If you're lucky, and get a contract garage, rather than one of their own patrols, then you will probably get home in one shot, but its certainly not guaranteed.
You can only get a car during office hours.
Hmmph. And just as likely that they're afraid that an apology constitutes admitting liability, and hence opening them up for a US-style litigation claim for "damages", regardless of their T&C.
Way of the world isn't it? :-(
Ken Davidson DocDelete
I hope that they've improved their response times in recent years. When I worked in a police control room they were the worst by far for turn out times. We used to get fed up of motorists calling us back from the motorway phones saying: "Did you call the AA? We phoned you two hours ago and they're still not here" !! I think the problem was that whereas many of the newcomers use a huge list of garages to call out, the AA rely on their own staff. If their own staff are busy - then you wait, and wait, and wait!! With Green Flag et al, if the first garage is tied up, they move on to the next on the list, and so on.
Kev
I was looking for cover as well and my insurance was due for renewal and the woman @ Admiral asked if I was interested in breakdown cover so I asked for the details.
Basically it's a lot of independants who get calls from admiral depending on where you are.
The level of cover was equivalent to option 400 on the AA and all it cost was 50 quid on top of the normal premium.
It was going to be 80 but they knocked 30 quid off.
Only used it once (left interior light on at airport) for a flat battery and a local guy came out in about 30 minutes.
LL
I've been with Green Flag, Rac and now AA. The AA is definitely better than the previous two in my experience. The RAC may have experienced mechanics but their switchboard is crap. Every time I've used them I've had to wait at least 2 hours and on one memorable occasion my wife waited 4 hours (at home fortunately). Each time the mechanics has said that he had only just been called out and had been sat at home for the last couple of hours. On the 4 hour occasion my wife was assured 3 times that the mechanic was on his way which was a blatant lie.
Green Flag took 4 hopurs to get us 20 miles including not being able to find a suitable transporter for a Morris Minor !!!
That's no longer the case, in fact I'm not sure when it was. In 1990 they sent a local contractor out to me on the M6 in Cumbria, and in 2003 a local contractor came out because it was "the only way to get someone there within
45 minutes".Perhaps it depends more on time-of-day busy-ness - even a fairly lengthy list of fall-back contractors can dwindle to nothing trying to cope on a Friday afore a Bank Holiday, around the M5, M6, M42 for instance.
One call out the local garage turned out in a Green Flag livered van which I found somewhat ironic. They rapidly found that it wasn't fixable (stripped timing gear) and then passed me on to an AA flatbed that recovered me home, so as of 2001 they were using thrid parties as needed.
Chris Street ( snipped-for-privacy@chris-street.demon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
I had to call the RAC out on the Tuesday after Easter bank holiday this year.
Within ten minutes of ringing the centre, the contractor rang to see if I could give more info on the problem - burst hydraulic pipe on a big Cit, so not roadside fixable. I told 'em, they said "Oh, OK, flatbed then... It might be a bit longer than we'd normally be, but it'll save us wasting time with a van to diagnose"
The flatbed arrived just as I got a phone call from the control centre telling me they'd be there within ten minutes - about 45min from the original call, IIRC.
Nice old boy driving the wagon. Even offered me his sandwiches.
I was not unimpressed.
The message from Adrian contains these words:
I had to call the RAC out a while ago 'cos I broke a cambelt in a bootsale car park. They wouldn't come in in their truck 'cos they didn't want to get bogged down, but (kindly) lent me some chains so a handy 4x4 could tow me out onto the road. That was a contractor, too.
None of the recovery clubs will cover you for recovery off-road. Just because you can drive on the field in a car, doesn't mean it will take the weight of a recovery truck.
The message from "SimonJ" contains these words:
This was the blokes argument. I pointed out that there were considerably larger trucks in the bootsale field which had used the same entrance and would be coming out the same way, but he was having none of it.
And neither would I , if it was me driving the truck!
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