Last Saturday we were returning from our holiday from our holiday in north Wales. There was my son, who has just gone 9, and me, who has been in a wheelchair all my life. We have an old Range Rover and an Abbey Lincoln caravan. We had had a lovely week in Porthmadog. As we were driving back on the A458 near Foel, the radiator burst and we lost most of the water. I pnoned the RAC to tell them, this was at 1.00pm. Again I called at 3.00pm and was told it would be 4.00pm before they could get to us. At 4.30 I called again. This time I was told that they couldnt find us in Welshpool and had called off the search. I asked why they had not called us to say and was told they had the wrong number. Anyway, we finally got home at 12.30am the next day after loads of water and a tow truck had to bring us back. I have now contacted the RAC twice and am still awaiting a reply. Spoke to AA today and was suprised.
If you can answer the two first questions, you are a better man than me. The tow truck was a contractor from the RAC. The AA offer to repair the car upto a value of £500.00 and it only costs £4.00 a month more than I am paying for RAC.
Not the first time I've heard tales of poor service from RAC and AA. I must say I've always been with Britannia Rescue (part of Liverpool Victoria Insurance) and have always without exception received excellent service. They've never taken more than 1 hour to reach me, usually only about 20mins or half hour. (They did take 2 hours once but that was in widespread blizzard conditions with masses of call-outs so I'll cut them a bit of slack on that!)
Might be because they have no patrols of their own, they solely use independant agents and pick one local to where you are stopped, whoever is the nearest actually available agent.
Oh and did I mention that they are cheaper than AA & RAC ?
Although I am with RAC, supplied with package deals on life insurance and car servicing, I hope I never have to use them. They aren't the quickest breakdown service and I have known people stuck at the roadside for hours. I don't know if AA are any better. If I had to choose a breakdown service I would probably go with somebody like Green Flag who use local garage recovery call-outs.
I have got to say we have had the opposite problem. We were with the AA, and their recovery was as bad as the OP's situation.
We have since been with the RAC for twenty five years now and their response has been superb.
The last time we had a battery go, total cell collapse, not a bean, even the LED display wouldn't work.
He said he could fit a battery there and then. A Bosch, I thought that's going to sting.
£4 more than Halfords. I couldn't grumble at that.
------------- Trying is the first step towards failure!
The response times will vary as to the amount of vans that are busy at the time. Last time I used AA which is what you get if you are with Saga they were out in 20mins. Car was dead in my drive due to egr failure. AA man diagnosed that with his code reader, towed the car on his towing dolly, front wheels off ground to my repair garage 8miles away then gave me a lift 15miles to collect hire car that Saga breakdown include for a couple of days, so no complaints at all.
That probably took 2.5hrs and his next callout could have been sat beside the road 2hrs or more before he could attend them. So luck really.