Bad service from the AA

Beefpipe

on sunday i broke down 50 miles away from home, with my 9 year old son, in a dangerous spot. After my initial call to the AA at 14:43 they sent the police to drag me to safety. I then called back at 15:14 to be told somebody was coming to assist. Somebody did come from a local recovery after a few hours, in a van but i needed recovery on a flat bed truck. I then had to pay £116 to upgrade to relay which had a £50 premium because i was in a breakdown situation after being told i'd be recovered in 1 hour 40 minutes nothing turned up so i called back, again, to be told recovery would come at 21:40.

My girlfriend came out to collect my son at this point, from leicester which was 100 mile round trip. 21:40 came and went so i called again to be told i should have been collected already. another local firm turned up at 22:21.
I thought 7+ hours is a long time to wait.

What advice would any of you give?

LandyAndy

Well it sounds like very poor response particularly as you had a small child with you.


However, you can't complain about having to pay the £116 for a service you had taken a chance on not needing.


I'm in the RAC and have always had excellent service from them.

Beefpipe

I do have AA but had to upgrade.

giraffe69

My advice would be to take out the package with the AA RAC or someone else that you want. If you don't want relay because of the cost then you can't be that surprised that being recovered incurs an additional cost.

I would write to them and say that after you had paid they offered very poor service and you believe you are due some refund, give a reason and suggest a reasonable amount.

topdaddy_2

Beefpipe wrote: »

on sunday i broke down 50 miles away from home, with my 9 year old son, in a dangerous spot. After my initial call to the AA at 14:43 they sent the police to drag me to safety. I then called back at 15:14 to be told somebody was coming to assist. Somebody did come from a local recovery after a few hours, in a van but i needed recovery on a flat bed truck. I then had to pay £116 to upgrade to relay which had a £50 premium because i was in a breakdown situation after being told i'd be recovered in 1 hour 40 minutes nothing turned up so i called back, again, to be told recovery would come at 21:40.

My girlfriend came out to collect my son at this point, from leicester which was 100 mile round trip. 21:40 came and went so i called again to be told i should have been collected already. another local firm turned up at 22:21.
I thought 7+ hours is a long time to wait.

What advice would any of you give?

seven hours is obviously too long and yes this is terrible service. Theyre get out clause will be the local guy they sent you( had that my self "yer mate it needs recovering but I can do that". WHY COME THEN!!!!) I digress...the upgrading part is fair, you get what you pay for. Id suggest green flag but they all have their faults.

AdrianC

Beefpipe wrote: »

I do have AA but had to upgrade.

You had to upgrade because, I suspect, you wanted to use the extra benefits of the Relay service - to get you home, rather than just have the car taken to a local garage.

Whether you have a child with you or not is irrelevant to whether you get what you paid for, and doesn't entitle you to the next tier of service up for free.

Beefpipe

I honestly don't mind paying for a service. I even don't mind the extra £50 but I don't expect to have to wait 7+ hours. With or without a child. Thanks for the advice

AdrianC

They will ALWAYS send a van out first to do triage, because the vast majority of breakdowns can be either sorted at roadside. If they can't, then being taken to a local garage can usually be done by a van on a dolly or A-frame.

I suspect that the longer delay was not unrelated to your decision to upgrade the service you wanted, but local conditions - what's available, and what's in use - would also play a large part, ESPECIALLY on a very hot weekend.

DT391

Bad service from the R.A.C
Honda Accord broke down 6th July (lower ball joint snapped), R.A.C came out and tried to drive the car onto his carrier by placing the broken ball joint back onto its socket by jacking car up then lowering but as soon as he went to drive the car onto the equipment the wheel tilted and pulled the driveshaft out of the engine, as the engine was still going I could hear the drive shaft splines being ground away.
anyway they have admitted being in the wrong, patrol officer should have pulled the car onto the ramp by tow wire but will only pay £77.50, as they say the car has done 176,00 miles.
My argument is that the driveshaft was fine before and it was the direct action of the R.A.C that caused it to need reconditioning.
I was also without my car for 4 days
total bill for repair was £312.40
£16.67 for the ball joint, £60 for labour and the rest for reconditioning the drive shaft!
I have turned this offer down and they say that was the final and only offer they will make
As you can imagine I'm not happy about this and would like any advise as what to do next

DT391

I've just realised that I should have posted as a new thread but can't see how too yet!

The_AA_Company_Representative

Hello,

I am an official representative of the AA. We'd very much like the opportunity to look into this further for you. If you could please email chat@theaa.com with your membership number, full name and address with reference FO78237 and we'll look into this.

Kind Regards
The AA