Well, yesterday number two Son plus his son, left
Falmouth on a drive to Margate when in Somerset
the car electrics died.
So, 11.15am he's called the AA, 13.46 AA arrives and cannot fix the problem,
17.20 Relay truck arrive for the journey back to Falmouth,
18.15 dropped at Taunton Dean services to await the next truck,
21.00 pick up but only as far as Exeter services,
08.06am Still waiting in Exeter services, which could anytime up to 11.00am,
Which will bring his total recovery to over 24 hours covering just three counties.
Question = Is this what one should now expect from our breakdown cover?
Dave DAVE.

Well you should be thankful the AA don't offer 24/7 breakdown service,
you family could still be there next weekend

I had a similar experience with the RAC on my Discovery last year. Took 13 hours to recover from Somerset to Gloucestershire including a long spell at a service station waiting for the next truck to arrive. After multiple calls to say “where the §¥€$ are you?” they rather sheepishly admitted somebody had made an error and not properly “linked” my recovery from one county to the next, so no follow-on truck had been booked. That hadn’t stopped them providing and missing several fictitious deadlines though.

Long story short there was a truck nearby whom they diverted from his trip home after shift end and I finally got home (the day after the breakdown). I fired off a complaint form to the RAC and got a £100 “goodwill” payment as an apology as they agreed this was not an acceptable level of service.

Hope your son is home by now, all I can advise is keep pestering them while you’re waiting, once an hour at least after the first missed deadline, and use the complaints service when you get home. You can also threaten to defect to the RAC, but not sure they’re any better!

Sorry to hear your story, good luck!

Dave47 wrote:

Which will bring his total recovery to over 24 hours covering just three counties.
Question = Is this what one should now expect from our breakdown cover?
Dave

Scarecrow wrote:

I had a similar experience with the RAC on my Discovery last year. Took 13 hours to recover from Somerset to Gloucestershire including a long spell at a service station waiting for the next truck to arrive. After multiple calls to say “where the §¥€$ are you?” they rather sheepishly admitted somebody had made an error and not properly “linked” my recovery from one county to the next, so no follow-on truck had been booked. That hadn’t stopped them providing and missing several fictitious deadlines though.

Long story short there was a truck nearby whom they diverted from his trip home after shift end and I finally got home (the day after the breakdown). I fired off a complaint form to the RAC and got a £100 “goodwill” payment as an apology as they agreed this was not an acceptable level of service.

Hope your son is home by now, all I can advise is keep pestering them while you’re waiting, once an hour at least after the first missed deadline, and use the complaints service when you get home. You can also threaten to defect to the RAC, but not sure they’re any better!

Sorry to hear your story, good luck!

Yup, he's just phoned to say they're home now Scarecrow,
the guy did put his foot down driving from Exeter to Falmouth and
with both lads in the crew cab doing nodding dog impressions.
Dave DAVE.

When my diff seized in December, I waited 2 hours for the RAC patrol to tell me he couldn't move the vehicle, so I waited another 4 hours for the duty garage to recover me home, which I could walk to in 3 minutes.  Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ultimate. The family car.
2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Gone.
2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE. Gone.
Audi A5 convertible, my daily driver.
1972 Hillman Avenger GT, the project.

Totally different experience from RAC. Discovery 2 Td5 auto
Broke down, autobox failure, at 10am on A90 near Brechin on a Sunday morning.
Phoned rac callcentre which i think was in Leeds and trying to explain exactly where i was south of Aberdeen.
No patrol man just the recovery wagon.
Recovery wagon from Forfar within the hour and straight home, 140 miles.
Great service.

Jim A