For my very recent experience of European (and UK) rescue cover, see my recent thread 'Fracked in France'.
Although my cover is via NARPO at a very reasonable £75 a year (bet it goes up on renewal!) it's done by Call Assist. You can recognise their policies by the use of colours to describe the various levels of cover (purple, etc.).Looking at their website they offer their policies to be sold via third party organisations (e.g. NARPO) and I'm fairly sure that they are used by some manufacturers (e.g. MB).
I've had to use them a few times over the last four years (twice now for blown-off turbo pipes) and they've been superb. Only thing is (IMHO) that they pay about £3+ per mile for recovery, so the local contractor has little incentive to fix at roadside. I was recovered from Banbury (200 miles) when a pipe blew - it was fixed by my indy in less than an hour at no charge - but that recovery cost them nearly £800, as I understand it.
On the other hand, I called them out once when the engine undertray thing had partially detached, described the problem carefully on the phone, and they appropriately sent a mechanic with a van to fix it there and then (cable ties, I think) very quickly.
Years ago, I couldn't afford the luxury of breakdown cover and spent several unhappy hours roadside under the car. One occasion replacing a lost/broken throttle return spring with the spring from a biro and some rubber bands springs (see what I did there?) comes to mind. Now, I wouldn't be without it.
|