Green Flag Breakdown

Driver8 · 16 November 2011 at 12:31AM

If you are a member of this organisation be ready to look for another provider very very soon.

On the 17/11/11 from that date they will have got rid of practically all of their local contractors going out to local people to help on their breakdown.

They have now contracted their breakdown business to just six, yes six "super" agents to cover the entire length and breadth of England. Already some local agents have started to close their businesses as they cannot afford to continue trading without the work.

What will it mean for a GF member? It means you could literally be waiting hours and hours for a mechanic to turn up, if he can find you without local knowledge, to get to you. For instance there is one company based in Manchester what will cover Lancashire and a vast swathe of Yorkshire. if you break down in Leeds for instance you will wait for someone to come a long long way down the M62, the busiest motorway in Europe, to get to you. When they do find you and your vehicle needs recovering somewhere be prepared for another very very long wait for a truck to turn up to transport you and your vehicle.

The "super" agents will attempt to sub jobs out to local firms but already many many local garages what have worked for GF for years have resolutely said, no way will they help the "super" agents with sub contracting jobs. You could be waiting hours.

It is coming up to winter now, the busiest time of year for breakdown companies, and i would advise you to shop around for breakdown cover and do not whatsoever rely on GF getting to you in your time of need. More so if you live very rural.

One garage as already laid off 11 workers, another is shutting it's doors on the west coast. Many many local breakdown and recovery premises will soon be empty and many without work.

I'm sure there will be recovery agents reading these forums and will confirm what i have written. You have been warned what could happen.

NCISROCKS · 16 November 2011 at 12:45AM

Driver8 wrote: »

If you are a member of this organisation be ready to look for another provider very very soon.

On the 17/11/11 from that date they will have got rid of practically all of their local contractors going out to local people to help on their breakdown.

They have now contracted their breakdown business to just six, yes six "super" agents to cover the entire length and breadth of England. Already some local agents have started to close their businesses as they cannot afford to continue trading without the work.

What will it mean for a GF member? It means you could literally be waiting hours and hours for a mechanic to turn up, if he can find you without local knowledge, to get to you. For instance there is one company based in Manchester what will cover Lancashire and a vast swathe of Yorkshire. if you break down in Leeds for instance you will wait for someone to come a long long way down the M62, the busiest motorway in Europe, to get to you. When they do find you and your vehicle needs recovering somewhere be prepared for another very very long wait for a truck to turn up to transport you and your vehicle.

The "super" agents will attempt to sub jobs out to local firms but already many many local garages what have worked for GF for years have resolutely said, no way will they help the "super" agents with sub contracting jobs. You could be waiting hours.

It is coming up to winter now, the busiest time of year for breakdown companies, and i would advise you to shop around for breakdown cover and do not whatsoever rely on GF getting to you in your time of need. More so if you live very rural.

One garage as already laid off 11 workers, another is shutting it's doors on the west coast. Many many local breakdown and recovery premises will soon be empty and many without work.

I'm sure there will be recovery agents reading these forums and will confirm what i have written. You have been warned what could happen.

...not being in England I'm cool about this money saving initiative.

ikati5 · 16 November 2011 at 12:45AM

I just wanted to say Thanks but there is no Thanks button!

andyo · 16 November 2011 at 1:01AM

This is a shame as one of the attractions of National Breakdown, which became Green Flag was that you were getting a 'real' mechanic from a local garage to deal with your rescue as opposed to the RAC and AA who had fancy liveried vehicles, but not always the best service. I became disillusioned when Green Flag was sold and in reality it became one of the mainstream road rescue providers, with subsequent increases in premiums. I joined GEM Motoring Assist who still use local recovery agents as do several other smaller companies. I would urge Green Flag members to consider moving elsewhere and I am sure they will make a saving while still supporting local breakdown recovery operators.

Quat · 16 November 2011 at 8:11AM

While I agree it's a shame to see smaller businesses losing out, I really doubt customers will notice any significant difference.

They have now contracted their breakdown business to just six, yes six "super" agents to cover the entire length and breadth of England

I don't see how the number of companies is relevant. If they "cover the entire length and breadth of England" (maybe even Scotland and Wales?), where's the problem?

It means you could literally be waiting hours and hours for a mechanic to turn up, if he can find you without local knowledge, to get to you.

As you're making that claim, could you advise what percentage of customers you envisage will be waiting "hours and hours"? I don't see why Green Flag would suddenly decide they want to attend breakdowns as slowly as possible. While not without their faults, the "other two" manage to find customers with relative ease and in my experience of the RAC, the "mechanic" has always been local, whichever part of the country I'm in.

Seeing as I can give a GPS location from my phone these days, why would they struggle to find me? Do you have any statistics for how many breakdowns are never found? I appreciate it can sometimes be a pain giving an exact location if you don't know where you are, but beyond a bit of frustration, how many people do you really think will experience a call from Green Flag to say "sorry mate, won't be coming, can't find you"?

For instance there is one company based in Manchester what will cover Lancashire and a vast swathe of Yorkshire. if you break down in Leeds for instance you will wait for someone to come a long long way down the M62, the busiest motorway in Europe, to get to you.

Or maybe their patrols will spend time out on the roads moving from customer to customer or stationed remotely? Why would they have all their patrols sitting at the depot waiting for a call, send one out to attend a breakdown then have it return straight after? That might be how a smaller company operates, but on the scale you're talking about, chances are you will be attended to by a patrol that is already out on the road.

The "super" agents will attempt to sub jobs out to local firms but already many many local garages what have worked for GF for years have resolutely said, no way will they help the "super" agents with sub contracting jobs.

What business sense does it make to turn down work? These companies deserve to go out of business.

One garage as already laid off 11 workers, another is shutting it's doors on the west coast. Many many local breakdown and recovery premises will soon be empty and many without work.

Of course it's a shame to see businesses close and people lose jobs, but the companies have to accept some of the blame if they relied so heavily on their contracts with Green Flag. Why did they never seek to diversify their business? Why was there no contingency plan?

For what it's worth, I've been an RAC member for ten years, have had to call them three times and on each occasion they have arrived in around 30 minutes. The patrols have been helpful, friendly and have always done a good job. They manage to do all this despite no local contracting and without the "local knowledge" of a smaller garage.

System · 16 November 2011 at 10:45AM

Personally I welcome this move. When I was at uni I was with green flag and called them twice. As it was a local contractor my car was just taken to his garage where he proceeded to rip me off, my car broke down 6 months later when I had left uni and my normal garage showed me the 'new' parts the green flag garage had charged me for. They were clearly old rusty parts. If green flag start having only 6 main centres hopefully things like this will stop happening!