Car Breakdown Discussion

pollypenny

Any ideas where we can buy breakdown cover for for the USA?

DS now lives in the north, with some dreadful roads. Our Alamo Gold hire quote, to include breakdown, is an horrendous £1049 for a small car for September, whole month.

Sites I've looked at offer European breakdown but not USA.

We have never bothered in the past, relying on good Florida weather and proximity to the airport.

BobbinAlong

I'm in the AA which has just quoted £179 for two adults who between us own 4 vehicles incl camper van and have roadside and relay but haven't used either since camper van upgrade 3 years ago.
Shopping around for replacement as that's just too high, even for "gold" which we probably won't have to use.
Had annual European cover with Europ Assistance twice and they were brilliant when OH put petrol in diesel tank in France. Even got put up in hotel overnight - luxury on a tent camping trip! Will try them (they've a new name now) for quote for UK breakdown cover.

vinylmusic

No one responded to my earlier request for more information so I've spent the good part of a day researching
In case it's of any help to anyone else this is what I came up with

I have a 2001 Skoda Octavia and I'm 65 and look for Annual cover for whole of Europe, East and West

AA quoted £381 online dropping to £323 when I told them I was already with AA through my bank. This dropped to £236 if I excluded cover for parts used during repairs so a very high level of cover at a very high price

Rescue my car was much lower at £115

The Green Insurance Company as recommended on this (MSE) site quoted me £100

I almost decided on Aria (Europ Assistance) which quoted me only £75
But then I came across Quotelinedirect

Quoteline direct offer European AND UK cover combined at only £59
AND I'd get £5.25 cashback through Topcashback so that puts it under £55
I doubt if anyone can beat that

Before I go ahead I'd be really grateful if anyone can tell me of any first hand experiences
Is Quotelinedirect a good company with value for money or are they to be avoided

I won't list all fors and against s here but I think some things to consider when taking out cover are
*How many trips or days abroad is one allowed per year.
*Excesses
*Age of vehicle, most appear to cover max 16 years
*Number of callouts allowed per year. Usually 5 or 6
*Vehicle repatriation
I'm always suspicious of companies when reading exclusions as often they allow themselves lots of leeway to be able to wiggle out of honoring a claim so its good to know a companies track record in this respect

peterx

I have been with these for years.All is included,home start etc.
http://www.autoaidbreakdown.co.uk/

Why pay more?

vinylmusic

peterx wrote: »

I have been with these for years.All is included,home start etc.
http://www.autoaidbreakdown.co.uk/

Why pay more?

AutoAid is good for UK but useless for Europe
I called them up and they do offer EU cover but only for Western Europe and only for cars under 10 years old. They would have covered me for individual trips up to 31 days but wouldn't cover me for Czech Republic or Poland

vinylmusic

den169 wrote: »

The cheap ones are cheap for a reason they won't take your car home if it can be repaired locally that day.Read the small print.
Taken from there website

If it can be repaired locally in a day why should I then expect them to take my car home?
Quotelinedirect told me that they would repatriate my vehicle if it couldnt be repaired as long as cost of repatriation doesn't exceed the market value of the vehicle. I imagine that they all have that claus

den169

vinylmusic wrote: »

If it can be repaired locally in a day why should I then expect them to take my car home?
Quotelinedirect told me that they would repatriate my vehicle if it couldnt be repaired as long as cost of repatriation doesn't exceed the market value of the vehicle. I imagine that they all have that claus

If your happy letting them take it to a local garage and charge you what they want,Then thats fine for you,I want mine taking home unless i'm 250 miles away on holiday then i'd consider letting them take it locally,And no they don't all have that clause in there terms thats exactly why i said read the small print.As i said there cheap for a reason.

vinylmusic

I was on the verge of going with Quotelinedirect and I came across vehicle-rescue.com which appears to hava a slightly more impressive cover. Annual cover is about a tenner more
I've searched for reviews on MSE and through Google but haven't found anything that helps to sway me one way or the other

Has anyone had any experience with them?

javjon

I have just rang the AA as very unhappy about my first renewal rate just for basic breakdown cover. Quoted as £59.50 with a £14.87 discount to £44.36.

Haggled when I got through and offered a further discount to £33.63. Still said I was not happy, then offered one callout in the year for any car for FREE. They called it "Roadside 1 Callout"

Great deal for me for me as I do a low mileage and have not had a breakdown for quite a number of years.

dickdasdedly

Hi yall
Has anybody used start rescue.co.uk before. i can get short term European cover for 25 days for £48 which includes my caravan plus can get 15% back from topcashback. All ready got uk breakdown with autonational breakdown for £15 i got special offer earlier this yr:D. At that time wasn't planning on going abroad. So anyone got any pointers good or bad let me know.
Cheers Richard. :beer: