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Breakdown cover

For the first time ever this year, in my driving career - I had a breakdown I was unable to resolve my self at the roadside and I had to use my breakdown cover. The breakdown service were as I expected, also unable to fix it and I had to be recovered.

It set me thinking - do the breakdown cover companies get any sort of money from the garage which recovers you, if the client has to pay for some repairs? Obviously the covering company pays the garage for going out and any work they do at the roadside.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield
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If they did, they are not likely to tell you!

I can tell you that the AA used to let the attending patrol use local knowledge to pick a garage. I suppose that could be open to abuse.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Chris Whelan explained :

I'm with a service which uses entirely independant garages to make the initial response, then they pay them for the first hour(?) at the roadside.

I just wondered, because the garage made a bit of a meal of the repair once they had recovered my car.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

When the RAC recovered a friend's car from her home a few years ago the guy tried very hard to persuade her not to take it to a franchised dealer but to an independent under the railway arches "to save her money". Fair enough in principle but when the saving was £40 on a £500 job I felt the way he pressured her - and then dumped her unceremoniously on the dealer's forecourt - was a clear sign of a kickback lost.

Reply to
Robin

In my case the attending AA patrol explained he would have to tow the car to the nearest garage, not necessarily the one I nominated. He looked up the nearest garage using his satnav and measured the distance

- happily it was in fact the one that I would have taken it to anyway.

Reply to
Graham J
[...]

What level of cover do you have?

If it's just 'Roadside' then the T & C's state nearest garage.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

It's called "Roadside Home Start" so that's fair comment

Reply to
Graham J

I don't know any breakdown service which requires you to have the repair done by the garage which first attends (if it is not a patrol). Around me, they all tend to use the same garage, which is about 20 miles away, and does not expect us to want the car repaired there.

It is a bit different if you want the car fixing quickly in an area you are not familiar with, but at worst I think the garage will give the breakdown company a cheap rate for recoveries in the expectation of picking up some repair work.

Reply to
Nick Finnigan

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