making breakdown service better

mumbles_one

last week my car decided not to start while in the M4 services. I have a free membership to AA from my bank (how weird is that???) and as it happened there was a AA breakdown van already in the services dealing with another breakdown but he wouldn't deal with me as I had to call it in first. After calling the banks breakdown number I was told it was going to be 2 hours until another van would arrive.In the 2 hours wait (and after half a dozen RAC vans passed by) I came to the conclusion it would be more efficient to have only one national breakdown service and that would mean everyone would benefit from the extra vans and the service would only need one set of managers and call centres resulting in a big cost saving which would pay for even better service.
Come to think of it this would apply to all utilities.
The AA advised me not to run my car on chip fat while driving on the motorway What do they know??? there is a good supply of waste oil at the services

mumbles_one

Now is the time to eat my words as well as my chip fat . I broke down again last weekend and called the AA again. They arrived up after 20 minutes and after 1 hour had done a complete check on my old Mercedes finding a number of long standing problems . I am now a big fan of the AA .

Mark_Hewitt

mumbles_one wrote: »

last week my car decided not to start while in the M4 services. I have a free membership to AA from my bank (how weird is that???)

Me too! Although it's hardly free, I have to pay extra for the package which includes breakdown cover, which as it's a joint account works out well.

and as it happened there was a AA breakdown van already in the services dealing with another breakdown but he wouldn't deal with me as I had to call it in first.

Which is fair enough, you have to prove you are entitled to the service.
It's strange they didn't send the van already on site over to you however, unless they had to tow the other person away. Of course I guess they have to deal with calls in order of them calling in, even if it means driving past a callout to get to another one.

I've been broken down in a services before and called the AA, then flagged down the patrol van when it approached and discovered he was actually looking for someone else, but since he couldn't find them, he'd work on my car there and then! That was a good 10 years ago, mind.

One breakdown service would stop competition however there's no reason why they can't work together, e.g. if you break down and there's no AA vans in the area, but RAC is close by, they can be contracted to come and help you. But I guess if every time you call the AA the RAC turns up, you are going to be thinking of renewing with the RAC next time I guess!

mumbles_one

I have just learned something new about breakdown service. I received a warning letter about staying in Tesco car park for more than 2 hours. Looking back it was the day my car wouldn't start and I called the RAC. When they arrived the car started OK but I had stayed more than 2 hours. I took the letter to Tesco and spoke to the security guard thinking they must have seen me on the CCTV and it turns out they don't manage the CCTV or the car part BUT if you breakdown in a Tesco car park you are automatically covered by RAC breakdown as Tesco have a contract with them just for such occasions. So if you don't have breakdown cover then make sure you park in supermarket car parks.

Strider590

mumbles_one wrote: »

I have a free membership to AA from my bank (how weird is that???) and as it happened there was a AA breakdown van already in the services dealing with another breakdown but he wouldn't deal with me as I had to call it in first.

Not his fault...... I imagine he has the equivalent of time sheets to fill in and your job wouldn't go onto his "time sheet" therefore leaving a black mark on his record and looking bad at his next review.

Blame tickbox management.

rev_henry

mumbles_one wrote: »

I have just learned something new about breakdown service. I received a warning letter about staying in Tesco car park for more than 2 hours. Looking back it was the day my car wouldn't start and I called the RAC. When they arrived the car started OK but I had stayed more than 2 hours. I took the letter to Tesco and spoke to the security guard thinking they must have seen me on the CCTV and it turns out they don't manage the CCTV or the car part BUT if you breakdown in a Tesco car park you are automatically covered by RAC breakdown as Tesco have a contract with them just for such occasions. So if you don't have breakdown cover then make sure you park in supermarket car parks.

Thats VERY good to know! Why don't they publicise this? They could stop abuse by making people show their receipts...

Your idea about 1 company is a nice idea but will never work because of competition etc unfortunately.