The Cheapest Roadside Recovery Article Discussion Area

IT_Troll

Final chapter in my story. As a last resort I emailed moneysupermarket.com's official complaints email address and this time got an instant response! They have reset the start date of my policy to today with 12 months of cover. So they came good in the end but it took a lot to get there. Proceed with caution...

Crabman

goody2boots wrote:

Hi everyone, I am not new to moneysaving expert but am new to actually posting, I just wanted to let you all know about this cover I have come across as I think it is the cheapest around for the service that it offers. I am yet to sign up but just wondered if anyone else has had any dealings with them or indeed signed up?? The cover is £29.99 inclusive of roadside assistance, recovery and home-call!

Id be grateful for any opinions??

Jodie

http://www.vehiclebreakdown.org.uk

This sounds like an amazing deal, has anyone gone for it?? :think:

maclean2

Hi - if something is so cheap it often is too good to be true.The website looks very amateur.More to the point I cannot see from FSA site that they are properly approved.

Suggest you stay well clear.

greyster

Took out the autoaid policy with my first car in January last year after reading an article on MSE.

Couldn't refuse £32 for a tariff which competes with the upper end AA/RAC ones.

Thought I would never have to use (especially at the beginning of my driving life) when a 60 year old lady decided to drive out of her junction and into me, even though she could have seen me from a mile away on my straight A road.

Phoned autoaid, they phoned a local recovery service who turned up after 45 mins, towed my car to their yard. Their boss pretty much told me my car had been written off so I asked if I could take all cd/mp3 player out which they did for me. Charged me £130 and took me home after.

Filled in a claim form which came with my autoaid welcome pack and got a refund within the week. Carphonewarehouse and associated companies could learn a lot from the term cashback from this company.

My new car came from a dealer with free AA membership so I don't need to renew my autoaid just yet. When it expires I'll be going right back!!!

SkintEastwood_3

I received my renewal notice for breakdown recovery from the RAC.
The price was £159 for 2 people on solution 3.

However their online price to new customers for this solution was only £111

When I called to query this they offered me a £25 reduction. However when I said 'get lost' they had no hesitation in matching their online price of £111 - so I saved myself £49. I assume the other big beasts use this trick - it's not car insurance and they are taking the buscuit by thinking they can charge existing customers more - get on the phone when your renewal is due or just switch every year. I've spent my £49 down the pub now and it was more fun than giving it to the RAC
Easy now

Cosmo

I've just switched to AutoAid and had an interesting chat with the AA when I cancled my current cover. The AA guy claimed that AutoAid couldn't do 24hr cover as garages closed after 6pm, took longer than an hour to arrive and that you won't be able to claim back all the costs from them. All untrue from the comments of other posters here.

He did try and offer me 30% off the AA cost for being a member for 8 years but that's still over £60 more expensive than AutoAid. With the money I saved I was able to buy Europ Assistance from Quotelinedirect for one of my cars which is over 2.5L and includes cover in Europe which was prohibitivly expensive elsewhere (eg The AA) as it is more than 10 years old.

AutoAid might be interested to know what the the AA are saying about them.

hollydays

Got cover last year for £25, with the AA going thru quidco and a n offer of free joint membership they had on. AA price £47 for single on this years renewal.Dont really need joint so approached RAC who offered me 29.99 (after I also mentioned Auto Aid,then got £32 from AA.When the AA sent me my renewal there was an offer to send them your insurance expiry details to claIim A £10 Sainsburys voucher(thesmall print however said we reserve theright to withdraw this offer at any time after the 31st dec 2006,and subject to availability).I mentioned to the adviser that i wanted to know if this offer still stood,she couldnt confirm,so offered to send me a £10 Marks and Spencer voucher.Making my membership £22.

Sam2007

I have to laugh at all you people who think your £32 cover is comparable with top cover from the likes of RAC or AA. You're dreamers!

Thats like saying Tesco Value bread at 18p is just as good as Hovis or Tesco Finest, how naive can you get? Its cheaper cover because it's cheaper service, all these companies like Autoaid don't have any of their own patrols they use local contractors who can charge you labour after a 'reasonable time' which will quickly pass that £30 'saving' you made going for cheaper service.

I work in the industry and I've heard some horror stories from people using these cheaper services, half the time they don't even send out trained mechanics. So to all you people using these cheap services, do so at your own risk but please don't compare them to AA/RAC its insulting.

Leonardo_3

Well I have AutoAid. I rang them up and they quoted me 1 hour to be recovered at 6pm yesterday which I wasn't too pleased with it raining. However the recovery vehicle turned up 10 minutes later and took me home no bother. The alternator belt had gone so there was no way any repairs could have been done. He was a very pleasant man who told me they are a local contractor for all the breakdown services. He even pushed the car all the way up my drive so can park other car in front of it until I fix the car at the weekend.
So the service is the same as you'd get with bigger companies, only difference being I paid the £70 recovery costs on credit card and just need to claim it back.

TRINITY

I have Autoaid and think they are marvellous. The car battery died in the cold weather. I called autoaid who had a local man at my door within 15 minutes . He did the job, and I reclaimed £45 home start fees. Received my cheque from Autoaid within 3 days. Cant get better than that