Car recovery experiences

[flying haggis]

I was chatting to a recovery driver some time ago and asked what his worst recovery had been. He said he went to one of the holiday camps in Great Yarmouth (nearly as far east as you can go in this country) and had to collect a stranded car and dliver it and passengers to ........... Dundee !!

 

[JimJay]

Well said.

As for Mr Johnson, he is in many ways quite like Churchill.

Churchill held by today’s standards, very unpleasant ideas, racism being one, but also many other views that would not be tolerated now.

His bigoted opinion of Africans and Indians not being capable of governing themselves and his opinion that he was the greatest expert on India, when he’d only been there once when serving as a junior officer for a few short months is stark.

Churchill was, ( Mr Johnson is not ) and rightly so, a great leader of his country and its people at an important moment in world history.

Churchill, in some small way to his defence, was a product of his time, Mr Johnson has no such defence.

I'm no great fan of Churchill, and I don't really see that the topic is relevant to the original post, but since you mention it, do you seriously think that the governments in the Sub-Continent and Africa ARE capable of running a country or an economy? Idealism is a wonderful thing but not when it blinds us to what is right in front of our eyes. Many European governments and politicians are incompetent, mendacious and dishonest, but they are rank amateurs in those fields when compared to their fellows elsewhere...

 

[Doug71]

I have been with the RAC for a few years and today was the first time I needed to use them.

The clutch went on my van this morning, luckily it was right outside the customers house where I was going to be working. I phoned the RAC at 10:30 am and they turned up to recover me at 5:44 pm, over 7hrs later! I'm not moaning as it didn't really affect my day, only problem was the garage I wanted it taking to was closed by then so I had to have it brought home and my garage will have to collect it tomorrow.

I guess I wasn't classed as a priority and I didn't chase them up but still I thought over 7hrs was a bit poor.

 

[KeenToLearn]

StartRescue every time.

Clutch went on M1 near Sheffield, collected within an hour and brought home to Birmingham, Then a year or so later engine mount gave way in Peak District during Covid, and again collected within hour and brought home. Turned out that the ****** who did clutch had probably never tightened engine mount up, which gave way dropping engine onto driveshaft and making a right mess.

I will stay with StartRescue always now, FRACTION of the price of RAC/ AA, I pay £40/year with home start and no I do not work for them!!!

 

[Jacob]

StartRescue were good. Only once so far. About an hour to wait. He had a go at fixing it then took it to local garage and then me home. They get top marks from Which magazine.

 

[Dibs-h]

Had an Audi 80 great car then a4 TDI and 2.8 both were trouble!!

Had an Audi 80 Tdi - had 252K on it when I sold it. More than half was me. Sadly they eat front wishbones bushes on a yearly basis and I got tired of doing them.

Been running an Audi A4 Tdi for the last 14 years (it's 20yrs old now) with 240K on it - more than half is me and has run well. I replaced both rear wheel bearings 3 months ago & did a rear ABS sensor last week. Can't fault it.

The only time I had to call the RAC out for it was when it "stopped" a mile from home about 5 yrs back. They came within an hour.

Apparently the fuel pump had died. When I took the internal boot floor up to get to it - the wires to it had been chewed through and it stank of rodent wee. A clean up and soldered the wires back together and (touch wood) it's been fine.

 

[NFav]

In the 80's and 90's I was an AA patrol.
I can remember one night going to a chap near to East Mids Airport, I can't remember the problem but it wasn't something I could repair.
The member had Relay membership but we couldn't get a recovery truck to him for quite a while, so after a bit of discussion with him, I put a solid bar on & towed back to his home in Birmingham, got him back home before the recovery truck would have arrived to load his car.
We could do stuff like that back then. What happened?
Carpet Baggers.
The AA & the RAC used to be clubs, owned by the members. But along came the 'carpet baggers' and forced them to become regular listed companies (remember this happening to all the building societies?). OK so every member got a £100 payout on the company being listed.
Then came the large corporations who bought these companies up and asset striped them and sold them on. Along came venture capital groups who stripped more asset's and sold them on.
Now we have organisation's that are stripped back to the minimum they can get away with and still operate, with profit as the primary concern of management & owners.
This is market forces and short term planning at work.
I still know several AA & RAC patrols, they are still dedicated to the members (or rather customers now), but the organisation's are a shadow of whet they once were.

 

[user 35906]

I got sick of the AA, wanted cover mainly for recovery, even though we never had to call them out. After being with them for years the renewal price they used to give us were crazy, and every time I rang to cancel they came up with a much lower price. I'm with Autoaid now but never needed them yet and drive a 17 year old car.

 

[clogs]

more than 50% of vehicles in junk yard are unfixable with electronic faults....not wrecks.....
I beleive that all manufacturers shoud have to warrenty all engine electronics for 10 years or 100,000miles....
that will put a stop to all this madness.....it is doable and will help to save the planet.....
they buy the cheapest parts available.....
French cars are almost the worlds worst cars for electronic failures.....shame coz their mechanicals are superb....
they come after the newest Mercs n Beemers.....
I run a 1999 VW Transporter, 1.9TD...engine replaced at 350.000miles...it's now at 440,000miles and still good.....
luckily it has no rust at all since it was cavity waxed when new......
it will see me out unless it get written off...
oh and if I did sell it I would get double what I paid for it.......crazy world....
to replace it like for like with the new T series EV is now over £60,000......no thank u....

on the breakdown front .....here that is normally covered by ur car insurance payment..it's included......

 

[Bingy man]

I was with rac for 10 years or more, couldn’t renew because of financial starvation, phoned them anyway but because my membership had lapsed for I think 2 weeks they wanted £86. Just to come out . Only previously called them out twice in those 10 years, so told them to forget it , friend came out with a battery and off I went ( until the turbo went a week later. I’ll not use them again as they don’t reward long term customers only new ones.

 

[XTiffy]

I have just had a frustrating experience with Key-Assist. Cut a long story short, neded an auto-locksmith to program key as the immobiliser wouldn't allow car to start. On Saturday 5th November I waited eight hours with the car (25 miles from my home). I repeatably rang their office throughout the day and was always assured "he will be along shortly", (having paid up-front £120, I could not use another company). He finally arrived at 8pm and knew his stuff and completed the work inside 20 minutes. The back office was appalling, would never use them again.

 

[Jameshow]

I was with rac for 10 years or more, couldn’t renew because of financial starvation, phoned them anyway but because my membership had lapsed for I think 2 weeks they wanted £86. Just to come out . Only previously called them out twice in those 10 years, so told them to forget it , friend came out with a battery and off I went ( until the turbo went a week later. I’ll not use them again as they don’t reward long term customers only new ones.

I'd email thier customer service department for an explanation???

 

[XTiffy]

I have given a one star on their reviews. As a resulthey say they are" looking into it".
Interestingly when you put a review on there, you have to reply or they scrub your review.
So you are locked into their terms. My complaint was that after booking and paying they never contacted me all day I had to contact them and then being fobbed off. Over the day I spoke to four individuals, until eventually 40 minutes before he arrived the actual locksmith rang me.

 

[treeturner123]

Just be lucky this isn't your recovery experience!

https://www.stratford-herald.com/ne...er-who-crashed-into-river-avon-in-st-9283499/
BTW a car crashed of Eckington Bridge near me and the occupant wasn't so lucky.

Phil

 

[paulrbarnard]

The race to the bottom has been driven by greed and profit margins, we are now in a vicious circle which is self fueling itself.

I think the consumer also has a very significant, if not larger, impact on this trend. Most people shop based on price not quality... I don't beleive profit margins have changed significantly over time.

 

[MikeJhn]

I was with the AA for years, but the cost escalated to a silly amount, I also had travel insurance, light bulb moment, changing my Nationwide account at a cost of £15.00 month paid for both, year on year is much cheaper.

Never had to call out a breakdown service for any of my BMW's these include a 540, 120, 3 x 320, X5 over 200,000, and a 530 all have been perfect except the 530 the glove box hinge came undone.

 

[D_W]

I have a French car

In the states, when a car breaks down along the road and is waiting to be towed for repair, people put a white cloth or flag in the driver's window so that it doesn't get towed to an impound lot.

We don't have many French cars here, but somehow it seems like it would be a good match.

 

[Spectric]

We don't have many French cars here,

Very sensable, they have always been a PITA to repair but at least they used to have solid long lasting diesel engines that just went round the clock, like the euro diesel they built for PSA which was a 2.1 litre non turbo that was great. Now an even bigger PITA to repair and a pile of junk to go with it.

 

[Jameshow]

Very sensable, they have always been a PITA to repair but at least they used to have solid long lasting diesel engines that just went round the clock, like the euro diesel they built for PSA which was a 2.1 litre non turbo that was great. Now an even bigger PITA to repair and a pile of junk to go with it.

Yeap the old TUD engine was great.
Went like a rocket in the 205 TD..

 

[Spectric]

I had several of the old Renault 21's with the 2.1 non turbo diesel that all gave in excess of 250,000 miles, 45mpg + and you could change the cam belt in around an hour.