home, we had two drivers (changed tow truck in Sheffield) and both of them were great, especially having three kids in the cab for such a long time.

So a bit of a mixed experience of the RAC but what we would have done without breakdown cover I am not sure and having it probably saved a hefty bill as we would either have had to pay for extra accomodation/travel or a private tow company.
 
AA was good a long time ago, then got more and more expensive, slow to respond and just useless in more remote parts of the country.

So I moved to start rescue; they are a little bit useless also and very slow but cost a fraction for what is actually pretty much the same level of service. They basically outsource jobs to local companies and it is a bit of a lottery what happens next. I've luckily never had to try out the european cover.
 
Not really had a problem with any of the ones I've used,(RAC, Green Flag and Co Op) but there's always a long wait. My parents had a nightmare with co op though when they went to fetch a new Rav4 and the DPF failed on the way home - because the car hadn't been updated instantly on the tax database they wouldn't come out, they wanted to see a receipt which obviously couldn't be provided as it had been done by the dealer online. They did eventually get recovered.
 
Green flag are by far the best in terms of getting to you, but they achieve this because they subcontract a fair chunk to local recovery firms, so they are not the best at fixing at the road side.

They do get you home and the car the a garage (either in one go or home and then recollect and drop to garage out of hours).

There are some good local companies but coverage is obviously not national.
 
been with AA for about 8 years now used them 3 times, one local in my home town in yorkshire, broken coil spring while wife in charge, dealt with very quickly and recovered to local garage in under 1 hour all in.
2nd was setting off for scotland on a dark s***ty night and had an awful blowout on an awful part of m62, miserable sub contract guy came out and recovered me to services and barely helped me change the tyre.
3rd was another broken coil spring in far scotland in a remote town called kilmacolm and bloody hell, recovered in 45 minutes to local garage and was baraley late for work.

so my experience is busy garbage areas = busy garbage service.

local and rural with quiet roads seem to be better service
 
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