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Car Breakdown cover

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tickmike:
Going to collect my wife from from her works party in a near by town tonight, I had to take avoiding action on a country lane on a tight corner when the car in the opposite way cut the corner and I clipped the pavement edge.
I had only gone about another mile when I realised I had a Flat tyre >:D, I limped into the edge of this town and pulled off the lane opposite a street light and changed the wheel.

We are both not getting any younger and this set me thinking is it time to have ‘Breakdown Cover’ for the both of us.

If the flat tyre had been on a Motorway or busy road  :(   :o

What do you think about car breakdown cover ?.

Un-Edit ...

sevenlayermuddle:
Mixed feelings.

From mid 80s to mid noughties I went without cover. Then one day, out of the blue, my fairly new Saab cut out, ignition module failed, leaving me stranded, just before Christmas, en route to pick somebody up from hospital.

Was that a problem?   No, I just called the AA and rejoined, on the spot.  I had to join for a whole year and pay a suffix to allow for the fact I was already broken down, but the suffix was nowhere near as much as I’d saved over the years.   Plus, being eager to please a new customer with cooling off rights, they turned up in just a few minutes.  That was 15 years ago, not sure if still allowed.

A lot of bank accounts, service deals and the likes, include free breakdown cover these days.   My experience is they can be ok, but usually just sub out the attendance to a local village garage with time on their hands.   And if a garage has “time on their hands” it may be for a reason, ie the locals know they are cowboys.

Ronski:

--- Quote from: sevenlayermuddle on March 02, 2019, 01:26:02 AM ---And if a garage has “time on their hands” it may be for a reason, ie the locals know they are cowboys.

--- End quote ---

I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as that implies, I work in the trade so have first hand experience.

A lot of breakdown services do use a network of local garages, but it most certainly won't just be ones that arn't busy, basically if a garage offers a breakdown service then they have to be able to attend no mater how busy they are, unless they are busy on another breakdown then the service will try elsewhere or add you to their queue. Of course you may still get a useless garage, but if that is fed back to the service operator and they get enough complaints one hopes they stop using them.

sevenlayermuddle:
Fair enough Ronski, I did say “may”, not “must”. :)

We’ve used cover provided by Nationwide’s bank account twice for the Polo.   Each time, car had engine warning light on, and was misfiring badly, at home in our driveway.

First time was excellent, the guy turned up in a small van with a new coil pack at the ready as, he explained “It’s nearly always a coil pack with these cars”.    Plugged in his code reader to confirm his assumption, installed a new coil, problem fixed in minutes.

Second time, the guy didn’t even bring a code reader, just a recovery truck.   He sniffed at the car confirmed it wasn’t running right, and offered to recover us to a garage.   I declined, drove my own car to Euro Car Parts and bought my own code reader and (speculatively) a coil pack.  That second plan worked to perfection. :)

But on each occasion the breakdown service was from the same small local garage in a nearby village, just two different mechanics.

Ronski:
Good mechanics are very hard to come by these days, as I've said before we struggle, and I have to choose very carefully which jobs I give to which mechanics as their skill sets are different. Sounds like the second guy wouldn't have a clue when it comes to reading codes, just the same as one of my mechanics.

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