Roadside Recovery: AutoAid Feedback

meno_2

mrs_baggins wrote: »

when I called the AA to cancel they suddenly offered to reduce my payment. Funny that! They never offered to reduce it before. I still cancelled though out of principal. Plus autoaid was cheaper for the same thing (almost) and I am happy

Excellent, thats just how i am. cancel out of principal, they are happy robbing you until you complain. :beer: :beer:

nigelwest

Following Martin's recommendation and an expensive renewal from the AA (cut in half when I phoned to cancel) I've been with AutoAid for two years. Earlier this year my wife had a problem with the brakes on our Volvo estate and the car was recovered to our local garage quickly, with the a cheque received from AutoAid within a week.

On Friday, however, we broke down on the M3/M27 slip road in our elderly camper van. Having phoned at 7pm, I phoned back at 8:10, to be told it would be another 20 minutes and when nobody had turned up by 8:35 was told it would be another 10 minutes. When I pointed out that I had been told 20 minutes, 25 minutes ago, the chap I spoke to said he would speak to the recovery firm and call back. When he called back it appeared there had been a lot of accidents and road closures, which meant that the recovery firms were all busy. I was then told that accidents took priority over breakdowns, even if you've been out of the vehicle with two children for nearly 2 hours.

At 9:15pm a recovery vehicle turned up, ascertained that the vehicle couldn't be fixed, but his vehicle wasn't big enough to recover the camper van. It then became apparent that AutoAid only cover motor caravans up to 2,500kg and I have no idea how heavy ours is (it's a 1989 Talbot Express with Autoquest body). Now it's my fault for not reading the small print, however, AutoAid said they would send a larger recovery vehicle, couldn't say when it would arrive but they would call when they knew.

At 11pm there we were still there, and another call revealed that the ETA was now midnight. At 11:30 the recovery vehicle arrived and by midnight we were on our way home.

Nobody was hurt and we were fortunate to have lots of clothes, sleeping bags and food, plus I was able to stop under a bridge so we weren't affected by the rain. Waiting beside a motorway isn't the best use of 5 hours and the noise is exhausting, but the worst thing was the lack of care and concern by AutoAid and not being kept up to date with what was going on.

meno_2

nigelwest wrote: »

but the worst thing was the lack of care and concern by AutoAid and not being kept up to date with what was going on.

Auto Aid are only an insurance company, they employ YOU, its the recovery companys job to keep you up to date on what was going on.

Thats why i keep the numbers of good recovery firms in my phone, dont involve Auto Aid in your recovery, get recovered as quickly as YOU can then send your claim form in.

nigelwest

Thanks meno, that's a good tip.

bigup7

is there a maximum times you can use Auto Aid per year? or can you use them as many times as you want?

also where would i get the claim form to send Auto aid with the invoices?

meno_2

bigup7 wrote: »

is there a maximum times you can use Auto Aid per year? or can you use them as many times as you want?

I dont know of a limit, but if you need to make a LOT of claims then its your car you need to worry about not Auto Aid

bigup7 wrote: »

i
also where would i get the claim form to send Auto aid with the invoices?

You get one in your policy documents, plus they are available on their website

gristleboy

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Gristle - any chance of an update on this? It's disappointing when people come on and criticise but don't follow up, so I hope you won't be falling into that trap!

I would say, frankly, that it's just as likely that there's a problem with your post as there being a problem with AutoAid who have paid my claims almost instantaneously. But we shall wait and see what you report back.

Got to the bottom of it all finally! The second cheque had never been issued, just authorised. Once I got through to one of the supervisors who was able to investigate things more fully I received the cheque within 10 days. I must admit I also suspected the postal system and went to my local office - to no avail obviously as the cheque had not been sent. In summary, I think that I was the subject of some sort of loop within Auto Aid , but now all is resolved. Happy again as up to this episode I think from all that I hear and have read this is a most excellent service.

quickstepqueen

Thanks for the update Gristle and glad it all got sorted.

Pagan98

meno wrote: »

Thats why i keep the numbers of good recovery firms in my phone

Are these recovery firms local to you or national?
If national, would you share who you consider to be good (and why)? TIA

brownbabygirl

I just called them to join. Took my details very swiftly, within 5 mins! Friendly service. Gave me the breakdown number and told me I should be covered from midnight tomorrow!