Avoid RAC breakdown

FaceHead

Not a regular on this board, but I wanted to share this recent experience of the RAC's breakdown.

I drive a 2003 car that's on its last legs. It seemed sensible to have breakdown bundled with the insurance as it will, inevitably, break down. And soon. It's had a couple of hiccups in recent years and the AA (bundled with previous insurance) chaps have been lovely and make it go.

Car had been left unused for some months, and would then not start. Call the RAC. RAC man is unable to make it go, and after 10 minutes waving a multimeter around, and looking at the on board diagnostics, diagnoses it with needed a new "ECU", which, he says will cost £500+, and it isn't worth it on a £300 (if it worked) car. He advises me to not have it towed to a garage and instead get a local scrap merchant to take it away. Basically, it's written off. He leaves, with me still there with a not-working car. 

I [an accountant who knows nothing about cars] google the problem. I follow the guide of charging the battery (obviously, it's been unused for months, I know that much!), and cleaning up the fuse box. Remarkably I am able to get the battery out, charge it overnight (cost, £25 charger, £4 for a 10mm socket), clean the fuse box up with some WD40 (had some) and get it to go back together.

And it works. No £500 bill for a new ECU. ECU would seem to be perfectly in order.

My feeling is that the RAC man couldn't be bothered to clean the fuse box up, so made something else up which wasn't the case. A quick google tells you what you need to be doing, if he didn't already know. What's more, he told me to write the car off rather than wait for the tow truck to take it to a garage. 

Best case, it's a shocking lack of skill being told to throw away a £300 car when the first result on google gives you a step-by-step youtube video of the answer. No one should be paying money for such a poor level of service. Worst case it's shocking laziness and making stuff up to actively avoid providing the service paid for. 

JJ_Egan

Did not know they covered such old cars .

Bradden

I think you make a valid point... but I can understand that the RAC probably don't want to waste much time on a  car that's only worth £300. I'm my experience car's at that age/value have one thing go wrong after another.

oldagetraveller1

JJ_Egan said:

Did not know they covered such old cars .

They certainly cover my 60 years old classic.

Also there's nothing in their Ts & Cs to the contrary.

Laz123

They certainly don't make cars to last like they did when I first started driving in the early 70s. I've seen Morris Minors and VW Beetles among others still running around.

marlot

Laz123 said:

They certainly don't make cars to last like they did when I first started driving in the early 70s. I've seen Morris Minors and VW Beetles among others still running around.

Most cars from the 70s were rusted out before they were eight years old.  And it was rare for an engine to make it to 100,000 miles without needing work.

Pretty much every car made today will do better.

The ones you see will have had extensive work on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

marlot

Once you move away from the 'cult' cars which are worth restoring, there are not many left at all.

eg.
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=vauxhall+victor
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=marina
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=austin+maxi
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=dolomite
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=hillman+avenger
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=austin+princess

lincroft1710

Laz123 said:

They certainly don't make cars to last like they did when I first started driving in the early 70s. I've seen Morris Minors and VW Beetles among others still running around.

Morris Minors most definitely had rust problems, I know, mine was scrapped at 9 years old. Like the VW they became a "cult classic" which is why many have been extensively restored and survive. From 1962 to 1974, BMC (later BL) made over 2,000,000 1100/1300s, their survival rate is abysmal.