Looking to renew my aa membership, rac are half the price... but is it half the service?
Advice great fully recieved 😊

AA have always been the worst service for me, I got much better responses from the other suppliers (although never tried RAC). In at least five years of AA membership with a Vauxhall Nova (guess how reliable that was!), I never once saw an AA truck. And when I got above 2 call outs a year, I started getting the snotty letters. I wanted membership for peace of mind, not to worry about the number of call outs I did.

I'm now with Gem, the one where you pay for recovery and then claim it back.

LV/Brittania for me. I've been with them for many years and used them quite a few times! The last time was three weeks ago when swmbo lost the only key card for the Espace. The policy states that you should have a spare key and they'll help to retrieve it for you. I explained that the spare key wouldn't work (we only got one key!) and they arranged to get the car home for us. On another occasion, my trailer got a flat tyre. The policy states that they would attend to 'fit your servicable spare'. I didn't have a spare so they agreed to have the trailer taken to a safe compound for me to arrange a repair.
I have UK recovery which costs £65 and personal cover for me and swmbo which covers us both for any vehicle we're driving or passengers in, for an extra £40. I pay around £76 as I'm a member of CSMA.....

AA for me because it came with my bank account.

A few quid more and I had recovery to my house, not a garage close to my breakdown location.

On the three occasions that I had to call out the AA, they were very good.

1st was in the Robin Hood when my week old electric fan shed a blade through the radiator. They towed me off the motorway and then spent an our and a half locating a replacement radiator before fitting it and getting me on my way - a bit hairy with only movement for cooling and repeated traffic jams.

2nd was a tintop that failed to start (turned out to be broken connection) and they turned up pretty quickly as we had a baby in the car and no feed.

3rd was when our car was immobilised at a wedding after our first son chewed the keys and filled the fob with saliva! They cleaned it out, used WD40 to drive off moisture and fitted a new fob battery. It still didn't work, but they repeated it twice more until it did.

I've got RAC joint recovery for me a Mrs through tesco clubcard, only cost £35quid in vouchers.
I didn't have homestart coz if it don't start here I won't use it!!
Thankfully I haven't needed to call them yet so I don't know how good they are.

Have dealt with AA and RAC over the years both as private customer and with fleet cars/ school buses etc generally both seem very good at getting cars going/ recovery aspects of job but there was always an annual price rise with AA. Until I asked why new customers were getting it for half price and loyal customers were being bled white they suddenlydiscovered a loyalty discount needless to say I sought an alternative and have insured main family cars with Marks n Spencers who offer breakdown for any car you drive or are a passenger in. Daughter buys hers through L and v as they give good rates to union members of lots of professions son gets his through Tesco.
Ideally you need to get some quotes from several sources to keep their prices keen and hunt around for any offers they might be running.
For the kit cars and TR7 we inure through Sykes and breakdown cover adds only £20 to basic premium I could rely on the M and S sruff mentioned above but wouldn't like to jeopardise family motoring by abusing the service if we happened to pick up an unreliable vehicle tht might have several issues!
Hth
Mike

Britannia or Green Flag both are very good. Britannia bought as a package with LV insurance is a particularly good buy.
AA draw you in with a low price then hit you with huge increases at renewal.

I've been with the RAC for years now, and on the whole very happy with them (I was with AA before that, but got fed up with their annual price hikes...).

I use them about once a year for assistance/recovery, and they've always been reasonably quick to turn up and very helpful when they arrive.

The call centre staff can be a bit clueless at times, and don't always cope well when they go off script (same for most call centers!), but the guys in the vans have always been spot on.
On one occasion I had to describe to a bloke in the call centre what a kit car was, then what a rear differential was, then how a rear wheel drive car got drive to it's rear wheels, and finally why a broken diff meant I couldn't drive the car

My only real criticism was when I used them to recover me after a crash. They recovered me fine, but then phoned me pretty much every day until my insurers reimbursed them, which got somewhat irritating...

I have been with RAC for a number of years and usually stop the policy then start a new policy in wife's name ( and swap back to mine the year after ) and get some cash back with Quidco.

problem is we have a joint Policy but I need cover for my car to Europe for the yearly drive. Problem is that Euro cover is applied to both cars and they want £236 even though we wont take her car abroad.

Going to do some homework looking at Greenflag / Britannia.

regards Agriv8

I use AutoAid and I'd highly recommend. Something like 35 quid a year to cover my wife and I on any car. That includes homestart cover, onward travel, recovery to a location of your choice etc. The downside for some people is that it is a pay and recover scheme, but that doesn't bother me and they pay out quickly.

Been with RAC for years, no complaints at all. Used to have an Audi A4 called them out 4 times in one year.
They took a mates Tiger from Nottingham to Sheffield, I was the passenger. Recovered the MK this year after it dropped a valve.
Twice with the A4 they recovered out of garage hours, but came back the next day to take it from home to the garage (2miles away)
Worth every penny

AutoAid for me too. Used a couple of times and far better service than when I used the AA years ago. And all for £38

Im with the AA and cancel my policy two days before it ends, ring them up and speak to someone, and get there name!
I then wait a couple of days, and get a new "special offer" on line, ive had some hassle doing this, but it saves about £50

I found out by accident that Green flag do not cover Kit cars, but thankfully a friend stopped and towed me home, plus I got a full refund form Green flag due to them not advising there lack of cover anwhere

Steve

Interesting inconsistency from green flag then. As I have a friend who used them several times in a year to recover his kit car.

I've also heard the same about AA not covering kit cars too but their policy seems to change on a whim, a bit like green flag.

Got messed about something rotten by the A at renewal time.

Swapped to Autoaid, use a credit card to pay and claim on so by the time the bill comes in they paid back.

We're with the RAC, no complaints to be honest and I've had to call them out twice this year It does depend a lot on the person who turns up as to how good the service is though, the last guy who turned up was outstanding for example - the numpty who turned up when my MX5 failed was a complete muppet though (he thought the air con condenser was the radiator and completely missed that the fan belt had fallen off.....)

Last year the AA left me - with my three month old daughter - stranded by the side of the M25 for over EIGHT HOURS on one of the hottest days of the year. The c*nts. I would rather stick my cock in a bees nest than give them a penny ever again.

quote:

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Originally posted by rodgling
Last year the AA left me - with my three month old daughter - stranded by the side of the M25 for over EIGHT HOURS on one of the hottest days of the year. The c*nts. I would rather stick my cock in a bees nest than give them a penny ever again.

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No single reason. Just very slow to do anything, and generally didn't give a poo about leaving us waiting for so long when speaking to them on the phone.

Took them ages to send someone out, but of course they couldn't do anything so had to arrange for another van to come pick us up. When he got to us he saw someone else, who had broken down nearby, talking to my wife, assumed there were too many of us to fit in his van and said he couldn't take us and drove off. When we realised what they'd done and told the AA, it took them another few hours to bother sending another van.

Am currently with Green flag , thankfully only used them once a few years ago when towing our caravan. The Freelander decided to destroy its transfer box half way round the Edinburgh bypass . Truck arrived within the hour , Freelander on back , caravan behind and home before we knew it!!