Breakdown Recovery Who to sign up with AA or RAC

[sc_BK]

I once had one of my scooters loaded on a spec lift VERY scary watching but it got home safe in the end

[stevo]

I cannot really fault the AA. the other month I slid on a round about crushing the nearside front wishbone etc etc making the car (little escort estate) undriveable. I rung them up and they told me it was an accident not a breakdown so I'd have to pay £150. Grumble I did, then the lady took some details down, I was stuck on a roundabout etc. then she said that it sounded like a faulty part *wink* and that it wasn't an accident but a breakdown, no charge. Result. spec lift all the way home. With one motor off the road I was lucky to be acquiring my new van the day after. However this didn't go to plan as when my brother-in-law was driving it, The engine blew up. Stuck on the M25, the AA came out, picked the van up onto a lorry and brought the van to my house in Essex. It is one of them services that you'll never use till you need it (obviously) and when you need it you bloody do. Like most insurances it cost you money, you have to decide is it worth it.

on a slightly separate note, the AA have worked with motorcycle/scooter publications and organisations to make their two wheel recovery service better (working on special clamps/ramps etc). I asked the RAC at a major car show if they had done anything similar and if their recovery vehicles can cope like the AA can. The bloke told me that the RAC are the best for picking up bikes, mainly because when they were started they were a recovery/repair service purely for bikes.
"Frederick Richard Simms and Charles Harrington Moore formed the RAC back in 1897, although at that point it was called the Automobile Club Of Great Briton. It was loosely based on the French version the Automobile Club de France, by copying their constitution. In those days, I would imaging even the most optimistic motorist could not image how the motorcar would change everyone's lives. By 1901 it had already started to employ the first uniformed patrolmen in Great Briton."
Automobiles aren't motorcycles. I think this sales man was lying to me. I don't trust RAC since then.

I highly recommend the AA.


Oh, and the bloke how came to pick up my escort said he has picked up the large sprinter vans on his spec lift, total weight he can tow is something like 5 tonnes I think he said.

What was he towing you with?

[sidspop]

I know of one chap who got both nearside tyres punctured at the same time, cos some antisocial twat wanted more road than he should have, and the emergency service refused to attend, saying it was rta.
I also have first hand experience of the RAC bloke who wanted a recovery from Brum to Liverpool, because of a warning light on the dash of a car. When the washer bottle was filled the light went out....

[algieboy]

Thanks for all the advice peeps I to have never used any emergency breakdown srvices and have always carried out my own repairs somehow I have always been lucky and carried out repairs needed in my driveway.I have had a SWB Transit for the last 15 yrs and only broke down once luckily my brother towed me back in his works transit. I actually put petrol in my diesel tranny what a fud eh. Still, got a tube down the filler neck and started sucking yuk still makes me gru at the thought. No harm done exept losing £40 and still have trouble sleeping (scottish joke) However have just purchased a Mk6 LWB 2.4 TDCI and have heard so many conflicting stories about them I thought better to be safe etc. So looks as if it will be the AA for me Thanks again

[sc_BK]

algieboy you can't be a real scot......I'd have had that petrol into jerry cans then standing outside the filling station flogging it

[algieboy]

Would have used it in my car but there was a quarter tank of diesel mixed in with it . Went down the drain Boo Hoo

[algieboy]

Sorry

[Altransit]

Friend of mine put diesel in his petrol car, and had to drain it.

Gave the die-trol mix to me, and I put a gallon into every tank of diesel. Worked a treat

[bigwelshbloke30]

aa only ever had to use them once

[Smooth Hound]

I like the Rac,

[djswampy]

What was he towing you with?

It was a spec lift AA truck. This is the only photo of it I have. I couldn't find another online but that is my little escort on the back of it. I have to take my hat off to the bloke and his reversing skills. He managed to reverse the truck and my car on the back, all the way round the back of my house to the yard. This is a narrow and twisty road which has a 30 degree slope towards the end. Then he lowered the car on to my axle stands to make it easier for me to fix. He also told me what I needed to repair and replace (kinda knew anyway but its good to have a second opinion).