AA breakdown - telling me about GreenFlag

pinkteapot

ripplyuk wrote: »

The customer service rep spent a long time explaining to me that I'm not comparing like with like. She said GreenFlag just sends local garages out,

True.

ripplyuk wrote: »

like a call centre and they won't cover parts or labour at the roadside. I'd be responsible for all costs involved and GreenFlag are just ringing up a garage on my behalf.

Eh?!! We've used Green Flag for the last 7 years. Had three or four callouts and have never paid a penny!

They've always arrived within 45 minutes.

Well, except for once, but we were on the Orkney Islands and their Orkney truck was on a different island that evening and, with no boat until the next day, couldn't get to us until the morning. In that case, Green Flag paid for a taxi from our broken down car to our holiday accommodation, and one back the next morning to the car to meet the chap. That is an extreme case though as, you know, Orkney Islands.

Green Flag don't have their own trucks like AA/Green Flag so sub-contract the work to a network of local independent garages. All the people we've had out have been good.

Green Flag price in a different way to the AA and RAC. Green Flag are insurance-based, and quote based on how old your car is. They're cheaper for new cars, more expensive for old cars. AA and RAC have fixed prices for everyone which are an average price. In my experience, Green Flag are cheaper for cars less than ten years old. AA and RAC are cheaper for older cars.

nidO

xHannahx wrote: »

What difference does it make whether they use local garages as long as they attend?

The difference for me is purely anecdotal from friends etc but is a fairly big one.

I and my partner been with the AA for years and between us we've called them out 6 or 7 times for various reasons, and in only one of those did they not get us back on the road straight away, as the car had a blown head gasket and I was 200 miles from home, so they took me, my 3 passengers, and my car the 200 miles home.
In every other case the guy got us back travelling within a few minutes (this has included problems such as keys locked into the car and needing to break into it for me, no damage done, and in fairness "easy" problems helping get a wheel off to fit the spare after a blowout when the wheel had fused/rusted/whatever to the car so wouldn't come off and needed a few smacks with a decent sized mallet I didn't have but the AA guy did).

The AA (and RAC) also prominently display throughout their websites that they fix 80% of issues at the roadside. Green flag and others curiously appear to omit advertising any statistic like this.

Conversely, i've known a few people call out Green Flag and in almost every case their car has ended up having to be recovered to a garage, in some cases the local bod that's shown up right from the start doesn't have any repair gear with him, he's literally just arrived with a flatbed and winch to take their car back to his garage.

In both cases the companies are so huge and varied that experiences are always going to differ, but personally i'd much rather have a good shot at having my problem fixed there and then (at no extra cost) than all the general hassle of having to have the car recovered and maybe fixed sometime, at who knows what cost.

pinkteapot

As above, we've had three or four Green Flags call out and all except one was fixed at the roadside. For the other, we were taken to the garage, about 20 minutes away, and then they fixed it immediately there. No cost and didn't delay us by that much.

Again, just an anecdote, but a counterpoint to the anecdotes above.

zaax

If a car is maintained as per the manufactures instruction it should not mechanically breakdown but a flat battery; lost keys etc. are road side fixes.