Roadside Assistance Response times

Chomeur

Do any roadside assistance companies guarantee service within a certain amount of time? I've now been waiting two hours for Nationwide to send me someone under the policy that I get as part of the premium account that I pay for with them. It's a bit unreasonable. Wondering if I should close the account and take out cover elsewhere.

Thanks

Edit: The particularly annoying thing is that they keep phoning up to say he'll be with me shortly, and then he never arrives.

BeenThroughItAll

I've had cause to use the Nationwide-provided recovery twice (broken spring in a Tesco car park, and a broken water pump at the side of the M62) and both times the service has been excellent. Very quick and efficient.

Quentin

Chomeur wrote: »

....... Wondering if I should close the account and take out cover elsewhere.

Thanks

Edit: The particularly annoying thing is that they keep phoning up to say he'll be with me shortly, and then he never arrives.

You won't be able to get cover elsewhere to come to you now! (If you find one that does let you join and use them immediately then expect a charge for doing so.)

Strider590

When my gearbox went, my breakdown service took less than 30mins. That is despite all the complaints I read online about the RAC being VERY slow.

Now this occurred in June and I can only conclude that more breakdowns occur during the winter months (which is true), when people have been "nursing" (rather recharging and jumping) dead car batteries, or simply not doing their regular maintenance checks.

Blaming your breakdown company is not constructive, the people to blame are the idiots that don't maintain their vehicles properly.
These companies have to balance the number of staff with the number of breakdowns they get, enough staff in winter could be too many staff in summer.

If a company was laying off experienced staff in the summer and hiring staff in the winter, they'd soon find that no decent staff would want to work for them, they'd just have a bunch of idiots out there smacking car engines with lump hammers and wondering why it doesn't work.

As I said, the real problem is idiot customers not maintaining their cars, i've used a breakdown service once in 20 years of driving and that was due to a completely unpredictable catastrophic instantaneous gearbox failure on a car that was 12 years old with 130k miles on the clock.

EssexExile

Strider590 wrote: »

These companies have to balance the number of staff with the number of breakdowns they get, enough staff in winter could be too many staff in summer.

I would assume these companies used annualised hours as mine did when I worked. You work longer hours in the busy season & shorter in the quiet season.

phill99

You won't get any company to guarantee that they will attend in a certain time limit. How could they? If there are major storms and loads of cars flooded, then every one will be calling them out. There is no way you would get a guaranteed time. You need to lower your expectations.

peter12345678910

AA 1hour for an engine that blew up. RAC was 15mins or less for a temperature problem I think they come quicker if you have a baby in the car. The comments by the RAC helped me eventually to fix the problem a couple of months later.

Strider590

peter12345678910 wrote: »

AA 1hour for an engine that blew up. RAC was 15mins or less for a temperature problem I think they come quicker if you have a baby in the car. The comments by the RAC helped me eventually to fix the problem a couple of months later.

I think as well, if the problem is trivial, something that was the drivers fault (low oil/coolant level), or something the driver is just too lazy to do (like changing a flat tyre), or worse "my washer fluid has run out", then they'll put you right low down on the priority list.

I think the top 3 reasons for breakdowns are flat battery, wheel change and running out of fuel, all of which indicate IMO, that the driver is perhaps not the sharpest tool in the box.

Brightonsbest_2

RAC had a couple of punctures serveal years ago on my previous Merc saloon - both times they arrived within 20 mins, may be i was lucky. The RAC on breakdowns take make an effort to repair rather than tow away to garage like the chaper recoery people imo

footyguy

Chomeur wrote: »

Do any roadside assistance companies guarantee service within a certain amount of time? I've now been waiting two hours for Nationwide to send me someone under the policy that I get as part of the premium account that I pay for with them. It's a bit unreasonable. Wondering if I should close the account and take out cover elsewhere.

Thanks

Edit: The particularly annoying thing is that they keep phoning up to say he'll be with me shortly, and then he never arrives.

I see you've already had lots of replies talking about the RAC

However, I believe the breakdown cover you have is provided by Britannia Rescue
How often do you see one of their vehicles on the road?
I suspect they use local garages in most cases.

However they do claim:

We've got an average response time of 45 minutes and 4 out of 5 cars are fixed at the roadside

https://www.lv.com/breakdown-cover

but call out times will obviously vary based on when you call them and other demand in that area at that time.

Many breakdown operators also prioritise, so a lone woman standed at night on a dark country lane will get higher priority, and I suspect if you are safe at home, you will be lower priority.


Edit: By way of comparison
The AA say:

...on average, we arrive within 45 minutes – and we give priority to people in vulnerable situations.

https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/

Whilst the RAC say

We aim to be with you within 40 minutes, although this will vary depending on the circumstances.

http://www.rac.co.uk/breakdown-cover/breakdown-help/other

Chomeur

footyguy wrote: »

I see you've already had lots of replies talking about the RAC

However, I believe the breakdown cover you have is provided by Britannia Rescue
How often do you see one of their vehicles on the road?
I suspect they use local garages in most cases.

However they do claim:

https://www.lv.com/breakdown-cover

Thanks. Yes I think it is Britannia Rescue. They took 2 1/4 hours, so much longer than their claimed average. If they could have said it was going to take that long when I initially phoned them I would have told them to come another time and would have taken a taxi to where I was going, so it was fairly annoying that they couldn't tell me. If another company has clear statistics on how long it takes them on average I would be very inclined to switch to them.

I thought it was a flat battery but the mechanic insisted it was a problem with the starter motor so he wasn't able to fix it in any case after all that time.