Breakdown cover

[redsturgeon]

Has anyone any recommendations on a decent company to use for breakdown assistance? Or on the other hand companies to definitely avoid?

I went on moneysupermaket to compare and there are companies offering cover from £18 pa to over £100 pa of which the onlt one I had heard of was green flag.

Should I just play safe and go AA or RAC?

John

[sg31]

I've used this company in the past

https://www.startrescue.co.uk/

They are reasonably priced and helped me out when I needed it. There are cheaper options.

[swill453]

Do you need European cover? This can put the price up a lot. I need it for my campervan so we use the cover provided with our Nationwide Flexplus current account.

The account costs £13/month but pays 5% on a balance of £2500 so this offsets it by about £6/month.

For this we get
- European breakdown cover for car and campervan
- travel insurance
- mobile phone insurance
- fee-free cash withdrawals abroad at official Visa exchange rate
- access to the Nationwide regular savings account also paying 5% (EDIT: I think this isn't available any more)

Works for us.

Scott.

[fisher]

Another satisfied Autoaid customer here. Have had their cover for over 10 years and called them out 3 or 4 times. No problems and cheaper than most.

[JohnB]

Britannia Rescue have served me well

[dionaeamuscipula]

Autoaid here as well. Cost just under £50 for joint coverage. We have had a number of callouts including a 150 mile journey on the back of three different low loaders. Good communication with UK based call centre and no quibble about the claim, or that I wasn't actually driving the car.

As with some other breakdown companies they will not cover calls for punctures unless you have either a spare (we don't, in one car) or a puncture repair kit (we did but MrsDM couldn't find it).

DM

[richlist]

I've been with the AA & RAC but they entice you in at a low price and then raise the price significantly year after year at renewal.
Last year I added the breakdown cover to my Esure car insurance policy....but it only covered me for x1 car.

This year ive opted to go with Autoaid . £48 for both of us in any car.

[bungeejumper]

I've been with the AA & RAC but they entice you in at a low price and then raise the price significantly year after year at renewal.

My wife was with RAC until this year, when they tried to charge her an additional £49 administration fee for her renewal. I wonder whose stupid greedy idea that was? She is now an ex-RAC member, and she's on the Green Flag version with all the extra bells and whistles for £62.

My Toyota is covered by a Europe-wide breakdown, onward travel, hotel and 48 hour hire car that costs £7 a month. It doesn't seem to include repatriation costs when you're abroad. (I've needed that once in 35 years, when a French Ford dealer couldn't be @rsed to order me a fuel injector and the car had to be shipped back to UK on a lorry.) Surprise, surprise, the Toyota policy is supplied by the AA, which also does most of the member policies for UK banks like Lloyds.

BJ

[kempiejon]

I've been with the AA & RAC but they entice you in at a low price and then raise the price significantly year after year at renewal.
Last year I added the breakdown cover to my Esure car insurance policy....but it only covered me for x1 car.

This year ive opted to go with Autoaid . £48 for both of us in any car.

Like any insurance policy always shop around rather than renew, I see breakdown cover as insurance. With the AA a threat to cancel will usually get a discount. My car insurance is with Churchill this year and comes with a recovery service included it might be greenflag but I can't remember. My HSBC current account (paid for) also offers me cover so this year I'm doubly covered.

[Midsmartin]

If you have an environmental interest, look at the ETA

https://www.eta.co.uk

..who are more interested in sustainability, and less in campaigning for ever more roads.
They use a network of local garages, not their own vans. I've had to call them a couple of times, and have had to wait maybe an hour each time (after being triaged to check I wasn't in danger etc).

[gryffron]

Just got my autoaid renewal, and it has gone up from £41 to £60. OUCH!
Gryff

[PhaseThree]

I use the RAC primarily because I can pay for it entirely in Tesco vouchers. As my most convenient petrol station is the local Tesco I get to buy this years breakdown cover with the vouchers I received with last years fuel.

[bungeejumper]

The truth is, we can all whinge about service X charging us £30 more than service Y, and we can all swap notes about how to save £25 a year. But, at the end of the day, it's all a pretty small matter compared to the overall outlay on running a car. (Rarely less than £3K a year, including depreciation )

I totally get it about how the bigger outfits (AA, RAC) will try to charge us 50% over the odds because they've got advertising campaigns to pay for, and evil shareholders to pacify. And I also get it that you can run a cheap service based on a lash-up of whatever towaway trucks happen to be in the area where you break down. But at the end of the evil day, I want to see somebody who can get to me fast with an up-to date van and decent gear. (The last third-party truck that I called out in the middle of nowhere didn't even have a diagnostic computer, let alone a driver who knew how to use it. )

It helps if the breakdown service can keep me in the frame by texting me frequently updated messages about how long it'll take them to get to me by the roadside. (And that's all the more important when it's my wife calling them out, and not me.) On most of these metrics, the big boys have the cheapo competition beaten. You pays your money and (etc etc etc, continued on page 94).

We'll see how Green Flag measure up.

[Howard]

Has anyone any recommendations on a decent company to use for breakdown assistance? Or on the other hand companies to definitely avoid?

I went on moneysupermaket to compare and there are companies offering cover from £18 pa to over £100 pa of which the onlt one I had heard of was green flag.

Should I just play safe and go AA or RAC?

John

Just a thought - are you sure you need the cover? If you have purchased/leased a car from new and have it serviced regularly then breakdown assistance is usually covered by the manufacturer.

I've been lucky and never had a car which broke down in the last 20+ years. But did get stuck in a muddy car park. The manufacturer sent a recovery truck to pull me out free of charge within 45 minutes.

regards

Howard

[redsturgeon]

Has anyone any recommendations on a decent company to use for breakdown assistance? Or on the other hand companies to definitely avoid?

I went on moneysupermaket to compare and there are companies offering cover from £18 pa to over £100 pa of which the onlt one I had heard of was green flag.

Should I just play safe and go AA or RAC?

John

Just a thought - are you sure you need the cover? If you have purchased/leased a car from new and have it serviced regularly then breakdown assistance is usually covered by the manufacturer.

I've been lucky and never had a car which broke down in the last 20+ years. But did get stuck in a muddy car park. The manufacturer sent a recovery truck to pull me out free of charge within 45 minutes.

regards

Howard

Thanks Howard but this is for another car.

John

[swill453]

Motorised caravans can be covered provided they are under 2.5 tons gross vehicle weight

That won't cover very many. The breakdown cover I get bundled with my Nationwide Flexplus account covers motorhomes up to 6.5 tons I think. For the whole of Europe too.

Scott.