Well broke down today Mg ZT stopped charging so kept going hoping to get to janes dads any how ran out of battery so Jane said lets join AA the cover would be handy anyways £ 177 later and we get a guy turn up who says its stopped charging cant do anything you will have to be recovered ok ring AA again and pay another £128 and a guy comes and takes us 39 miles to janes dads now the way i see it i just paid £177 for them to ring a recovery firm i think getting us to renew is going to be difficult to say the least.
So let me get this right.
You were not a member of the AA until you broke down. You broke down so decided to join as a cheap way to get recovered. The term and conditions state
the time frames involved for cover (some are 24hrs, some are up to 48hrs). Now you're complaining that they didn't want to be used as a
cheap way to get you home?!
I've been paying for breakdown cover for 20 years and they come when I need them. That's how it works.
Well yes i hear what you are saying but i joined for a year not just a day it was Janes car so would have continued the cover every year for her i have never been a member before thought we would try it i told them we were broken down and they took the money their choice
£ 305 was hardly cheap
We pay about 160 a year for me and the wife, that is 'relay' cover so it covers us not the cars. I.e. i can be in any car and they will come and get me and if it's not fixable they will take me home or anywhere i wish. They have done a number of times over the years always been great service from them.
TBH running any MG you should have break down cover ready for that day!!!!
I think in hindsight, a few questions when you were taking out the policy would have told you how much you were likely to have to pay on the night.
As stated, it's basically an insurance, yes recovery is expensive, breakdown cover less so, but works on the basis that most people who pay for
cover won't need it, so they can afford the cost of recovery when it is.
lesson learned i guess...
Bargain option is a Nationwide bank account that you pay £13 a month.
Gives full european breakdown cover on 2 cars (and you do not have to name them until you need the use it!)
Plus good phone cover including kids phones, even when they are at Uni
Worldwide family travel insurance which unusually includes winter sports.
Reckon that is good value.
As above, you paid a hefty exccess on your cover as paid for a single, possibly expensive, call out on top of annual membership. You may have needed
recovering from Penzance to John O'Groats, which would have been cheap for £300....
There are plenty of companies offering cover for around £60 a year including recovery.
For £37 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers I get RAC roadside assistance and recovery home (any car).
As we shop with Tesco's (delivered) anyway and I use Tesco diesel in the works car and Momentum in the Suttol & MX5
it effectively is free. It works out that I get 3p towards RAC membership for every pound I spend with them.
I've been doing this since Suttol's IVA so in my 3rd year. Never had to call them out, but it's good to have.
Paul G
I used to work for the AA and as stated above it is an insurance policy, you cant crash your car into a tree, then insure the car for £100 and expect them to pay out £5,000 can you ?.
ali F27 am I reading your first post correct you paid £177 + £128 to get the car recovered?
If so that seems truly truly staggering to me!
SWMBOs breakdown cover is something like £40 / year. Not had cause to use it yet so I can't pass judgement on it though.
quote:
Originally posted by nick205
ali F27 am I reading your first post correct you paid £177 + £128 to get the car recovered?
If so that seems truly truly staggering to me!
SWMBOs breakdown cover is something like £40 / year. Not had cause to use it yet so I can't pass judgement on it though.
quote:
Originally posted by CosKev3
quote:
Originally posted by nick205
ali F27 am I reading your first post correct you paid £177 + £128 to get the car recovered?
If so that seems truly truly staggering to me!
SWMBOs breakdown cover is something like £40 / year. Not had cause to use it yet so I can't pass judgement on it though.
Yeah,BUT they phoned up and took the cover out after breaking down!
The insurance comparison by conrodkid above is spot on!
quote:
Originally posted by owelly
You were not a member of the AA until you broke down. You broke down so decided to join as a cheap way to get recovered. The term and conditions state the time frames involved for cover (some are 24hrs, some are up to 48hrs).
) 
(e.g. taking 6+ hours to arrive to my wife or totally refusing to send anyone out because damaging a
wheel on a pothole is an accident not a breakdown apparently...) I've called out the AA before as a non-member because this is something they do support and they charge extra for it. It's not as if I (or
the OP) were trying to be sneaky about it. In fact I have been a member on and off over the years, mainly because in some situations such as buying a
new car, you get complimentary breakdown cover included so there is no need to maintain the AA membership. I also find that you can get a better deal
if you switch between different breakdown companies etc. I'm a member again at the moment.
In any case, I found myself on holiday in England with my family with a SEAT Altea which would not start and I didn't have any tools or a
multimeter to do any diagnosis myself. So I called the AA as I already had their number on my phone and told them the situation and they sent someone
out. I paid something like £154 which included a year's membership plus extra for the current breakdown situation (they've got a specific
term for this type of membership) and all was well. The guy arrived within an hour and between us we diagnosed a dodgy relay.
What I don't recall was being told that there might be another significant payment required if I needed recovery. I guess maybe it depends on the
type of recovery required whether it was to a local approved garage or half way across the UK back home. In the latter case I would certainly not
expect it to be covered under the £154 charge.
As already said. Op breaks down. Joins AA in the hope of getting free recovery. The AA came and tried to fix the car, I suppose they could have
charged the battery but how long gone would that take and would they be expected to come out again when battery ran out?
Recovery other than nearest garage is extra (think the extra is called home recovery). I know, I had to upgrade to get my kit car back kit to my
house even though I'd been a member for yonks.
Thanks for the answers just a few points we told them we were broken down right at the start so the crashing into the tree one kind of go,s out of the window . The cheap option for me would have been to buy a new battery to get the 39 mile , by the way the £128 would only get me 50 mile it was £2.50 a mile after that Jane had a look at the cooling off period and they will charge us £199 to cancel.
I pay £60 a year to Adrian Flux. A couple of years ago I broke down in the Gemini just south of Glasgow on the M74. After making the call a local recovery firm came out ( a 1 1/2 hour wait) picked up the Gemini, took it to their depot, put me in a courtesy car and I was home in Shrewsbury by teatime. The Gemini arrived home by suppertime! on the back of a flatbed. That's what I call service.
I have paid for years to a breakdown service and have never used them - but I know they will be there if I need them. I would be really p****d off if
I thought that someone could drive around for years and then decide to join once they had broken down for the same cost as anyone joining before
breakdown.
Perhaps the op should have called out a local garage - probably no cheaper for that event but would not then have given them a year of call outs for
subsequent breakdowns.
Sorry - no sympathy here
I'm (relatively) young and (relatively) optimistic and I carry a range of basic tools in my 'daily' car so don't bother with
breakdown cover on it.
I do have breakdown cover for the kit and previously had cover for my classic car but have otherwise not bothered for 'normal' cars.
I've had a couple of minor issues which have required a little tinkering at the side of the road over the years but I broke down a couple of
months ago in my MGZT so have lots of sympathy for the OP.
After pulling over and taking a walk to the nearest petrol station to make use of their toilet and give the car a chance to cool down I came back and
inspected it properly.
Nothing major and I probably could have coaxed it back home but that was at least a couple of hours driving which I didn't really want to do with
the risk of causing lasting damage. I spent 15 minutes ringing around recovery agents in the area and then got recovered on a flatbed which arrived
15 minutes later for something like £130? I gave him a tip because it was all dead easy and he got me home without me rolling around on the floor in
the dark after 6 hours driving back from the lake district.
I've driven my cars all over the continent and if you look at the fine print for most policies the level of cover is actually very poor once
you're driving a car over 10 years old so I choose to self insure.
1 recovery in the last 10 years means I've definitely saved overall and I'm happy with that but I fully understand people wanting to have
the convenience and peace of mind that membership at a reasonable annual cost can bring. Just do be careful to make sure your policy gives you the
level of cover that you expect/require.
quote:
Originally posted by CosKev3
TBH running any MG you should have break down cover ready for that day!!!!
quote:
Originally posted by Simon
quote:
Originally posted by CosKev3
TBH running any MG you should have break down cover ready for that day!!!!
Not really, I've had a ZT 260, TF135 and Rover 75 V6, wife had ZR160 and Rover BRM. We've also had various SD1's, 827 and several Minis. Never broke down in any of them.
i had a nissan 4x4 recovered home when it broke down, 120miles from my house
and they charged me £70 and he was there within 30min of calling, i don’t bother
with the aa, rac, green flag
better off googling closest recovery company and getting them to come out.