Weds night the AA could not find me, despite being the ONLY bright yellow fiat punto with hazard lights on, on a main dual carriageway between two small towns, and given them Northings and Easting Co-ordinates, which would pin me down to 10 sq metres anywhere on earth.
" Those numbers are no good to me mate"
Fengibbons!
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Fengibbon - where's that expression from? Sorry can't resist asking as I haven't heard that term before! Sounds a bit more interesting than bunch of monkeys :-)
teabelly
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Always found the AA really good actually. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've used them quite a lot for very different cars and never had a bad experience. Usually they've gone out of their way to help. Only speaking as I've found...
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I think you can better GEM for £49.95, its £36 if you get it from the Telegraph web site.
Can't comment on the service yet as I've never broken down.
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Last Wednesday, I was unfortunate to break down on the way home from watching Top Gear being filmed.
Phoned the AA, and gave location as "on A11 Trunk road between Attleborough and Wymondham, approx 2 miles N of Besthorpe Services."
Apparantly, these details were insufficient for the fengibbon at the other end of the phone. "I need to know the last juction you passed so we can find you"
"Well, we're the ONLY yellow punto sporting on the side of the road with hazards on"
"I said I need to know the junction you last passed"
I happened to be testing out a friends RoadAngel, and therefore could pinpoint my position to within 5 m on the earths surface, however this was no good.
"That's no good to me"
So,
did I receive service from Hell, or can Britains premier motoring organization relaly not use 21st Century technology. Their website says their vans all have Sat Nav, so why can they not use this.
Do I therefore have to resort to mediaevel systems, and give map junctions, compass bearings, sextant readings and the position of the stars?
From just that one phone call my perception of the AA has been tarnished. Come renewal, I shall be looking around.
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I know exactly what you mean about one bad experience.
$ hours waiting for the AA in Londan, won't use them again
9 hours for the AA to get me home. It was a twenty mile trip.
Called Green Flag out twice, both times they arrived after a 58 minute wait. I can cope with that.
--
I read often, only post occasionally
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I know exactly what you mean about one bad experience. $ hours waiting for the AA in Londan, won't use them again 9 hours for the AA to get me home. It was a twenty mile trip. Called Green Flag out twice, both times they arrived after a 58 minute wait. I can cope with that. -- I read often, only post occasionally
Hi
Please advise what car you have?
Thanks in advance.
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>> I know exactly what you mean about one bad experience. >> >> $ hours waiting for the AA in Londan, won't use them >> again >> >> 9 hours for the RAC to get me home. It was >> a twenty mile trip. >> >> Called Green Flag out twice, both times they arrived after a >> 58 minute wait. I can cope with that. >> -- >> I read often, only post occasionally >> Hi Please advise what car you have? Thanks in advance.
Note that I've changed the AA to the RAC in the original part of my post, wasn't fully awake when I typed it first time.
Not that it makes much difference, but the cars, in order were
Meastro
Mini
Catedrham 7
Cavalier
--
I read often, only post occasionally
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I once called out Green Flag after being in a big pile-up on the M6. They took an hour and a half to arrive at the location, by which time the police had instructed another breakdown truck to remove my (undriveable) car. They even had the nerve to suggest that I should pay the other recoverer's fee! Needless to say, I didn't.
For the record, I only had the cover because my dad insisted on buying it as the car was insured in his name. Personally I don't think breakdown cover is worth the money, so long as your car is well-maintained.
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had to spend 10 minutes explaining to the idiot on the end of phone that a grid reference really was the best way for them to find me in milton keynes
on another occassion cam belt snapped after driving out of gatwick having just arrived back in the country in the middle of the fuel protest and having no petrol anyway, stupid idiot from AA spent 5 minutes swearing at SWMBO for having the nerve to waste his precious fuel, i nearly decked him
on the other hand had lots of great service from both aa and rac, a friend broke down outside the rac control centre, ha ha
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Apologies for the temporary absence of this part of the thread. The intention was to combine the two AA threads which began at almost the same moment.
Unfortunately this bit took the scenic route, but has at least arrived now.
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Fengibbon - Stole it off Karl Minns, one of the nimmo twins, a local comedian. (In Norfolk) - If anyone lives this way and gets a chance to go and see them, do so. Very very funny.
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I used to be with the AA but gave them up. I had a subaru SVX, which is quite rare (I was told that only 4000 were ever brought into the uk), and has an engine and gearbox which is not shared with any other model. I had a gearbox failure on the M1 and the AA refused to rescue me (i had rescue) but wanted to take the car to their nearest repair centre. I explained that it was not an 'ordinary' car and could only be dealt with at a small number of specialists (at that time there was only one subaru authorised centre for repairing that autobox).
I rang my local main dealer (KT Green near Otley, who were SVX specialists) and they arranged a recovery. It cost me £80 for the recovery against the £120 or so I think I had paid for the AA membership. It wasnt a difficult decision to dump the AA.
Lets not get into the problems I had with the warranty provided by the Reading dealer that I bought the car from and the reluctance to pay despite the specific question on purchase about the auto box being fully covered, it being the major weak spot on an otherwise excellent sports coupe.
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Our experience of the AA was the patrolman who told SWMBO that "I am not allowed to use that" when given the aerosol which came with the 206cc for puncture repairs.
She was asked to drive on the damaged, part re-flated, tyre about 1 mile to the nearest repair centre.
When I subsequently complained they agreed that this was dangerous but when asked why she wasn't offered relay (paid for) they said you don't get relay if you dont have a spare tyre even if the car is designed not to have one! So if it had happened in a different place on her commute at a different time of year they would have left her alone in the dark on a country lane with a puncture - hardly the image they want to portray.
AA didn't keep our custom as helping SWMBO when these events happen are just why she had been a member for 20 years - but when called on they failed so she felt we could no longer rely on them - exactly what you need to do with a rescue service.
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Interesting, I have a car which has no spare, and I always carry one of those aersols. Idea being to allow me to get to a place of safety, before calling the RAC, although it would depend how far I was from home as I'd risk 20 mph for the back, or 30mph for the front (a flat rear in a Morgan trike is a killer). After dark forget it - place of safety!
Few tyre repair places have any idea about vintage tyres and I fit my own with tyre levers, elbow grease and rude words (it's not that easy).
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