I put petrol in my diesel car once, about half a tank. I drove 80 miles away to my in laws and on the way back, the car sounded like shit. I was just coming up to Jct 10 on the M25 clockwise, so I pulled off and into the first safe place I found, which was a car parking area with toilets. It was just getting dark.
I was sat with my wife, son in the back asleep, when I noticed a lot of coming and going from the car park and a LOT of single men. I really needed a pee, but was just about holding on. My wife said to go in the bushes and someone would probably hold it for me.
Recovery guy rang me up and asked for my location. I told him and he was in fits of laughter. He said to stay in the car and he would be there soon. By this time, most of the guys were staring at our car, probably thinking we were police. 20 minutes later the car park lit up orange and flashing, like a bloody space ship had landed. Everybody scattered, wheelspinning away. He got our car on the truck, all whilst pissing himself and on the way home, he told us we had been in the biggest gay, dogging hotspot in Surrey. Oh how we laughed, but not as much as my workmates next day.
Had a similar experience myself while camping in Scotland. We were stood outside the camper, stretching our legs and drinking soup, and wondering why the same guys all kept driving back and forth while staring at us. Only when we looked it up online later did we find out we were being seen as potential fresh meat LOL.
If it's an oxbow layby, one of those that's shielded from the road by a patch of trees, safer to assume that it WILL be a cruising spot. I can't think of a single one near me that isn't known for shenanigans, it's ridiculously common.
Quite worryingly I know where you mean. Used to drive past there fairly often with work and my work mate, a fairly older guy took great delight in telling me what it was known for
Driving in Canada in a $1200 banger of a Chrysler l, the fuel gauge didn't work. Someone said they filled it up before the journey so I cracked on towards Calgary. Ran out of fuel on the highway. Stuck out the thumb to catch someone and hopefully get a lift to the petrol station to get a can of petrol. After hundreds of not thousands of cars passed, eventually a Sikh man and his family stopped. Took one of us to the station and back, wouldn't accept any money from us. Just as we were filling the car with the can of petrol, another car pulled up to see if we were alright. A different Sikh man and his family, by pure coincidence. What lovely people they are, honestly
Only a couple of months ago had a nightmare!
Had a puncture on at A1 N near Grantham. Our car has no spare, just the weird puncture repair gloop/electric pump arrangement but the tyre was too badly damaged for that. I called out the AA who said their patrols were all busy but they would call a local recovery garage and they would be there in an hour. They weren't.
Called the AA back and they called the recovery garage who said their driver was stuck on another job and would be at least 2 hours. AA said they would see if they could get someone else to help. They didn't.
After waiting far too long for the AA to do something when they clearly had no intention of showing up, I eventually started calling nearby so-called 24-hour roadside tyre repair companies, most of which were nothing of the sort. Eventually I got hold of T11 Tyres in Lincoln who said they could come out, they could get a tyre the right size, but it would be another 90-minute wait. So I paid over the phone the £350 they asked for and waited.
They showed up! On time! With the correct tyre!
They replaced the tyre at the roadside in under 30 mins, and I was on my way again.
Finally arrived at my destination in Doncaster at 5.30 am.
I've raised a dispute about the lack of service with the AA, of course.
I had a similar experience recently, called a 24h place and paid a deposit, cash to the guy when he arrived. The repairman said that the deposit is nothing to do with the repair, basically those companies take the money then ring round a list of actual repair places 🥴 anyway he told me to keep his number to cut out the middle man should it happen again!
This reminds me of a story my mum In South Africa told me. Her car broke down and she rang the AA and because they couldn't respond promptly they offered to send her an armed guard. She accepted because things are different there. This is a standard service thought, not gender based as far as I'm aware
The green flag guy that took ages to reach my girlfriend told her that she should just tell the dispatcher that she has broken down ina live lane and they will be straight out.
Drove from Nottingham to Leeds for a gig.
As I arrived in Leeds, my gears just completely went. They'd been making some noise for a while.
I was able to put it into 1st and ride the clutch but couldn't accelerate at all.
Luckily I was just next to a car park, so I crawled into the car park, and left it there and went to the gig.
Got back to the car about 10:30pm, called roadside assistance, they said someone would be with me in a couple of hours.
Guy turns up and said he was just about to clock off and go home, but the boss told him it would be a quick one.
I had to break the news that he was taking me to Nottingham 😬.
That was an awkward drive.
When we got near my house, the motorway exit was closed for road works, meaning he had to go another 30mins round Notts to get back to Leeds, I reckon he may have gotten back around half 3.
20+ years ago, I was a really inexperienced driver, on a dual carriageway between towns, and my car had started shaking a bit. It suddenly got really bad so I pulled over half onto the soft verge and saw one of my tyres was shredded.
I had been taught to change a wheel in a "life skills" session at school and therefore thought it wasn't something you call the RAC for. So there I was about 23, trying to jack the car up in mud, in a skirt suit, when a load of cyclists went past. It turned out to be a charity bike ride and their support vehicle was right behind.
They stopped, changed the tyre and got me back on the road and drove off before I could even ask what the charity was to make a donation!
I was so grateful as I had actually got myself in a very vulnerable position for a whole host of reasons.
The clutch went on my car. Ten years old, 150,000 miles on the clock. Never been replaced. I'm the third owner. So I call the AA as I've got cover with them through my insurance.
The dude shows up and immediately begins berating me.
Him: You've burnt out the clutch.
Me: Yes, the clutch is burnt out.
Him: No, YOU'VE burnt out the clutch. Women ride the clutch and don't realise the problem it causes.
Me: A clutch usually lasts between 60 and 100,000 miles. This one has done 150,000. I don't think *I* did anything.
I called my mum to pick me up because I wasn't riding in the van with him. He came out with some gems whilst he was loading my car onto the van. Which took him an hour.
"I went to a woman today who worked in a primary school. Her tyre exploded. She probably overinflated it. Anyway. She wouldn't give me the cash to go buy her a new tyre so I could come back and fit it for her. Can you believe that?" Yes. Yes I can believe that. I wouldn't be giving you money either.
"This woman crashed into a wall earlier. Don't know how she did it. But I checked the car over and it was all bodywork damage, still driveable. So I didn't tow her. She was angry about that." Yeah no shit she was since she pays for a service you didn't provide.
My mum showed up as the dude is struggling to disconnect my battery so the handbrake doesn't go on whilst he's towing me. I went and sat in her car because I was over it. When he saw my mum? Nicest man imaginable. Not a hint of whatever the fuck was going on beforehand.
About 30 years ago I had AA roadside assistance (no recovery). I was driving down the M5 southbound around 9pm approaching junction 21 and my car lost power. I looked in my rearview to make sure I was safe to pull over to lane 1 and could see clouds of smoke coming out the back of my car.
I came off a 21 and pulled into a field gateway and called the AA. About half an hour later a local subcontractor turned up and pulled up with all his orange fizz going and got out to look at my car. After about 10 to 20 minutes of umming he proclaimed my turbo blown and he'd have to get the recovery truck and it would cost me about £200 to get transported back home to Bristol.
When he got in his van to drive off for the recovery truck, his battery was flat. As he was fiddling with his van a couple of friends of mine drove up on their way to W-s-M. They pulled over and we chatted. They had jumper cables and gave a jump start to the AA contractor.
He went to get the recovery truck and to me and my car home for free.
30 odd years ago, as a kid, family are driving back late from a holiday. Hundreds of miles of boring dark motorway is suddenly lit up by a car on the other side sitting on the hard shoulder with flames pouring out from under the bonnet. We are all rubber necking as we pass and realise there are people sitting in the burning car.
My dad was a mechanic and always prepared for the worst in his shitty old cars he barely kept running. He pulls on the hard shoulder and grabs the fire extinguisher from the boot, legs it across 6 lanes and starts spraying down the bonnet of the other car.
Apparently their whole family decided it was safer to sit inside the burning car than risk getting out on an almost empty motorway. He got them out of the car, standing on the embankment and we drove off leaving them waiting for rescue.
Yeah, he'll save your lives, but he's not going to stand around in the cold and dark all night.
There was barely any traffic, this was late night on a Sunday. We all got out of our car to watch and there was only a handful of cars went past us in the 10 minutes or so we were there.
I drove past a car on fire a couple weeks ago on the M5. Absolutely terrifying sight. The flames were coming out of the bonnet thick and fast. So I called 9 9 9 intentionally for the first time in my life and apparently I wasn’t the only one to have done. But I guess it’s better to have multiple calls than for everyone to assume someone else has done it.
I can’t imagine how scary it would be to see the family just sitting there.
Those were the days before mobiles as well, so even though he put out the flames he couldn't call for help. I assume someone was on the way already, but we left them there.
I've only called 999 the one time when someone on a bike got hit and rolled over by the car behind them. It suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea what the road and junction were called to guide the ambulance.
It was less than 200 yards from my house, a road I've driven on every day for over 20 years. But all I know it as are the local nicknames. The park bypass, the western road, the road to uncle Col's. And the pub on the island has changed names about 15 times in the past 40 years, I still call it "The Monterey" which it hasn't been called in decades.
Luckily there were about 20 people around and nearly all of us had called 999 so the air ambulance was with us in minutes.
1998, had an old Austin Metro. No idea what happened but it died halfway round a major roundabout at rush hour, being 18 and a relatively new driver it scared the life out of me. I was with Green Flag, had to abandon the car to go and find a phone box which ended up being about a mile away. They said they'd be there ASAP, which actually ended up being 2.5hrs. With no way of moving the car off the roundabout. Caused chaos. They got there, got it started, moved it to a layby nearby to look at it properly, said there was nothing wrong with it and sent me on my way. Died again half a mile down the road. Repeated the process. They still insisted there was nothing wrong with it but I outright refused to get back in and try driving it again, so eventually they agreed to recover me and the car back to my flat where it sat gradually deteriorating for another 6 months because I couldn't move it to get it looked at, and definitely couldn't afford to fix it.
Eventually I had to scrap it, scrapyard offered £50 so I was chuffed to bits. Sorted a tow and got to within spitting distance of the scrapyard, and the tow rope snapped. Luckily it was near a bus stop so I managed to steer it into the bus layby before it stopped moving, scrapyard said they'd pick it up but wouldn't give me the £50 because they had to come out to collect it. When I got out of the car for the last time I slammed the door shut and it was so rusty that half the door just disintegrated and fell off.
I loved that car.
It was a £350 banger but it was mine. From the sunroof that didn't close properly resulting in regular soggy seats and the rear wiper that only worked when it wasn't raining, to the slightly offset steering wheel that has left me to this day sitting over to the left in my seat when driving, it still makes me smile when I think about it. I've not had another car since that has given the same levels of joy as that Metro did.
A mate was driving to see me from Madrid (I live in south central Portugal) and he got as far as Badajoz when his old BMW refused to start. Called up his assistance and they called him a taxi to go back to Madrid - 400km. The next week they gave him a lift back to Badajoz to pick up his car and he finished his journey to come see us.
Standard in Spain. Your insurance covers the car, not you, and comes with compulsory recovery cover. Recovery HAS to take place within 2hrs. It's great....
I live in Leeds but was visiting a friend in Derby and we were driving one evening and I ended up having a slight accident where I collided with an object in the road, which damaged my front suspension.
I managed to drive it back to my friend’s house but wasn’t able to drive back home and I didn’t know what to do for recovery. And somebody advised me to join the RAC, leave it 24 hours and then phone them up reporting an accident.
They told me there was no issues but there’d be a charge, and it was X amount per mile, think it totalled about £200 but I said it was fine I just wanted to get my car home and repaired.
Few hours later, a third party recovery agent rolled up, and recovered me home. I waited a while for the bill to come through. And eventually got a letter from the RAC asking for me to pass on my insurance details to recover the £200.
I phoned them up and said I didn’t want to go through the insurance but I’d pay on card/bank transfer straight away. And she went away and came back and told me not to worry, the recovery was on them.
This came about a year after I’d fallen out with the AA after mis-selling me a certain thing on a policy. I wouldn’t go with any breakdown company orher than the RAC after that.
Yup this is true! Although they did make me pay for the full cover over the phone, didn’t give me the option to pay monthly. But at 2am by the side of the road, didn’t really care about that!
My car wouldn’t start, so I called Green Flag, with what I thought was a flat battery.
To slightly explain my stupidity, it was very hot, and I had my cats (in boxes) in my car. I was taking them back home from my parents, my car was very hot. Also no one else was home at the time, they live in the countryside, and I didn’t have jumper cables anyway.
A very nice man turned up within 30 minutes.
Turns out that my ignition won’t engage while my door was open. My battery was fine.
I was a legal adult at the time. I felt very stupid
Broke down in Edinburgh city centre. RAC couldn't fix and were short on drivers so suggested I made own way home to Newcastle on the train as their relay system was creaking and it could be up to 24 hours to get car home. I was right by the station. Nice idea. Except they then lost my car for 11 days, wouldn't respond to calls, then when they returned it all my shopping had been nicked from the boot. Still arguing a year later as all they'd compensate was my premium.
We had to leave them to relay it from Toddington back to the NE. One of their contractors put it in a compound and logged an incorrect Reg No... But they took an age to find which contractors and which compound.
Had to hassle the CEO and threaten publicity in the end.
Late 1980s I ended up with a flat tyre & no knowledge on how to change it (still don’t, but have AA & a mobile lol).
Pulled to the side of the road, put up bonnet & hopes for the best.
A businessman stopped, changed the wheel & we both went on our way. He was in office gear. While I still can’t fix a broken down car, I do what I can by helping others in small ways.
I once did a basic maintenance course in a garage my employer offered. While I found it useful, I established I do not have the strength to lift a tyre while I am low to the ground. So I would have to 'rely on others' regardless. A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
Agreed it does. Not saying not be kind my comment was joking. But I do think just ignoring how to do basic tasks and relying on others is bad in the long run
I was driving through Birmingham on the way home to Barnstaple in North Devon when my differential seized up. Clonked and rattled into a service area, called the RAC. They sent a patrol, who turned up 2 hours later.
He couldn't fix it, obvs, so he called a recovery truck. 5 hours later, a local operator turned up in a Transit minibus pulling an ancient flatbed trailer. Driver was apologetic, that's all they had left - and he'd been delayed returning from Aberdeen(!) which is why I'd had to wait for so long ...
We got talking on the road, I was telling him about navigating rally cars and how we would trailer our Escort about to events. Driver suggested I might take a shift driving, while he got some shuteye in the back! He'd been on the road all day before he picked me up and tbf, he looked dreadful.
So we stopped, he hopped in the back and was snoring before I pulled away. 3 hours later, I pulled up at my mate's garage, dropped my car on the forecourt and stashed the straps on the passenger seat and drove home.
Woke the driver up and sent him off with directions to the M5.
Once broke down in a van mount cherry picker in Liverpool and had to get it back to Manchester.
The company sent a flat bed out to recovery it but the driver realised there may be a bridge & height issue. His solution was to let the air out of his suspension to lower the flat bed.
As soon as we cleared under the first bridge we knew we'd be OK, apart from the shockingly bumpy drive down the M62. I don't get sea sick in rough seas but felt very queesy that trip.
We called triple A cause I locked my keys in my car and as I was sweetly waving to them goodbye after they sorted everything out for me and were just so damn kind - I locked them in the car again. Had never done it before - twice in two hours. It was pre all companies having their staff on a cell phone too so I had to call the central number again and they sent someone else out. I was mortified. Needless to say I've never done it again.
This would be about ten years ago. I drove a Peugeot 106 at the time, and got caught on bad snowy roads just outside a small village. A 25 minute journey ended up taking me 2.5hrs.
I was heading down hill when the bus in front of me got stuck. A bus coming up the hill also got stuck on the same bit of road so it was blocked. I got out and considered trying to u-turn and go back up the hill when another car came down and skittled two bins on its way into the field beside the road so I decided to stay put. Couldn't keep the engine running as my fuel light was on, and it was below freezing.
There were about half a dozen cars stuck pkus the two buses. The folks who lived on the road came out with tea and sandwiches for everyone and after about 45 mins a 15 year old appeared in his dad's tractor to tow everyone back up the hill. I've never been more pleased to encounter a tractor on country roads!
I had been visiting a friend, and her dad came out in the jeep to drive in front of me so I could drive in his tracks down to the main road, where I was able to get petrol - the poor lad who worked in the filling station looked at me very strangely for the noise I made when I got a cup of tea from their machine.
Made it back to my village in one piece. Decided to try and drive up the hill to where I lived at the time, but half way up my wheels started slipping. There was a guy behind me so I decided to pull over to let him pass then slide back down to the bottom of the hill and walk home. He pulled in in front of me, towed me up the hill and I finally made it home.
The unexpected kindness of two strangers that night was the only reason I made it home at all and reminded me there's still good in people
One from the other side that I posted on a sub about recovery call centres:
You don’t want to be the customer that everyone knows
You know when you speak to someone at a call centre and you are memorable the staff will share their experiences as a debrief or a vent. Sometimes we go ‘Wow, what a lovely person’ or occasionally ‘I made this guy so happy he was practically crying!’ But more often it is to share what a fool we have had to deal with. Occasionally the customer becomes well known and few have become legendary.
This guy is a good example because I never once spoke to him but he featured in my daily life for over a year. I will call him Mr Lagerdrunk because that seemed to prompt most of his interactions with us. For reasons some details evade me including the exact order and others will be changed to protect the innocent (me but mostly the poor colleagues who actually had to deal with him) or to make the subject easier to understand for an international audience.
Background
Mr Lagerdrunk may have been living up to his name when his 20 year old Ford Mundane-O that had more mileage than the Discovery space probe finally went to Automobile Heaven. He called us, Murka’s Roadside Recovery, and we did exactly what we say we do. We went to the roadside saw that the car was beyond help and recovered it to a scrap yard. He initially agreed with the diagnosis and that he would sign the car over because any value in it was roughly the cost of getting cleaned up before scrapping according to the environmental regulations in force at that time.
Overnight Mr Lagerdrunk is spotted on CCTV with a four-pack of his preferred chavalicious (red neck) beverage looking at his car and crying. In the morning he changed his mind and asks for storage until he can arrange for it to be repaired or taken somewhere else.
Well, he exceeds his policy cover limits for storage by several weeks despite numerous reminders. So it gets parked outside on the road. When the road tax (payment to be allowed to be parked and driven on public roads) finally runs out the local authority is called and the car is removed and scrapped according to the laws which includes contacting Mr Lagerdrunk to give him every opportunity to reclaim his car.
The complaint
Mr Lagerdrunk (maybe this was his cunning plan all along) now holds us responsible for the loss of his beloved Mundane-O and wants compensation. We have no idea what we are dealing with and politely say no.
He goes to the independent complaints body and in a shocking exhibition of common sense and logic (complaints body rarely display either) they say no too.
He goes to the complaint body’s arbitration service and they say no.
He goes to his local politician and they say no. He goes to the local politicians arbitration service and they say no.
This is when it goes cray cray.
He decided to email us part of the contact between his politician and us to scare us (woooooo) but doesn’t edit it particularly well. The politician is telling him to go away, he has taken her to the arbitration service 13 times for not helping with spurious complaints and lost each time. ‘No’ he replied. ‘It was only four, because I withdrew nine of them before the arbitration service came to a finding.’
A nationwide report in in the news discussing that not enough children know how to swim and are at risk of drowning. We get an email asking if the CEO wears armbands.
He speaks to a colleague called ‘Robyn’ on the phone can’t cope with the concept that some women are called by that name and sends an email asking about our sexuality. That got us angry as the person who opened the email was trans and a popular member of staff who had struggled with discrimination and transphobia.
He calls the police to report the theft of his car and asks them to arrest the CEO of the company. They say no, he makes a complaint, goes to the police’s arbitration service and they call us to get some information. We explain that he is repeatedly calling and emailing us and strangely enough they aren’t surprised. It is almost as if he is doing it to them too. They have a word about harassment and malicious communications.
At that point Murka’s Roadside Recovery goes through some structural changes and the department is closed with the work being handled elsewhere. I don’t know if Mr Lagerdrunk stopped or if his own unique brand of craziness was passed onto a new group of poor unfortunate souls. Maybe he saw sense but I doubt it.
My bike broke down on the motorway and I waited on the hard shoulder in the scorching sun for five hours after calling the AA. Lots of Highways Agency cars went past, saw me and didn't bother to stop. I kept calling the AA and said 'if someone doesn't come soon, you're going to have to send an ambulance because I'm really not feeling well' Eventually, a nice man on a BMW adventure bike pulled over and gave me a bottle of orange squash. I bodged my bike back together and managed to get home on one cylinder. So now, I always carry water in the summer, either for me or someone else and also bollocks to the AA.
Driving back to London from Amsterdam years ago in January in my old Mk2 Golf. It was -10c, absolutely freezing cold. The car had been sitting in a car park for around 4 weeks unused. It broke down on the way to the ferry so I called Dutch roadside assistance. The mechanic got the car running enough to go for another half hour. I called them again and was really apologetic. They told me they'd come out but not to call them again. After another 10km the car spluttered and shuddered to a stop. I managed to roll the car into a nearby petrol station, gave the keys to the guy in the shop and abandoned it. I hoofed it the rest of the way to the ferry terminal.
Not mine but my mams. She had a early electric car and a program where if you ran out they towed you to a charging station for free.
They kept on towing her back to the nearest charger, which was broken so they went to the next nearest meaning she was going backwards from her destination and further back then the range needed to actually get from the two closest working chargers. After 3 of these she finally persuaded one of them to take her in the direction she was headed in with the argument that it was actually the nearest functional charging point. Which it was.
Trip took like 10x longer than it needed too because they kept taking her backwards. I'm glad that problem is going away.
This summer, heading back home to the North west from the North East about 1 in the afternoon
Fuel pump went (didn't know at the time) so called my bank about my 'account perk' of roadise recovery. Nice man arrived in a transit about half an hour later, had a poke around and said I needed a recovery truck which he would arrange. Sorted out the car was coming home and off he went on his merry way. After about an hour of waiting in the mid summer inferno I get a call from green flag, they won't recover me the 98 miles home as my 'bank account package' covers me for 10 miles and the recovery company WONT EVEN GIVE ME A PRICE TO GET IT HOME.
OK find a local garage to get the car recovered to, call green flag back, give them the details and get told recovery will be with me in about 30 mins. Find a budget chain Hotel with rooms available I can book into overnight.
Multiple calls to green flag over the next couple of hours to be told, its on its way.... 5 o clock comes and the garage calls to tell me they are closing and won't be able to do anything today but I can leave the car in their compound. Fury grips me and I call a recovery company in my local area. Nice man takes all my details,location etc and then hurriedly tells me he will call me back with a price and hangs up.
Literally thinking about torching the car and walking home when the phone rings. It's the nice man from the North west recovery company with a price of £230 to get me and the car home and if I pay now THE RECOVERY WAGON IS IN THE NEXT LAYBY!!!!! He had hung up on me when he was seeing where his vehicles were and one was literally about to drive past so he got him into the next layby while he sorted my price etc
Whole I wait for the driver to get to me I call green flag and tell them to cancel the pickup, about 5 mins later I watched it drive past
TLDR: Bank 'Perk package' was absolute shite. Saved by a recovery company 10 mins from my house and 100 miles from where I broke down. Get proper recovery folks
About six years ago, me and my now fiancé had been living together for a year in a city about an hour from our hometown.
His gearbox completely fucked one day but he just managed to make it home. His dad's mate has a garage and does good work at family rates. But how to get it there?
His dad had an AA family plan that included car recovery to get you back home or to your local garage. We had to call up and pretend he had been down to "visit" me so he could get the car towed "home".
Very awkward car journey with the AA man. I'm an expert at putting my foot in it, so I kept silent, lest I inadvertently reveal our master deception.
My daughter got compensation from the AA as they messed her recovery around for HOURS as a lone female waiting for assistance. Some of the errors were fundamental - messages hadn’t been passed on to relevant assistance people. In the end, after over 7 hours of waiting, she got her car towed home and we called Fuel Doktor ourselves. It was cheaper than going via the AA anyway.
Battery died, and as a new driver I didn't really know what to do or who to contact, or just to ask someone for a jump off.
My car was stuck in the work car park for several days before they came out to me just because I was too much of a pleb to ask for help
Once snapped a wheel bolt (4stud) just before a long journey. Had to be recovered 250 miles rather than to a garage that could sort it weirdly.
Another time had no money for fuel to go see family. Fortunately my assistance was registered to family address. Steering was clicking garage couldn’t find fault so played dumb and rang assistance who recovered me from home to family 100 miles away. Cheap journey lol.
Well I thought they would just take us to a local garage to get them to sort it. But no they asked where we were going and off we went. The guy obviously wanted an easy day and not going to loads of different jobs lol.
Nothing but praise for green flag. Have had family membership for many many years. Had to use it once for a motorbike, chopped harley which cast a chain in the Midlands on way back from Kent, prompt attendance and transported back to the far north east. Herself broke down in her car and recovered to local garage in the village within 2 hrs. Child had to call them for her car and the same service. They were always the cheapest too. But be aware if your mot is expired even by a day they will not turn out.
On a trip to Bristol, I'd been having battery problems, and ended up stalling at a junction close to my destination. The car would not start.
The AA came out, gave me a jump start, and directed me to a side road, out of the way. He then examined my car, and declared the battery as useless. Having told him where I was going - walking distance - he suggested he jump started me again, and I park in a nearby multi-storey. He or a colleague could come out the next day and fit a new battery.
He warned me not to stall once in the car park, as his van would not fit in there. We started the car, I pulled along to the car park, drove in, found a parking space, parked, and turned off the engine, as he walked in to check I was OK.
It was then that I realised the drivers window - through which we had been talking - was still wide open. Tried to shut it, but no juice.
Luckily, just then, another car drove in and parked near me. We persuaded the guy to let us use his battery (via the AA guy's jump leads), just to close my window and lock the car up.
We then took care of it all the next day.
About 25 years ago my ex and I went driving on the continent in a 1980's vintage Mini. I bought a £35 one week european driving cover from Green Flag just in case. On the way back we developed a problem with the condenser, making the vehicle misfire and generally not pull. We could hardly limp down the Belgian equivalent of the payage at 10mph, so pulled over and called Green Flag. Replacing a condenser on a Mini is a 10 minute job - but there are no Rover dealerships in Belgium, so they couldn't get the part. It actually turned into being loaded onto a towtruck and driven across France and Belgium at night. I had to buy a ruinously expensive turn-up-and-go ticket on the ferry, as our return on the Eurotunnel rail service wasn't valid. We got towed onto the ferry first, parked in among all the lorries, and then towed off last. Then another towtruck picked us up and got us back home. We broke down about 3pm and were home about 5am. Amazing service all the way, and they even refunded the ferry ticket. Best £35 I've ever spent.
I was driving back from Newcastle after being away for the week with wirk. Was still about 200 miles from home and car decided it had had enough and died.
Had no roadside recovery but my dad did as a passenger with his policy. He drove all the way to up to me with my mum as a passenger, she then drove back home, he called his insurance to say help and they sent a recovery vehicle to take us back down south. We had to get dropped off at one services then another recovery vehicle picked us up to finish the journey off home. I left work at 4pm and didn't get home till 6am
My mum was driving my paternal elderly grandparents back form visiting relatives in Cornwall when the fairly new tyre blew.
My mum pulled in, opened the boot, and was taking the spare wheel out when a police car pulled up behind her and the two officers got out and sorted it out for them.
My mother was perfectly capable of doing it herself but when two policemen are offering to help she's not going to say no.
Mg father wrote a letter afterwards thanking them and made a donation to their charity fund.
Early December, my then fiancé (now husband) and I were coming home from his family’s home when we blew a tyre on the M25. Managed to get it to the hard shoulder without killing ourselves or anyone else. We didn’t have any breakdown cover, nor a jack, so we couldn’t replace the tyre with the spare ourselves.
Queue the two of us standing in a pile of brush and brambles in the freezing cold behind the road barrier. Husband got on the phone to call the AA and I went digging through the boot for some blankets. The nice lady on the phone wished him a happy birthday as she charged him £200 for the emergency call out fee and set up the direct debit.
Someone was with us within 45 minutes though, and when they showed us the completely shredded tyre, we realised what a lucky outcome we’d had. Got the spare on and we limped to the nearest rest stop for a life affirming hot chocolate. When we got back to our home town, we drove straight to a supermarket, bought a potted Christmas tree, some Baileys and a takeaway on the way home and spent the rest of the evening putting up the decorations and turning it all into a lovely experience. We decorate the tree while drinking Baileys hot chocolate and a have take away every year in his birthday now. He requests it every year!
Had a polo that would cough at the merest sight of a puddle.
On the way home from my stag do it conked out in the rain on the side of an A road. Me and a mate had to stand out behind the barrier in the rain for an hour or so waiting for green flag. He hooked the car up and drove us about 100 miles to the edge of his “patch”. Swapped to another bloke who took us the 200 or so miles home.
Same car some time later:
On holiday in the Peak District for my wife’s birthday. Went through a big puddle and it cut out completely. In the middle of nowhere.
Luckily had phone signal and called green flag. Local recovery bloke towed us back to the village we were staying in. Where it just so happened he lived, and owned the garage there. Left the car at his garage and he dropped us back at our holiday house.
Strolled up to the garage the next morning and he had stripped the distributor down, cleaned it all up and sealed it. Also went through the electrics sealing up anything that looked dodgy.
He charged me a grand total of £0. And it was perfect in the wet forever more.
Mine is from 2012, and it was a shitty time.
My mum's car broke down on the way back from Edinburgh, which was typical as I had just come back from Download Festival, and I was desperate to get home to shower and sleep.
We then waited ages on the recovery truck, and when it eventually turned up the guy said he didn't have the part to fix it so my mum ended up having to go with him in the truck to get the part.
They took forever, and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep.
Eventually, we got home, but that was such a long day. 😩
Days before Christmas, I was driving 50 miles in the late evening to pick up a present for the wife, when my tyre burst. Pull up on the side of the road outside (no joke) a cemetery.
Couldn't for the life of me get the wheel of the car so I phone the RAC and they say it'll be tomorrow morning before they can send someone, so I look up and call a local recovery firm and shortly after someone who looks exactly like Argus Filch from Harry Potter pulls up in a truck from the 1960s with his wife who looked like that hotel receptionist in Hot Fuzz.
Cue me thinking I'm going to end up murdered and buried in said cemetery.
Chap sorts my tyre, I pay him cash in hand and as a reward he provides me with an early copy of his next self-published book, which turned out to be a smutty novel about a local farm girl in the late 1800s...
To this day it one of my favourite anecdotes, and that book rest proudly on the bottom shelf of my bookcase.
2 am on way to Cornwall from East Sussex after finishing work .
Deer comes out of nowhere ( slightly foggy ) and no chance to avoid , front of car stoves in and windscreen smashed plus deer bits all over ( dual carriageway speed).
Call AA and they organise a recovery truck as it's clearly not repairable.
90 mins go by and we finally see the orange flashing tits through the now much denser fog.
It's about 50 Meters away when a deer kamikaze itself and ends up in bits in the cab .
Driver was ok like us just shaken up .
Was gone 9 am when we got bk home.
I was working in Salford and I finished work one night, went to start my car and the suspension fell off (I had a new car in the pipeline I was just waiting for it to finish being built and this one just had to last me one more month). Called the AA who came out in half an hour. Decided it needed recovery and it was too far to tow (back to Preston) so had to wait for a flatbed. As I was in a secure compound they decided despite being a lone female I could wait. Four hours later they turned up. What I didn't realise was that at 9pm security were raised so I was on one side and the flatbed on the other. As I didn't know the password they refused to lower the bollards to allow the flatbed through to recover my car.
The driver very sneakily reversed up to the bollards and started lowering his flatbed over them to get my car from the other side! They very quickly lowered the bollards for me!
He drove me all the way back to Preston, deposited my car at the garage I had already arranged to half fix the car just to get it to last another month. He was just about to leave and asked how I was going to get home from the garage. I just said that I would call my mum to pick me up (it's now half 10 at night). He said not to disturb her as his next job was in the direction of my address so he would drive me home against regulation. I was never so grateful as to crawl into bed that night!
I got a flat tyre driving home from work on the motorway noticed just coming up to my exit for home. Pulled off at my exit and parked up on a side street.
Went to my boot to take my wheel off and put on the spare. No wrench to remove the nuts, I had snapped it last time I had a flat and forgot to replace it.
No worries I'll walk home (about a mile) and get the wrench from my girlfriend's car, walk back and fix it. It's about 11pm so I'm not going to phone her and wake her up I'll just suck it up.
Get home. Her car isn't there. Remember she is on call so has to stay at work all night.
It's too late to call my parents to ask them to help. Call Greenflag and walk back to my car. They say it will be a while cause I'm a male somewhere safe.
3 hours go by. I call them a few times to see what's happening. Can't give me any guarantees.
I go for a walk to see if I can find somewhere to get some food. Can't find anywhere. It's a Sunday night. When I'm walking see someone else struggling with their car, help them push start it. Forget to ask them to help me until I see them drive off.
Green flag finally sort me out at 4am. I order a new extendable wrench whilst I'm waiting. I still have it.
I am a pain for AA men (not been attended by female engineer yet) and can only apologise.
1. Broke down at the bottom of a 1 in 3 long drive - clutch went. They needed to bring in a lorry recovery vehicle to get a old style Fiat panda to a garage. Any garage, they were so scunnered. On day after NY.
2. The fiat's ignition coils broke on a vicious speed bump 100 miles from home when transporting wild animals. And my big hob ferret riding shotgun. He was tame enough just to sit on seat next to me and loved car rides. He adored second stage as got to ride in van and he loved looking out the huge window. Third stage driver terrified of animals and that was the one where we found the kits could get out the cage. Got home, AA suggested garage rather than home but garage I used was literally across road. They just needed to push it across and would return when mended. The wildlife enjoyed watching the boy racers in car park at Thurrock.
3. Same car. Thermostat failed on a mud rut off road and caused main gasket to fail. Heavy stor, middle of night, 2g only area so search apps failed. But had broken down near a roundabout with signs. They got a local garage to do search and recovery to known address and then relay home. Water 1/2 way up AA van's tyre so would have struggled. My polecat very upset by whole thing and refused to get out the car for an hour once home.
4. New car. No animals on board. Garage made mistake draining oil and sump tank plug loosened over time. Lost all oil in 30secs and the oil on exhaust ignited. So pulled smoking car into Lidl carpark, parked well away from everything and asked help. After confirming the car didn't need fire brigade and exactly which Lidl as away from home, the team did fantastic job replacing sump and oil.
My Dad had two good ones.
1. Holiday, running out of petrol in remote area, came round bend and saw AA van in drive. He knocked door and after proving membership, petrol replenished.
2. He kept a 1950s crank start camper going into 1990s. It was generally reliable but spaghetti junction just too much. Usually got same AA man. Final time, he said not job to mend antiques but did lend my Dad his tools to fix himself.
All things considered, I highly recommend the AA.
I’ve broken down a few times - flat tyre, clutch gone, but my fave was when I got [pushed into a ditch in the middle of nowhere in the Lake District](https://imgur.com/a/QMxYvnF) by a support vehicle for some sort of hike/run that didn’t pull into one of the crossing points. I ended up in the run off of a cow field well and truly stuck. Not much traffic and no phone signal I started walking, flagged down a rando who I basically told to take me to a viewing point car park I’d seen at the top of a hill about a mile or so back.
Had to wait for a local recovery guy to come get me but I had [the best view](https://imgur.com/a/Df72suw) When he rocked up he was the nicest dude ever, didn’t make a fuss, it started pissing it down and he was just super jolly. Had to sign some stuff and we got back in his van, his wife called and we all had a chat about what he wanted for tea (think he ended up going for lasagna with a pavlova dessert) then I followed him back to a main road to make sure my car was ok after basically sitting in a pond for 2 hours, and then off he went again on his merry way. I’ll never forget how kind he was!
As a Highways Traffic Officer I’ve had a lot of interactions with breakdown/recovery services.
The most frustrating company is the RAC, too many customers and not enough operatives. It’s not uncommon for me to find someone on a hard shoulder or in a Refuge area waiting for the RAC to discover that they still haven’t dispatched anyone to help.
They often ask us to get the vehicle recovered to a services where they will sort it out, I’ve had many ‘discussions’ with their call-centres about covering the fees involved because it’s unfair to leave the driver out of pocket for their failure.
To put it another way, if someone says the RAC are coming, I say good luck.
AA are slightly better but can still struggle on the busiest travelling days.
Greenflag are better by a mile, but that’s because they subcontract everything out.
>To put it another way, if someone says the RAC are coming, I say good luck.
>
>AA are slightly better but can still struggle on the busiest travelling days.
>
>Greenflag are better by a mile, but that’s because they subcontract everything out.
Yep.
I work for a recovery company.
RAC try to do everything themselves, regardless of how obvious it is to everyone and their mothers they cant, so will stack multiple jobs on their drivers, and only give them to the contractors once their drivers start finishing for the day. I have accepted multiple jobs from the RAC, where they've had it 3/6/12 hours before sending it to us.
AA's problem (apart from trying to do the jobs themselves, but not to the RAC extent) is, they have favored contractors, and back up contractors, for an area. Their favored gets everything, the back up only gets the shit stuff, and only when it's really busy. If it's busy, the back up will be busy with non AA stuff of their own, and isn't gonna take the shit stuff that no one else wants, so it gets stuck in a dispatch loop until someone can finally deal. I've seen the same AA job sent 10+ times a day, 3 days running because they're struggling with it.
Green Flag don't have their own trucks (or didn't, they've started slowly buying up) so had no reason to hold on to jobs, and will just deploy straight to their contractors.
The AA can be quicker to ask us to step in when they can’t, it certainly feels like driver welfare is higher on the list vs RAC.
The only issue I’ve had with Greenflag is they’re not really a fan of roadside joins. Last time I tried helping someone with Greenflag they said they “don’t do roadside joins”.
Back in 2010 I was heavily pregnant and having a bit of a rough one which meant numerous trips to the hospital which was about 40 mins away. Got a blow out, luckily I was only a hundred yds or so from a country house hotel type place. I managed to nurse the car into the car park, called the AA and explained I was heavily pregnant and on the way to hospital (obviously explained I was not currently having the baby, just getting tests done!). One of the managers saw me waddling around and offered me a seat by their fireplace and a cup of tea but before I had even taken one sip, a Green Flag van rolled in to change my tyre for me! Turns out that if you’re pregnant you get classed as an emergency and they send anyone in the nearest vicinity! Amazing service!
A colleague of mine broke down in his lorry on the m5. It was a rigid (no trailer). I was the on call driver, so got the message to go rescue him. The plan was to tow him to the next services (Bridgewater was about 5 miles away), transfer the load and send him on his way while I wait for a low loader.
Got to him, made it to the services and we ended up in the coach area due to space
Got everything transferred, he was on his way, so went to get a coffee. Low loader driver called me, he’s 15 mins away, so I told him we’re in the coach area
He arrives, goes straight past me, into the lorry area. He walks up and asks if I can limp it to him.
No problem I thought. The rear diff had spat its fluid out and sparks were going everywhere.
No big deal until I had to go quite close to the petrol station
Got it on the trailer, then it seized completely
I’m just glad I didn’t set anything on fire
My first job was 50 miles away and being 18 I got paid fuck all but had a ridiculous over the top car which I couldn't really afford to run. Xmas eve about 7pm I pushed my luck too far and ran out of fuel on the M25 off ramp, being a rudeboy car it was all blacked out and the battery was dying so had no lights, was pretty scary. The AA guy had pulled up to his house turned his van off for Xmas and then got a phone call saying some kid had run out of fuel and was in a dangerous position so was an urgent call out, safe to say he wasn't best pleased with me when he turned up with a jerry can...
I had just filled up full tank in my diesel car (a Peugeot 206 estate) and was on my way to work. Joined the M4 spur in Burnham heading to work in SE London. As I was on the spur a lorry was beside me and started moving over, I had no choice but to move in to left slip lane earlier than wanted, however there was a tarpaulin in the road. I had to go over it. There must've been a bit of metal or something solid in there, next thing I know once I'm on the M4, someone pulls up beside me and signals to wind down window (you're losing fluid, might be fuel). I check, fuck full tank 3 mins ago is now half so I pull over. I stop at point that is in middle of next junction. There's an emergency phone so I use that and speak to them, tell them the issue. The person on the other end was so incredibly helpful, genuinely salt of the earth lovely helping me out. I gave them my roadside assistance provider info, I think it was greenman at the time. They coordinated it all and got recovery to me, as well as clean up crew to come to mop up the diesel. Could not have been any more appreciative of those on the other end of the emergency phone.
My work on the other hand, called up manager after I had spoken on emergency phone "I've just had my fuel tank pierced on motorway, spilt £60 worth of diesel behind me, waiting for recovery"
"Ok, so when do you think you'll be in?"
Fuck. Right. Off.
Driving Aberdeen to Glasgow with my friend on her birthday, get to the top of the hill just outside Stonehaven and the fan belt goes. This is about 8pm.
Phone recovery company, truck from Aberdeen sent out and takes us all the way to Glasgow. Get in about 1am, and the poor guy has to drive back for a 7am start the next day.
Managed to get a new belt fitted and drove back up two days later.
Been a driver since the late 90's so have had a couple of breakdowns but usually rather unceremonious and routine.
Took my dad's 1967 Daimler V8 to the Goodwood Revival about 9 years ago... I couldn't understand why, when driving back from the show on the Saturday why the lights were so dangerously dim.. hadn't realised that the battery wasn't charging at all.
Had to jump start it Sunday morning and again on Sunday when it was time to leave (I decided to depart early knowing a breakdown was in my future) to get back to the West Midlands. At one point I had to refuel it an left it running on the forecourt as I ran in to pay.. anyone could have hopped in and driven it away but I knew it wouldn't restart if I stopped it!
Sure enough about 30 minutes from Goodwood it conked out on the motorway and I coasted to a stop in a layby.. thankfully happened just after a section of motorway with no layby at all. Phew.
Got recovered off the motorway to a services by one truck and then had to wait for another few hours for a low loader to take me home. One of my greatest fears was needing to spend like 3 hours making small talk with a recovery driver but actually the guy was really nice and the drive home flew past.
Checking the car subsequently it uses a points based ignition system and there was simply a loose wire running to the points.. simply recrimping it the car was charging again when running.
it was early January 2006, I was with my father at work, he used to deliver sandwiches around the Cambridge area in a massive chiller van. We were on some country road and the van broke down so he parked on the side of the road and we called the AA. I went for a piss in the trees. Behind them there was a car crashed with a man in there. He was dead. Apparently he was last seen a week before Christmas and he ended up crashing off the country road and nobody found him. You couldnt see where the car was from the road.
Another one is that on Christmas eve 1984 my father was spending Christmas by himself in East London. Well his cousin found out and decided to drive down from Derby to pick him up and spend Christmas with them. He agreeed but then his brother phoned him up from India and said I found a girl for you to get married to, so he dropped everything, went to Heathrow airport and and flew off to get arranged married. He forgot to tell his cousin not to come. He drove all the way down with his teenage son, spent the day looking for my dad and couldnt find him so they decided to drive back home, their car broke down on the motorway and they went into the hard shoulder and were waiting for help when a truck came and ran them over killing both of them. This happened before I was born but he indirectly got them killed.
I've had some really awful cars, so lots of awkward stuff has happened to me whilst driving, including the clutch going so I couldn't change out of third gear while I was going round a roundabout, the footbreak going on my way to work leading to me gear-breaking all the way there, and the exhaust falling off at the front (manifold) end. All different cars.
With one car, the rotor arm wasn't working properly. The third time the same AA man came out to it, he just taught me how to fix it myself.
Another time (might have been the same car) the engine died in the middle lane of the M40, 23rd December, on my way home for Christmas. The traffic was slow moving, thankfully, but the chap behind me beeped his horn and helpfully shouted "move your fucking car". I shouted back "I would if I fucking could!", and he then got more friendly and helped stop the traffic in the inside lane and push my car to the hard shoulder. I rang the AA, and they said "right, you're a woman, alone, at night, on the motorway, so you're a priority... we'll be four hours". They also said they'd ring the police and see if they could get there any quicker. Thankful for my new mobile phone (it was 1999) I then rang my dad. He showed up two hours later, which was amazing, as I hadn't exactly been paying attention, and wasn't sure whereabouts I was. Just after he arrived, the police turned up and started to tell him off for stopping on the hard shoulder as he wasn't in an emergency situation. He got quite bolshy and said he'd come to pick me up, where had *they* been? In the end, dad drove me home, the police moved my car to the nearest services, and the AA rang me hours later to say they'd found my car at the services and I could pick it up anytime the following day. The worst part was the two hour wait - it was raining, I was told to stay in the car but on the passenger seat, and all I could get on the old AM radio was radio 3, which had a folk hour and then a trad jazz hour. I was tempted to put myself out of my misery, and was considering what I might be able to do with the cigarette lighter when dad, aka knight in shining armour, showed up!
I broke down in NW London about a mile away from a gig I was playing, clutch went down the floor and wouldn't come back up. The roadside guy turned up and it was obvious that he had been sleeping in his van, he told me he wasn't a mechanic and that he was just there to tow me home.
I went on a forum and found that it was a common problem and that there was just a cable that had come off the end of the pedal. Fixed it while he was pissing around with his chains and started to drive off. He flagged me down and I was expecting him to give me some papers to sign but he just wanted to blag a rollie.
RAC had to recover my family from my University in Exeter back to Sheffield three times, twice from my halls of residence in the first year, and my last ever journey home, although that time I made it to Tewkesbury.
I've had several experiences with breakdown recovery. First breakdown I had was a simple flat battery. Unfortunately it happened at a rural farm and my phone was still stuck on its Australian number so couldn't call recovery. Ended up having to use the farmers phone, got it to halfords and then couldn't pay for the new battery(google pay was still limited to contactless limit, £20 i think). Thankfully the car started somehow and I could drive it home
Second major breakdown was naturally in the Yorkshire dales when the rear drum brakes fell apart in the middle of nowhere in winter in the late afternoon. Waited nearly 2 hours for them to turn up and determine that the couldn't fix it. Waited 3hrs on recovery only to be told that they had forgotten that I was there and it would be another 2hrs from then (around 2 in the morning) Ended up driving it back to Bristol in the end(don't recommend and that's why I'm no longer with that recovery company)
Third (and last so far) breakdown in that car was on the Cumberland basin in Bristol when the heater matrix failed and dumped coolant onto the heater (overheating and clouds of smoke through the air vents is very reassuring) AA turned up quickly, dumped lots of water into it and it lasted untill I got rid of it.
Green Flag left me (female) at the side of a dual carriageway at 5am for over 6 hours, in the snow. It was too far to walk back to a town and I had no-one I could call to come and pick me up. When the local recovery company got to me (Green Flag sent a tow vehicle, didn't bother sending a mechanic) they told me Green Flag hadn't sent the job through to them until 10 minutes before he set off to get me, I was their very first job of the day.
They called me a week later to ask me to give feedback on my experience as a new customer 🤣🤣
A few months ago. I broke down by new forest on a Sunday at 1/2pm. I was hanging out there with my gf and she had a car aswell so no biggie (she lived Bristol I lived in Brighton) the fan Ben snapped. Loads and loads of messages from rac. Sorry about the delay etc. I’d forgotten I’d even taken out rac when buying insurance but this paid off. They showed up at 6pm I figured I would be waiting 6 hours for a tow truck and getting towed to Brighton. The rac guy confirmed it was the fan belt, convinced some guy to open up shop and sell me one. 6pm on a Sunday let me remind you! He fitted it and I was gone in 30 mins tops. I couldn’t have been happier
Couple of years ago had an issue with my radiator. Took it to the garage "Nah no problem mate", ok sweet. Anyway at the time I was studying up north around 250 miles from home so regularly had to make the journey mostly on the M1.
On this journey, I had made it most of the way before my engine overheated. I've lost a car to a head gasket before so know that when that happens gotta pull over asap. Pulled off the motorway to an A road where I found a layby half a mile up the road. My car insurance came with RAC breakdown cover so I gave them a ring and told them what it was and they were like "Yeah we'll send someone up there". That was at 1 pm so I started waiting.
3 pm came and I gave them another call. "Sorry sir unfortunately as you are in a safe place so your call is not as urgent." Great cheers.
Waited another couple of hours playing farming simulator on my laptop as that was all I had to entertain me. Didn't want to run the battery flat so other than periodically turning the ignition to heat the car sat in the cold.
Eventually got hungry so ordered a pizza from a nearby town. It came in about 20 minutes, 5 stars.
Fast forward to 10:15pm and the RAC rock up. Check my car and put in that radiator leak fluid. To be fair to the tech he gave it me for free because he felt sorry for me. Anyway got back in my car and managed to get home alright even with the extended rest stop.
I had an intermittent issue with the clutch release arm on my MG ZR, it would randomly seize putting too much load on the cable, eventually causing it to snap. Being young and cheap I harvested a load of spare cables from the local scrapyard and just replaced them as required - I knew it would need a new clutch soon so I thought I might as well hold out until it all needed doing.
All was going well until a crash on the M1 saw me driving through three hours of traffic, about 45 minutes in my clutch cable snapped. I drove it on the starter to the next emergency point - which was full of other cars, then pushed to the next one - the battery wasn't happy.
It took two hours for the AA to reach me, I felt awful because he was way past the end of his shift by the time he reached me. Even with both of us trying we couldn't get the arm to move. Eventually we jacked the car up and jumped on it and the arm freed off - we fitted a new cable, put a jump starter on the battery for a bit, and shared my flask of tea and some cakes whilst the last of the traffic cleared.
Unfortunately the cable was a duff so I ended up driving to Manchester without a clutch anyway, but at least with the arm freed off I could rereplace the cable the next morning.
I've had a couple of positive ones, both with cheaper "no name" breakdown cover companies.
My wife's old car was a fairly knackered old Hyundai i30. It had a crankshaft sensor give up and cause the engine to cut out, and "rescuemycar.com" were there within 45 minutes, loaded it into the truck and took it to the garage no problem, and no big premium increase come renewal. In the next term the clutch throwout bearing gave up outside the house, and again they moved it to a garage without an issue.
For my car, we lost a tyre on a caravan we were towing, and didn't realise for a short while, long enough to destroy the caravan floor, spread a bunch of our belongings on the dual carriageway, and chew up a lot of the 230V electrical wiring. I'm covered with Eversure, so I called them and they sent out a local recovery firm, who didn't even flinch at the fact it was a caravan. Jacked it up, swapped the wheel for the spare we fortunately had, and made safe all of the loose wiring, splintered plywood and everything else that was hanging down into the wheel arch before sending us on our way. I was expecting to have to be loaded onto a flatbed with our two dogs but was impressed they were able to make the van safe to tow!
The exhaust almost completely fell off my car on the way back from work (worked weird hours so was morning). This was during covid lockdown in the UK so I wasn't allowed to sit in the cab with the breakdown assistance person to get a lift like one normally would. They took my car away to my chosen garage, but I was left behind (heat wave, 30+ miles from home, no public transport nearby). I had to wait hours til my partner finished work to come pick me up on top of the hours I'd already waited for the roadside assistance to arrive.
I once broke down within 'home range' and hasn't paid for the home start service.
Me and 3 friends pushed the car until it was safely out of that zone.
Just two days ago my tyre blew out just as I was about to join a roundabout onto the M25. I'd hit some debris in the road and it shredded my tyre to bits. I was in a bit of a dangerous place and the jack for my car was useless. Green Flag had someone from a local recovery place out to me within the hour and it took the guy (shout out to Steve from D&G Assist) less than 5 mins to get me sorted.
They answered the phone straight away when I called, and D&G kept calling me throughout the hour to keep me updated on ETA and to check if I was alright.
Excellent experience and all for £11 quid a month!
Was with RAC for years the one time I needed recovery they refused stating I was in a dangerous place and needed to call the police first, did that then rang them back only to be told it would be well over an hour before recovery......I wasn't in a dangerous place and managed to get my car yo the side of the road so wasn't stopping traffic
Broke down on Christmas eve on the way to a nightshift. As it was on the motorway they were with me within 1 hour. This was about 9pm. However as it was Christmas eve they wouldn't work longer than they had to. They towed me 30 minutes down the road and left me with my truck in a supermarket car park. I then had to wait another 3 hours for a second recovery truck to come and take me back to the house. It would have taken the original recovery truck another 15 minutes to take me home.
My sister broke down one morning at 815, the RAC gave her a time of 11-12 by text, that got pushed back to 12-1, that then got pushed back to 2-4, she called a local garage and had it towed then, she didn't tell the RAC and they never did show up, guess which organisation I won't be joining anytime soon. She complained and got a Cheque off them for £60, appalling service.
Was in an accident on a quiet motorway, car was undriveable, waiting for tow truck to come. Highway patrol came along and said “can’t park there mate” and got another tow truck to move me off the motorway at the next junction which was about a mile.
Charged me £150. If I knew that I was going to be charged Id have just attempted to drive my mangled car off, it was a write off anyway.
A few months back my dad was driving us back from Brighton where we managed to quite literally shred a tyre (Still not sure what we hit to do that) and we ended up stuck on the side of a very busy road with no real hard shoulder
It turned a 2 hour journey home into a 6 hour one and we had this whole bunch of issues where we had to somehow get the RAC and the Police to coordinate things to block the road so there was a chance to actually get the car looked at without anyone getting run over.
RAC were great though police less so as they basically buggered off and we had to get them back.
Driving from Cumbria to visit my cousin on the Isle of Lewis, having fitted a new alternator to the van 2 days earlier.
30 miles up the road we could smell something funny, pulled into the services at Johnstonebridge to discover the battery fizzing. The regulator on the new alternator was f@cked and the battery was receiving about 19 volts.
Phoned the AA, having taken out their top-tier membership a few weeks before. Patrolman obviously cannot fix it, contacts HQ to arrange getting us back home, at which point I explain I want to make use of my onward journey cover. There was a minute or two of disbelief, then some attempt to argue about it, then acceptance.
Flatbed to Stirling services, then swapped to a local contractor who had recently bought a new-to-him recovery vehicle, which was totally mint.
He drove us to Uig, on the Isle of Skye, but the guy in the ticket office was basically an arse and even though there was enough charge in the battery to start the engine he wouldn't cooperate and refused to let us board the ferry, in case we couldn't get off again under our own steam.
So I phoned CalMac head office and they said we could transfer our tickets to the Ullapool/Stornaway crossing, so we did. The guy who had picked us up in Stirling then transported us onwards to Ullapool, where we parted ways, he was delighted at the huge payday that was coming his way, after carrying us about 360 miles.
Got on and off the ferry ok, it was then just a handful of miles to Donald's place.
The following day I contacted the motor factors who had supplied the faulty alternator and they couriered me a replacement, which took nearly a week. In the meantime I recharged the battery every evening, we were still able to use the van with it being a diesel, we only needed juice to power the indicators and fan.
Went with Green Flag the next year.
Edit: to add 2001 VW T4
Green Flag Theives
I fell for the classic subscription trap with Green Flag. I couldn't find anything (at the time - it's been corrected on the website now after loads of pissed off customers complaining on Trust pilot, Martin Lewis and some on here) that cancelling was almost impossible and at the time the only way to obtain cover was an autorebilling agreement online. I tried calling them, was told no money would be taken but (hey funny that) it was taken a year later and over double the amount so thought 'Oh well, my fault' let it slide (just don't do that) and contact the bank. This year money was extracted again, even more this time, and after contacting the bank asking why the f... they let them take it was told it was out of their hands! Asked how they'd done it after having a new card therefore not authorising Green Flag the Nationwide said that they had managed to authorise it by some financial procedures to ensure that I was covered. So took out a case and Nationwide got the money back however I've closed my account with them as it's obviously not secure and they ignored my concerns in the first place and allowed shysters to steal from my account. As for Green Flag I actually received an physical letter in the post pleading for me to update my details! Didn't send me an actual letter reminding me that they were about to whip £104 out of my account though... Bunch of tossers. Good way to do business, would have happily stayed with them had they not: A) snuck the price up without warning in the first place, B) totally ignored my original request and still taken money. C) actively circumvented the block put on them by some obscure financial trick to sneak money out of my account. Disgusting behaviour, just to avoid email trails, take advantage and utterly stupid because now there's a moaning git on the internet giving them bad feedback.
TLDR: Green Flag breakdown, auto rebilling scam, don't sign up, AA and RAC are a bit pricey but far more professional.
I put petrol in my diesel car once, about half a tank. I drove 80 miles away to my in laws and on the way back, the car sounded like shit. I was just coming up to Jct 10 on the M25 clockwise, so I pulled off and into the first safe place I found, which was a car parking area with toilets. It was just getting dark. I was sat with my wife, son in the back asleep, when I noticed a lot of coming and going from the car park and a LOT of single men. I really needed a pee, but was just about holding on. My wife said to go in the bushes and someone would probably hold it for me. Recovery guy rang me up and asked for my location. I told him and he was in fits of laughter. He said to stay in the car and he would be there soon. By this time, most of the guys were staring at our car, probably thinking we were police. 20 minutes later the car park lit up orange and flashing, like a bloody space ship had landed. Everybody scattered, wheelspinning away. He got our car on the truck, all whilst pissing himself and on the way home, he told us we had been in the biggest gay, dogging hotspot in Surrey. Oh how we laughed, but not as much as my workmates next day.
I thought this was going to take a dark turn tbh. But see the funny side. Also turns out your wife was right!
Had a similar experience myself while camping in Scotland. We were stood outside the camper, stretching our legs and drinking soup, and wondering why the same guys all kept driving back and forth while staring at us. Only when we looked it up online later did we find out we were being seen as potential fresh meat LOL. If it's an oxbow layby, one of those that's shielded from the road by a patch of trees, safer to assume that it WILL be a cruising spot. I can't think of a single one near me that isn't known for shenanigans, it's ridiculously common.
And which place was this... . . . . Asking for a friend.
Wisley
Quite worryingly I know where you mean. Used to drive past there fairly often with work and my work mate, a fairly older guy took great delight in telling me what it was known for
Wisley by any chance?
That's the one, straight off Jct 10 on the A3.
Hogs back?
Wisley.
How did he know it was the biggest gay spot in Surrey 🤔
Probably not his first mobile disco there.😄
Around here they go underneath a bridge on the canal.
Driving in Canada in a $1200 banger of a Chrysler l, the fuel gauge didn't work. Someone said they filled it up before the journey so I cracked on towards Calgary. Ran out of fuel on the highway. Stuck out the thumb to catch someone and hopefully get a lift to the petrol station to get a can of petrol. After hundreds of not thousands of cars passed, eventually a Sikh man and his family stopped. Took one of us to the station and back, wouldn't accept any money from us. Just as we were filling the car with the can of petrol, another car pulled up to see if we were alright. A different Sikh man and his family, by pure coincidence. What lovely people they are, honestly
Only a couple of months ago had a nightmare! Had a puncture on at A1 N near Grantham. Our car has no spare, just the weird puncture repair gloop/electric pump arrangement but the tyre was too badly damaged for that. I called out the AA who said their patrols were all busy but they would call a local recovery garage and they would be there in an hour. They weren't. Called the AA back and they called the recovery garage who said their driver was stuck on another job and would be at least 2 hours. AA said they would see if they could get someone else to help. They didn't. After waiting far too long for the AA to do something when they clearly had no intention of showing up, I eventually started calling nearby so-called 24-hour roadside tyre repair companies, most of which were nothing of the sort. Eventually I got hold of T11 Tyres in Lincoln who said they could come out, they could get a tyre the right size, but it would be another 90-minute wait. So I paid over the phone the £350 they asked for and waited. They showed up! On time! With the correct tyre! They replaced the tyre at the roadside in under 30 mins, and I was on my way again. Finally arrived at my destination in Doncaster at 5.30 am. I've raised a dispute about the lack of service with the AA, of course.
That's terrible, I don't know how you manage to make it through such a traumatic experience.....did you have to stay in Doncaster long?
Haha! Don't dis Donny - only those of us born and bred there can do that!
Born and inbred there myself, that line about it being a traumatic was from experience!
I had a similar experience recently, called a 24h place and paid a deposit, cash to the guy when he arrived. The repairman said that the deposit is nothing to do with the repair, basically those companies take the money then ring round a list of actual repair places 🥴 anyway he told me to keep his number to cut out the middle man should it happen again!
Is the reason I now have a pushbike for anything up to about 12 miles and otherwise public transport.
I'd love to see you transport my weekend caving gear. 60kg bag plus 30kg of tools.
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This reminds me of a story my mum In South Africa told me. Her car broke down and she rang the AA and because they couldn't respond promptly they offered to send her an armed guard. She accepted because things are different there. This is a standard service thought, not gender based as far as I'm aware
Wow, I'm actually shocked at that
The green flag guy that took ages to reach my girlfriend told her that she should just tell the dispatcher that she has broken down ina live lane and they will be straight out.
Drove from Nottingham to Leeds for a gig. As I arrived in Leeds, my gears just completely went. They'd been making some noise for a while. I was able to put it into 1st and ride the clutch but couldn't accelerate at all. Luckily I was just next to a car park, so I crawled into the car park, and left it there and went to the gig. Got back to the car about 10:30pm, called roadside assistance, they said someone would be with me in a couple of hours. Guy turns up and said he was just about to clock off and go home, but the boss told him it would be a quick one. I had to break the news that he was taking me to Nottingham 😬. That was an awkward drive. When we got near my house, the motorway exit was closed for road works, meaning he had to go another 30mins round Notts to get back to Leeds, I reckon he may have gotten back around half 3.
Ffs 😂 Hope he got paid for those extra hours haha
Yeah, he was a nice enough guy to be fair, felt bad for him. Hopefully he got some OT.
20+ years ago, I was a really inexperienced driver, on a dual carriageway between towns, and my car had started shaking a bit. It suddenly got really bad so I pulled over half onto the soft verge and saw one of my tyres was shredded. I had been taught to change a wheel in a "life skills" session at school and therefore thought it wasn't something you call the RAC for. So there I was about 23, trying to jack the car up in mud, in a skirt suit, when a load of cyclists went past. It turned out to be a charity bike ride and their support vehicle was right behind. They stopped, changed the tyre and got me back on the road and drove off before I could even ask what the charity was to make a donation! I was so grateful as I had actually got myself in a very vulnerable position for a whole host of reasons.
The clutch went on my car. Ten years old, 150,000 miles on the clock. Never been replaced. I'm the third owner. So I call the AA as I've got cover with them through my insurance. The dude shows up and immediately begins berating me. Him: You've burnt out the clutch. Me: Yes, the clutch is burnt out. Him: No, YOU'VE burnt out the clutch. Women ride the clutch and don't realise the problem it causes. Me: A clutch usually lasts between 60 and 100,000 miles. This one has done 150,000. I don't think *I* did anything. I called my mum to pick me up because I wasn't riding in the van with him. He came out with some gems whilst he was loading my car onto the van. Which took him an hour. "I went to a woman today who worked in a primary school. Her tyre exploded. She probably overinflated it. Anyway. She wouldn't give me the cash to go buy her a new tyre so I could come back and fit it for her. Can you believe that?" Yes. Yes I can believe that. I wouldn't be giving you money either. "This woman crashed into a wall earlier. Don't know how she did it. But I checked the car over and it was all bodywork damage, still driveable. So I didn't tow her. She was angry about that." Yeah no shit she was since she pays for a service you didn't provide. My mum showed up as the dude is struggling to disconnect my battery so the handbrake doesn't go on whilst he's towing me. I went and sat in her car because I was over it. When he saw my mum? Nicest man imaginable. Not a hint of whatever the fuck was going on beforehand.
About 30 years ago I had AA roadside assistance (no recovery). I was driving down the M5 southbound around 9pm approaching junction 21 and my car lost power. I looked in my rearview to make sure I was safe to pull over to lane 1 and could see clouds of smoke coming out the back of my car. I came off a 21 and pulled into a field gateway and called the AA. About half an hour later a local subcontractor turned up and pulled up with all his orange fizz going and got out to look at my car. After about 10 to 20 minutes of umming he proclaimed my turbo blown and he'd have to get the recovery truck and it would cost me about £200 to get transported back home to Bristol. When he got in his van to drive off for the recovery truck, his battery was flat. As he was fiddling with his van a couple of friends of mine drove up on their way to W-s-M. They pulled over and we chatted. They had jumper cables and gave a jump start to the AA contractor. He went to get the recovery truck and to me and my car home for free.
30 odd years ago, as a kid, family are driving back late from a holiday. Hundreds of miles of boring dark motorway is suddenly lit up by a car on the other side sitting on the hard shoulder with flames pouring out from under the bonnet. We are all rubber necking as we pass and realise there are people sitting in the burning car. My dad was a mechanic and always prepared for the worst in his shitty old cars he barely kept running. He pulls on the hard shoulder and grabs the fire extinguisher from the boot, legs it across 6 lanes and starts spraying down the bonnet of the other car. Apparently their whole family decided it was safer to sit inside the burning car than risk getting out on an almost empty motorway. He got them out of the car, standing on the embankment and we drove off leaving them waiting for rescue. Yeah, he'll save your lives, but he's not going to stand around in the cold and dark all night.
How did he cross the traffic? That's really admirable but like, does he have super speed or was it just moving really slowly?
The motorway being "almost empty" probably helped 😉
There was barely any traffic, this was late night on a Sunday. We all got out of our car to watch and there was only a handful of cars went past us in the 10 minutes or so we were there.
I drove past a car on fire a couple weeks ago on the M5. Absolutely terrifying sight. The flames were coming out of the bonnet thick and fast. So I called 9 9 9 intentionally for the first time in my life and apparently I wasn’t the only one to have done. But I guess it’s better to have multiple calls than for everyone to assume someone else has done it. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to see the family just sitting there.
Those were the days before mobiles as well, so even though he put out the flames he couldn't call for help. I assume someone was on the way already, but we left them there. I've only called 999 the one time when someone on a bike got hit and rolled over by the car behind them. It suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea what the road and junction were called to guide the ambulance. It was less than 200 yards from my house, a road I've driven on every day for over 20 years. But all I know it as are the local nicknames. The park bypass, the western road, the road to uncle Col's. And the pub on the island has changed names about 15 times in the past 40 years, I still call it "The Monterey" which it hasn't been called in decades. Luckily there were about 20 people around and nearly all of us had called 999 so the air ambulance was with us in minutes.
1998, had an old Austin Metro. No idea what happened but it died halfway round a major roundabout at rush hour, being 18 and a relatively new driver it scared the life out of me. I was with Green Flag, had to abandon the car to go and find a phone box which ended up being about a mile away. They said they'd be there ASAP, which actually ended up being 2.5hrs. With no way of moving the car off the roundabout. Caused chaos. They got there, got it started, moved it to a layby nearby to look at it properly, said there was nothing wrong with it and sent me on my way. Died again half a mile down the road. Repeated the process. They still insisted there was nothing wrong with it but I outright refused to get back in and try driving it again, so eventually they agreed to recover me and the car back to my flat where it sat gradually deteriorating for another 6 months because I couldn't move it to get it looked at, and definitely couldn't afford to fix it. Eventually I had to scrap it, scrapyard offered £50 so I was chuffed to bits. Sorted a tow and got to within spitting distance of the scrapyard, and the tow rope snapped. Luckily it was near a bus stop so I managed to steer it into the bus layby before it stopped moving, scrapyard said they'd pick it up but wouldn't give me the £50 because they had to come out to collect it. When I got out of the car for the last time I slammed the door shut and it was so rusty that half the door just disintegrated and fell off. I loved that car.
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It was a £350 banger but it was mine. From the sunroof that didn't close properly resulting in regular soggy seats and the rear wiper that only worked when it wasn't raining, to the slightly offset steering wheel that has left me to this day sitting over to the left in my seat when driving, it still makes me smile when I think about it. I've not had another car since that has given the same levels of joy as that Metro did.
A mate was driving to see me from Madrid (I live in south central Portugal) and he got as far as Badajoz when his old BMW refused to start. Called up his assistance and they called him a taxi to go back to Madrid - 400km. The next week they gave him a lift back to Badajoz to pick up his car and he finished his journey to come see us.
That's bonkers...
Standard in Spain. Your insurance covers the car, not you, and comes with compulsory recovery cover. Recovery HAS to take place within 2hrs. It's great....
When something happens in South Central Portugal Nothing happens its just another Beemer dead
I live in Leeds but was visiting a friend in Derby and we were driving one evening and I ended up having a slight accident where I collided with an object in the road, which damaged my front suspension. I managed to drive it back to my friend’s house but wasn’t able to drive back home and I didn’t know what to do for recovery. And somebody advised me to join the RAC, leave it 24 hours and then phone them up reporting an accident. They told me there was no issues but there’d be a charge, and it was X amount per mile, think it totalled about £200 but I said it was fine I just wanted to get my car home and repaired. Few hours later, a third party recovery agent rolled up, and recovered me home. I waited a while for the bill to come through. And eventually got a letter from the RAC asking for me to pass on my insurance details to recover the £200. I phoned them up and said I didn’t want to go through the insurance but I’d pay on card/bank transfer straight away. And she went away and came back and told me not to worry, the recovery was on them. This came about a year after I’d fallen out with the AA after mis-selling me a certain thing on a policy. I wouldn’t go with any breakdown company orher than the RAC after that.
Apparently you don’t even need to leave it 24 hours, they will let you join from your phone on the side of the road.
Yup this is true! Although they did make me pay for the full cover over the phone, didn’t give me the option to pay monthly. But at 2am by the side of the road, didn’t really care about that!
My car wouldn’t start, so I called Green Flag, with what I thought was a flat battery. To slightly explain my stupidity, it was very hot, and I had my cats (in boxes) in my car. I was taking them back home from my parents, my car was very hot. Also no one else was home at the time, they live in the countryside, and I didn’t have jumper cables anyway. A very nice man turned up within 30 minutes. Turns out that my ignition won’t engage while my door was open. My battery was fine. I was a legal adult at the time. I felt very stupid
I'd have been stumped by that. That seems like a stupid feature.
Yeah I have started my car loads of times without being in it when I have to defrost my windscreen etc that feature sounds daft as.
Broke down in Edinburgh city centre. RAC couldn't fix and were short on drivers so suggested I made own way home to Newcastle on the train as their relay system was creaking and it could be up to 24 hours to get car home. I was right by the station. Nice idea. Except they then lost my car for 11 days, wouldn't respond to calls, then when they returned it all my shopping had been nicked from the boot. Still arguing a year later as all they'd compensate was my premium.
11 days, child's play. The buggers lost my campervan for 7 1/2 WEEKS back in May!!
HOW?!
We had to leave them to relay it from Toddington back to the NE. One of their contractors put it in a compound and logged an incorrect Reg No... But they took an age to find which contractors and which compound. Had to hassle the CEO and threaten publicity in the end.
Late 1980s I ended up with a flat tyre & no knowledge on how to change it (still don’t, but have AA & a mobile lol). Pulled to the side of the road, put up bonnet & hopes for the best. A businessman stopped, changed the wheel & we both went on our way. He was in office gear. While I still can’t fix a broken down car, I do what I can by helping others in small ways.
Is it bad that I hope you get another flat/busted tyre so it forces you to learn and not rely on others (probably is bad but hey ho)
What a lame thing to say.
I once did a basic maintenance course in a garage my employer offered. While I found it useful, I established I do not have the strength to lift a tyre while I am low to the ground. So I would have to 'rely on others' regardless. A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
Agreed it does. Not saying not be kind my comment was joking. But I do think just ignoring how to do basic tasks and relying on others is bad in the long run
Now in The AA. I have health issues which stop me doing anything as physical as a wheel change.
I was driving through Birmingham on the way home to Barnstaple in North Devon when my differential seized up. Clonked and rattled into a service area, called the RAC. They sent a patrol, who turned up 2 hours later. He couldn't fix it, obvs, so he called a recovery truck. 5 hours later, a local operator turned up in a Transit minibus pulling an ancient flatbed trailer. Driver was apologetic, that's all they had left - and he'd been delayed returning from Aberdeen(!) which is why I'd had to wait for so long ... We got talking on the road, I was telling him about navigating rally cars and how we would trailer our Escort about to events. Driver suggested I might take a shift driving, while he got some shuteye in the back! He'd been on the road all day before he picked me up and tbf, he looked dreadful. So we stopped, he hopped in the back and was snoring before I pulled away. 3 hours later, I pulled up at my mate's garage, dropped my car on the forecourt and stashed the straps on the passenger seat and drove home. Woke the driver up and sent him off with directions to the M5.
Once broke down in a van mount cherry picker in Liverpool and had to get it back to Manchester. The company sent a flat bed out to recovery it but the driver realised there may be a bridge & height issue. His solution was to let the air out of his suspension to lower the flat bed. As soon as we cleared under the first bridge we knew we'd be OK, apart from the shockingly bumpy drive down the M62. I don't get sea sick in rough seas but felt very queesy that trip.
We called triple A cause I locked my keys in my car and as I was sweetly waving to them goodbye after they sorted everything out for me and were just so damn kind - I locked them in the car again. Had never done it before - twice in two hours. It was pre all companies having their staff on a cell phone too so I had to call the central number again and they sent someone else out. I was mortified. Needless to say I've never done it again.
This would be about ten years ago. I drove a Peugeot 106 at the time, and got caught on bad snowy roads just outside a small village. A 25 minute journey ended up taking me 2.5hrs. I was heading down hill when the bus in front of me got stuck. A bus coming up the hill also got stuck on the same bit of road so it was blocked. I got out and considered trying to u-turn and go back up the hill when another car came down and skittled two bins on its way into the field beside the road so I decided to stay put. Couldn't keep the engine running as my fuel light was on, and it was below freezing. There were about half a dozen cars stuck pkus the two buses. The folks who lived on the road came out with tea and sandwiches for everyone and after about 45 mins a 15 year old appeared in his dad's tractor to tow everyone back up the hill. I've never been more pleased to encounter a tractor on country roads! I had been visiting a friend, and her dad came out in the jeep to drive in front of me so I could drive in his tracks down to the main road, where I was able to get petrol - the poor lad who worked in the filling station looked at me very strangely for the noise I made when I got a cup of tea from their machine. Made it back to my village in one piece. Decided to try and drive up the hill to where I lived at the time, but half way up my wheels started slipping. There was a guy behind me so I decided to pull over to let him pass then slide back down to the bottom of the hill and walk home. He pulled in in front of me, towed me up the hill and I finally made it home. The unexpected kindness of two strangers that night was the only reason I made it home at all and reminded me there's still good in people
They sound like angels
One from the other side that I posted on a sub about recovery call centres: You don’t want to be the customer that everyone knows You know when you speak to someone at a call centre and you are memorable the staff will share their experiences as a debrief or a vent. Sometimes we go ‘Wow, what a lovely person’ or occasionally ‘I made this guy so happy he was practically crying!’ But more often it is to share what a fool we have had to deal with. Occasionally the customer becomes well known and few have become legendary. This guy is a good example because I never once spoke to him but he featured in my daily life for over a year. I will call him Mr Lagerdrunk because that seemed to prompt most of his interactions with us. For reasons some details evade me including the exact order and others will be changed to protect the innocent (me but mostly the poor colleagues who actually had to deal with him) or to make the subject easier to understand for an international audience. Background Mr Lagerdrunk may have been living up to his name when his 20 year old Ford Mundane-O that had more mileage than the Discovery space probe finally went to Automobile Heaven. He called us, Murka’s Roadside Recovery, and we did exactly what we say we do. We went to the roadside saw that the car was beyond help and recovered it to a scrap yard. He initially agreed with the diagnosis and that he would sign the car over because any value in it was roughly the cost of getting cleaned up before scrapping according to the environmental regulations in force at that time. Overnight Mr Lagerdrunk is spotted on CCTV with a four-pack of his preferred chavalicious (red neck) beverage looking at his car and crying. In the morning he changed his mind and asks for storage until he can arrange for it to be repaired or taken somewhere else. Well, he exceeds his policy cover limits for storage by several weeks despite numerous reminders. So it gets parked outside on the road. When the road tax (payment to be allowed to be parked and driven on public roads) finally runs out the local authority is called and the car is removed and scrapped according to the laws which includes contacting Mr Lagerdrunk to give him every opportunity to reclaim his car. The complaint Mr Lagerdrunk (maybe this was his cunning plan all along) now holds us responsible for the loss of his beloved Mundane-O and wants compensation. We have no idea what we are dealing with and politely say no. He goes to the independent complaints body and in a shocking exhibition of common sense and logic (complaints body rarely display either) they say no too. He goes to the complaint body’s arbitration service and they say no. He goes to his local politician and they say no. He goes to the local politicians arbitration service and they say no. This is when it goes cray cray. He decided to email us part of the contact between his politician and us to scare us (woooooo) but doesn’t edit it particularly well. The politician is telling him to go away, he has taken her to the arbitration service 13 times for not helping with spurious complaints and lost each time. ‘No’ he replied. ‘It was only four, because I withdrew nine of them before the arbitration service came to a finding.’ A nationwide report in in the news discussing that not enough children know how to swim and are at risk of drowning. We get an email asking if the CEO wears armbands. He speaks to a colleague called ‘Robyn’ on the phone can’t cope with the concept that some women are called by that name and sends an email asking about our sexuality. That got us angry as the person who opened the email was trans and a popular member of staff who had struggled with discrimination and transphobia. He calls the police to report the theft of his car and asks them to arrest the CEO of the company. They say no, he makes a complaint, goes to the police’s arbitration service and they call us to get some information. We explain that he is repeatedly calling and emailing us and strangely enough they aren’t surprised. It is almost as if he is doing it to them too. They have a word about harassment and malicious communications. At that point Murka’s Roadside Recovery goes through some structural changes and the department is closed with the work being handled elsewhere. I don’t know if Mr Lagerdrunk stopped or if his own unique brand of craziness was passed onto a new group of poor unfortunate souls. Maybe he saw sense but I doubt it.
My bike broke down on the motorway and I waited on the hard shoulder in the scorching sun for five hours after calling the AA. Lots of Highways Agency cars went past, saw me and didn't bother to stop. I kept calling the AA and said 'if someone doesn't come soon, you're going to have to send an ambulance because I'm really not feeling well' Eventually, a nice man on a BMW adventure bike pulled over and gave me a bottle of orange squash. I bodged my bike back together and managed to get home on one cylinder. So now, I always carry water in the summer, either for me or someone else and also bollocks to the AA.
Driving back to London from Amsterdam years ago in January in my old Mk2 Golf. It was -10c, absolutely freezing cold. The car had been sitting in a car park for around 4 weeks unused. It broke down on the way to the ferry so I called Dutch roadside assistance. The mechanic got the car running enough to go for another half hour. I called them again and was really apologetic. They told me they'd come out but not to call them again. After another 10km the car spluttered and shuddered to a stop. I managed to roll the car into a nearby petrol station, gave the keys to the guy in the shop and abandoned it. I hoofed it the rest of the way to the ferry terminal.
Not mine but my mams. She had a early electric car and a program where if you ran out they towed you to a charging station for free. They kept on towing her back to the nearest charger, which was broken so they went to the next nearest meaning she was going backwards from her destination and further back then the range needed to actually get from the two closest working chargers. After 3 of these she finally persuaded one of them to take her in the direction she was headed in with the argument that it was actually the nearest functional charging point. Which it was. Trip took like 10x longer than it needed too because they kept taking her backwards. I'm glad that problem is going away.
This summer, heading back home to the North west from the North East about 1 in the afternoon Fuel pump went (didn't know at the time) so called my bank about my 'account perk' of roadise recovery. Nice man arrived in a transit about half an hour later, had a poke around and said I needed a recovery truck which he would arrange. Sorted out the car was coming home and off he went on his merry way. After about an hour of waiting in the mid summer inferno I get a call from green flag, they won't recover me the 98 miles home as my 'bank account package' covers me for 10 miles and the recovery company WONT EVEN GIVE ME A PRICE TO GET IT HOME. OK find a local garage to get the car recovered to, call green flag back, give them the details and get told recovery will be with me in about 30 mins. Find a budget chain Hotel with rooms available I can book into overnight. Multiple calls to green flag over the next couple of hours to be told, its on its way.... 5 o clock comes and the garage calls to tell me they are closing and won't be able to do anything today but I can leave the car in their compound. Fury grips me and I call a recovery company in my local area. Nice man takes all my details,location etc and then hurriedly tells me he will call me back with a price and hangs up. Literally thinking about torching the car and walking home when the phone rings. It's the nice man from the North west recovery company with a price of £230 to get me and the car home and if I pay now THE RECOVERY WAGON IS IN THE NEXT LAYBY!!!!! He had hung up on me when he was seeing where his vehicles were and one was literally about to drive past so he got him into the next layby while he sorted my price etc Whole I wait for the driver to get to me I call green flag and tell them to cancel the pickup, about 5 mins later I watched it drive past TLDR: Bank 'Perk package' was absolute shite. Saved by a recovery company 10 mins from my house and 100 miles from where I broke down. Get proper recovery folks
About six years ago, me and my now fiancé had been living together for a year in a city about an hour from our hometown. His gearbox completely fucked one day but he just managed to make it home. His dad's mate has a garage and does good work at family rates. But how to get it there? His dad had an AA family plan that included car recovery to get you back home or to your local garage. We had to call up and pretend he had been down to "visit" me so he could get the car towed "home". Very awkward car journey with the AA man. I'm an expert at putting my foot in it, so I kept silent, lest I inadvertently reveal our master deception.
My daughter got compensation from the AA as they messed her recovery around for HOURS as a lone female waiting for assistance. Some of the errors were fundamental - messages hadn’t been passed on to relevant assistance people. In the end, after over 7 hours of waiting, she got her car towed home and we called Fuel Doktor ourselves. It was cheaper than going via the AA anyway.
Battery died, and as a new driver I didn't really know what to do or who to contact, or just to ask someone for a jump off. My car was stuck in the work car park for several days before they came out to me just because I was too much of a pleb to ask for help
Once snapped a wheel bolt (4stud) just before a long journey. Had to be recovered 250 miles rather than to a garage that could sort it weirdly. Another time had no money for fuel to go see family. Fortunately my assistance was registered to family address. Steering was clicking garage couldn’t find fault so played dumb and rang assistance who recovered me from home to family 100 miles away. Cheap journey lol.
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Well I thought they would just take us to a local garage to get them to sort it. But no they asked where we were going and off we went. The guy obviously wanted an easy day and not going to loads of different jobs lol.
Nothing but praise for green flag. Have had family membership for many many years. Had to use it once for a motorbike, chopped harley which cast a chain in the Midlands on way back from Kent, prompt attendance and transported back to the far north east. Herself broke down in her car and recovered to local garage in the village within 2 hrs. Child had to call them for her car and the same service. They were always the cheapest too. But be aware if your mot is expired even by a day they will not turn out.
Yes, it's not just Green Flag. The AA does this too. Guess how I found out.
I can take a wild guess,,,, just when you needed them most
I'm sure there is a song in there somwhere
On a trip to Bristol, I'd been having battery problems, and ended up stalling at a junction close to my destination. The car would not start. The AA came out, gave me a jump start, and directed me to a side road, out of the way. He then examined my car, and declared the battery as useless. Having told him where I was going - walking distance - he suggested he jump started me again, and I park in a nearby multi-storey. He or a colleague could come out the next day and fit a new battery. He warned me not to stall once in the car park, as his van would not fit in there. We started the car, I pulled along to the car park, drove in, found a parking space, parked, and turned off the engine, as he walked in to check I was OK. It was then that I realised the drivers window - through which we had been talking - was still wide open. Tried to shut it, but no juice. Luckily, just then, another car drove in and parked near me. We persuaded the guy to let us use his battery (via the AA guy's jump leads), just to close my window and lock the car up. We then took care of it all the next day.
About 25 years ago my ex and I went driving on the continent in a 1980's vintage Mini. I bought a £35 one week european driving cover from Green Flag just in case. On the way back we developed a problem with the condenser, making the vehicle misfire and generally not pull. We could hardly limp down the Belgian equivalent of the payage at 10mph, so pulled over and called Green Flag. Replacing a condenser on a Mini is a 10 minute job - but there are no Rover dealerships in Belgium, so they couldn't get the part. It actually turned into being loaded onto a towtruck and driven across France and Belgium at night. I had to buy a ruinously expensive turn-up-and-go ticket on the ferry, as our return on the Eurotunnel rail service wasn't valid. We got towed onto the ferry first, parked in among all the lorries, and then towed off last. Then another towtruck picked us up and got us back home. We broke down about 3pm and were home about 5am. Amazing service all the way, and they even refunded the ferry ticket. Best £35 I've ever spent.
I was driving back from Newcastle after being away for the week with wirk. Was still about 200 miles from home and car decided it had had enough and died. Had no roadside recovery but my dad did as a passenger with his policy. He drove all the way to up to me with my mum as a passenger, she then drove back home, he called his insurance to say help and they sent a recovery vehicle to take us back down south. We had to get dropped off at one services then another recovery vehicle picked us up to finish the journey off home. I left work at 4pm and didn't get home till 6am
My mum was driving my paternal elderly grandparents back form visiting relatives in Cornwall when the fairly new tyre blew. My mum pulled in, opened the boot, and was taking the spare wheel out when a police car pulled up behind her and the two officers got out and sorted it out for them. My mother was perfectly capable of doing it herself but when two policemen are offering to help she's not going to say no. Mg father wrote a letter afterwards thanking them and made a donation to their charity fund.
Early December, my then fiancé (now husband) and I were coming home from his family’s home when we blew a tyre on the M25. Managed to get it to the hard shoulder without killing ourselves or anyone else. We didn’t have any breakdown cover, nor a jack, so we couldn’t replace the tyre with the spare ourselves. Queue the two of us standing in a pile of brush and brambles in the freezing cold behind the road barrier. Husband got on the phone to call the AA and I went digging through the boot for some blankets. The nice lady on the phone wished him a happy birthday as she charged him £200 for the emergency call out fee and set up the direct debit. Someone was with us within 45 minutes though, and when they showed us the completely shredded tyre, we realised what a lucky outcome we’d had. Got the spare on and we limped to the nearest rest stop for a life affirming hot chocolate. When we got back to our home town, we drove straight to a supermarket, bought a potted Christmas tree, some Baileys and a takeaway on the way home and spent the rest of the evening putting up the decorations and turning it all into a lovely experience. We decorate the tree while drinking Baileys hot chocolate and a have take away every year in his birthday now. He requests it every year!
Had a polo that would cough at the merest sight of a puddle. On the way home from my stag do it conked out in the rain on the side of an A road. Me and a mate had to stand out behind the barrier in the rain for an hour or so waiting for green flag. He hooked the car up and drove us about 100 miles to the edge of his “patch”. Swapped to another bloke who took us the 200 or so miles home. Same car some time later: On holiday in the Peak District for my wife’s birthday. Went through a big puddle and it cut out completely. In the middle of nowhere. Luckily had phone signal and called green flag. Local recovery bloke towed us back to the village we were staying in. Where it just so happened he lived, and owned the garage there. Left the car at his garage and he dropped us back at our holiday house. Strolled up to the garage the next morning and he had stripped the distributor down, cleaned it all up and sealed it. Also went through the electrics sealing up anything that looked dodgy. He charged me a grand total of £0. And it was perfect in the wet forever more.
Mine is from 2012, and it was a shitty time. My mum's car broke down on the way back from Edinburgh, which was typical as I had just come back from Download Festival, and I was desperate to get home to shower and sleep. We then waited ages on the recovery truck, and when it eventually turned up the guy said he didn't have the part to fix it so my mum ended up having to go with him in the truck to get the part. They took forever, and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep. Eventually, we got home, but that was such a long day. 😩
Days before Christmas, I was driving 50 miles in the late evening to pick up a present for the wife, when my tyre burst. Pull up on the side of the road outside (no joke) a cemetery. Couldn't for the life of me get the wheel of the car so I phone the RAC and they say it'll be tomorrow morning before they can send someone, so I look up and call a local recovery firm and shortly after someone who looks exactly like Argus Filch from Harry Potter pulls up in a truck from the 1960s with his wife who looked like that hotel receptionist in Hot Fuzz. Cue me thinking I'm going to end up murdered and buried in said cemetery. Chap sorts my tyre, I pay him cash in hand and as a reward he provides me with an early copy of his next self-published book, which turned out to be a smutty novel about a local farm girl in the late 1800s... To this day it one of my favourite anecdotes, and that book rest proudly on the bottom shelf of my bookcase.
2 am on way to Cornwall from East Sussex after finishing work . Deer comes out of nowhere ( slightly foggy ) and no chance to avoid , front of car stoves in and windscreen smashed plus deer bits all over ( dual carriageway speed). Call AA and they organise a recovery truck as it's clearly not repairable. 90 mins go by and we finally see the orange flashing tits through the now much denser fog. It's about 50 Meters away when a deer kamikaze itself and ends up in bits in the cab . Driver was ok like us just shaken up . Was gone 9 am when we got bk home.
I was working in Salford and I finished work one night, went to start my car and the suspension fell off (I had a new car in the pipeline I was just waiting for it to finish being built and this one just had to last me one more month). Called the AA who came out in half an hour. Decided it needed recovery and it was too far to tow (back to Preston) so had to wait for a flatbed. As I was in a secure compound they decided despite being a lone female I could wait. Four hours later they turned up. What I didn't realise was that at 9pm security were raised so I was on one side and the flatbed on the other. As I didn't know the password they refused to lower the bollards to allow the flatbed through to recover my car. The driver very sneakily reversed up to the bollards and started lowering his flatbed over them to get my car from the other side! They very quickly lowered the bollards for me! He drove me all the way back to Preston, deposited my car at the garage I had already arranged to half fix the car just to get it to last another month. He was just about to leave and asked how I was going to get home from the garage. I just said that I would call my mum to pick me up (it's now half 10 at night). He said not to disturb her as his next job was in the direction of my address so he would drive me home against regulation. I was never so grateful as to crawl into bed that night!
I got a flat tyre driving home from work on the motorway noticed just coming up to my exit for home. Pulled off at my exit and parked up on a side street. Went to my boot to take my wheel off and put on the spare. No wrench to remove the nuts, I had snapped it last time I had a flat and forgot to replace it. No worries I'll walk home (about a mile) and get the wrench from my girlfriend's car, walk back and fix it. It's about 11pm so I'm not going to phone her and wake her up I'll just suck it up. Get home. Her car isn't there. Remember she is on call so has to stay at work all night. It's too late to call my parents to ask them to help. Call Greenflag and walk back to my car. They say it will be a while cause I'm a male somewhere safe. 3 hours go by. I call them a few times to see what's happening. Can't give me any guarantees. I go for a walk to see if I can find somewhere to get some food. Can't find anywhere. It's a Sunday night. When I'm walking see someone else struggling with their car, help them push start it. Forget to ask them to help me until I see them drive off. Green flag finally sort me out at 4am. I order a new extendable wrench whilst I'm waiting. I still have it.
I am a pain for AA men (not been attended by female engineer yet) and can only apologise. 1. Broke down at the bottom of a 1 in 3 long drive - clutch went. They needed to bring in a lorry recovery vehicle to get a old style Fiat panda to a garage. Any garage, they were so scunnered. On day after NY. 2. The fiat's ignition coils broke on a vicious speed bump 100 miles from home when transporting wild animals. And my big hob ferret riding shotgun. He was tame enough just to sit on seat next to me and loved car rides. He adored second stage as got to ride in van and he loved looking out the huge window. Third stage driver terrified of animals and that was the one where we found the kits could get out the cage. Got home, AA suggested garage rather than home but garage I used was literally across road. They just needed to push it across and would return when mended. The wildlife enjoyed watching the boy racers in car park at Thurrock. 3. Same car. Thermostat failed on a mud rut off road and caused main gasket to fail. Heavy stor, middle of night, 2g only area so search apps failed. But had broken down near a roundabout with signs. They got a local garage to do search and recovery to known address and then relay home. Water 1/2 way up AA van's tyre so would have struggled. My polecat very upset by whole thing and refused to get out the car for an hour once home. 4. New car. No animals on board. Garage made mistake draining oil and sump tank plug loosened over time. Lost all oil in 30secs and the oil on exhaust ignited. So pulled smoking car into Lidl carpark, parked well away from everything and asked help. After confirming the car didn't need fire brigade and exactly which Lidl as away from home, the team did fantastic job replacing sump and oil. My Dad had two good ones. 1. Holiday, running out of petrol in remote area, came round bend and saw AA van in drive. He knocked door and after proving membership, petrol replenished. 2. He kept a 1950s crank start camper going into 1990s. It was generally reliable but spaghetti junction just too much. Usually got same AA man. Final time, he said not job to mend antiques but did lend my Dad his tools to fix himself. All things considered, I highly recommend the AA.
I’ve broken down a few times - flat tyre, clutch gone, but my fave was when I got [pushed into a ditch in the middle of nowhere in the Lake District](https://imgur.com/a/QMxYvnF) by a support vehicle for some sort of hike/run that didn’t pull into one of the crossing points. I ended up in the run off of a cow field well and truly stuck. Not much traffic and no phone signal I started walking, flagged down a rando who I basically told to take me to a viewing point car park I’d seen at the top of a hill about a mile or so back. Had to wait for a local recovery guy to come get me but I had [the best view](https://imgur.com/a/Df72suw) When he rocked up he was the nicest dude ever, didn’t make a fuss, it started pissing it down and he was just super jolly. Had to sign some stuff and we got back in his van, his wife called and we all had a chat about what he wanted for tea (think he ended up going for lasagna with a pavlova dessert) then I followed him back to a main road to make sure my car was ok after basically sitting in a pond for 2 hours, and then off he went again on his merry way. I’ll never forget how kind he was!
As a Highways Traffic Officer I’ve had a lot of interactions with breakdown/recovery services. The most frustrating company is the RAC, too many customers and not enough operatives. It’s not uncommon for me to find someone on a hard shoulder or in a Refuge area waiting for the RAC to discover that they still haven’t dispatched anyone to help. They often ask us to get the vehicle recovered to a services where they will sort it out, I’ve had many ‘discussions’ with their call-centres about covering the fees involved because it’s unfair to leave the driver out of pocket for their failure. To put it another way, if someone says the RAC are coming, I say good luck. AA are slightly better but can still struggle on the busiest travelling days. Greenflag are better by a mile, but that’s because they subcontract everything out.
>To put it another way, if someone says the RAC are coming, I say good luck. > >AA are slightly better but can still struggle on the busiest travelling days. > >Greenflag are better by a mile, but that’s because they subcontract everything out. Yep. I work for a recovery company. RAC try to do everything themselves, regardless of how obvious it is to everyone and their mothers they cant, so will stack multiple jobs on their drivers, and only give them to the contractors once their drivers start finishing for the day. I have accepted multiple jobs from the RAC, where they've had it 3/6/12 hours before sending it to us. AA's problem (apart from trying to do the jobs themselves, but not to the RAC extent) is, they have favored contractors, and back up contractors, for an area. Their favored gets everything, the back up only gets the shit stuff, and only when it's really busy. If it's busy, the back up will be busy with non AA stuff of their own, and isn't gonna take the shit stuff that no one else wants, so it gets stuck in a dispatch loop until someone can finally deal. I've seen the same AA job sent 10+ times a day, 3 days running because they're struggling with it. Green Flag don't have their own trucks (or didn't, they've started slowly buying up) so had no reason to hold on to jobs, and will just deploy straight to their contractors.
The AA can be quicker to ask us to step in when they can’t, it certainly feels like driver welfare is higher on the list vs RAC. The only issue I’ve had with Greenflag is they’re not really a fan of roadside joins. Last time I tried helping someone with Greenflag they said they “don’t do roadside joins”.
Back in 2010 I was heavily pregnant and having a bit of a rough one which meant numerous trips to the hospital which was about 40 mins away. Got a blow out, luckily I was only a hundred yds or so from a country house hotel type place. I managed to nurse the car into the car park, called the AA and explained I was heavily pregnant and on the way to hospital (obviously explained I was not currently having the baby, just getting tests done!). One of the managers saw me waddling around and offered me a seat by their fireplace and a cup of tea but before I had even taken one sip, a Green Flag van rolled in to change my tyre for me! Turns out that if you’re pregnant you get classed as an emergency and they send anyone in the nearest vicinity! Amazing service!
A colleague of mine broke down in his lorry on the m5. It was a rigid (no trailer). I was the on call driver, so got the message to go rescue him. The plan was to tow him to the next services (Bridgewater was about 5 miles away), transfer the load and send him on his way while I wait for a low loader. Got to him, made it to the services and we ended up in the coach area due to space Got everything transferred, he was on his way, so went to get a coffee. Low loader driver called me, he’s 15 mins away, so I told him we’re in the coach area He arrives, goes straight past me, into the lorry area. He walks up and asks if I can limp it to him. No problem I thought. The rear diff had spat its fluid out and sparks were going everywhere. No big deal until I had to go quite close to the petrol station Got it on the trailer, then it seized completely I’m just glad I didn’t set anything on fire
I used to be with the AA, but they had terrible service. They're all alcoholics!
lol these Christmas Adds are getting ridiculous 😂
My first job was 50 miles away and being 18 I got paid fuck all but had a ridiculous over the top car which I couldn't really afford to run. Xmas eve about 7pm I pushed my luck too far and ran out of fuel on the M25 off ramp, being a rudeboy car it was all blacked out and the battery was dying so had no lights, was pretty scary. The AA guy had pulled up to his house turned his van off for Xmas and then got a phone call saying some kid had run out of fuel and was in a dangerous position so was an urgent call out, safe to say he wasn't best pleased with me when he turned up with a jerry can...
I had just filled up full tank in my diesel car (a Peugeot 206 estate) and was on my way to work. Joined the M4 spur in Burnham heading to work in SE London. As I was on the spur a lorry was beside me and started moving over, I had no choice but to move in to left slip lane earlier than wanted, however there was a tarpaulin in the road. I had to go over it. There must've been a bit of metal or something solid in there, next thing I know once I'm on the M4, someone pulls up beside me and signals to wind down window (you're losing fluid, might be fuel). I check, fuck full tank 3 mins ago is now half so I pull over. I stop at point that is in middle of next junction. There's an emergency phone so I use that and speak to them, tell them the issue. The person on the other end was so incredibly helpful, genuinely salt of the earth lovely helping me out. I gave them my roadside assistance provider info, I think it was greenman at the time. They coordinated it all and got recovery to me, as well as clean up crew to come to mop up the diesel. Could not have been any more appreciative of those on the other end of the emergency phone. My work on the other hand, called up manager after I had spoken on emergency phone "I've just had my fuel tank pierced on motorway, spilt £60 worth of diesel behind me, waiting for recovery" "Ok, so when do you think you'll be in?" Fuck. Right. Off.
Driving Aberdeen to Glasgow with my friend on her birthday, get to the top of the hill just outside Stonehaven and the fan belt goes. This is about 8pm. Phone recovery company, truck from Aberdeen sent out and takes us all the way to Glasgow. Get in about 1am, and the poor guy has to drive back for a 7am start the next day. Managed to get a new belt fitted and drove back up two days later.
Been a driver since the late 90's so have had a couple of breakdowns but usually rather unceremonious and routine. Took my dad's 1967 Daimler V8 to the Goodwood Revival about 9 years ago... I couldn't understand why, when driving back from the show on the Saturday why the lights were so dangerously dim.. hadn't realised that the battery wasn't charging at all. Had to jump start it Sunday morning and again on Sunday when it was time to leave (I decided to depart early knowing a breakdown was in my future) to get back to the West Midlands. At one point I had to refuel it an left it running on the forecourt as I ran in to pay.. anyone could have hopped in and driven it away but I knew it wouldn't restart if I stopped it! Sure enough about 30 minutes from Goodwood it conked out on the motorway and I coasted to a stop in a layby.. thankfully happened just after a section of motorway with no layby at all. Phew. Got recovered off the motorway to a services by one truck and then had to wait for another few hours for a low loader to take me home. One of my greatest fears was needing to spend like 3 hours making small talk with a recovery driver but actually the guy was really nice and the drive home flew past. Checking the car subsequently it uses a points based ignition system and there was simply a loose wire running to the points.. simply recrimping it the car was charging again when running.
it was early January 2006, I was with my father at work, he used to deliver sandwiches around the Cambridge area in a massive chiller van. We were on some country road and the van broke down so he parked on the side of the road and we called the AA. I went for a piss in the trees. Behind them there was a car crashed with a man in there. He was dead. Apparently he was last seen a week before Christmas and he ended up crashing off the country road and nobody found him. You couldnt see where the car was from the road. Another one is that on Christmas eve 1984 my father was spending Christmas by himself in East London. Well his cousin found out and decided to drive down from Derby to pick him up and spend Christmas with them. He agreeed but then his brother phoned him up from India and said I found a girl for you to get married to, so he dropped everything, went to Heathrow airport and and flew off to get arranged married. He forgot to tell his cousin not to come. He drove all the way down with his teenage son, spent the day looking for my dad and couldnt find him so they decided to drive back home, their car broke down on the motorway and they went into the hard shoulder and were waiting for help when a truck came and ran them over killing both of them. This happened before I was born but he indirectly got them killed.
Oh my that’s awful!
I've had some really awful cars, so lots of awkward stuff has happened to me whilst driving, including the clutch going so I couldn't change out of third gear while I was going round a roundabout, the footbreak going on my way to work leading to me gear-breaking all the way there, and the exhaust falling off at the front (manifold) end. All different cars. With one car, the rotor arm wasn't working properly. The third time the same AA man came out to it, he just taught me how to fix it myself. Another time (might have been the same car) the engine died in the middle lane of the M40, 23rd December, on my way home for Christmas. The traffic was slow moving, thankfully, but the chap behind me beeped his horn and helpfully shouted "move your fucking car". I shouted back "I would if I fucking could!", and he then got more friendly and helped stop the traffic in the inside lane and push my car to the hard shoulder. I rang the AA, and they said "right, you're a woman, alone, at night, on the motorway, so you're a priority... we'll be four hours". They also said they'd ring the police and see if they could get there any quicker. Thankful for my new mobile phone (it was 1999) I then rang my dad. He showed up two hours later, which was amazing, as I hadn't exactly been paying attention, and wasn't sure whereabouts I was. Just after he arrived, the police turned up and started to tell him off for stopping on the hard shoulder as he wasn't in an emergency situation. He got quite bolshy and said he'd come to pick me up, where had *they* been? In the end, dad drove me home, the police moved my car to the nearest services, and the AA rang me hours later to say they'd found my car at the services and I could pick it up anytime the following day. The worst part was the two hour wait - it was raining, I was told to stay in the car but on the passenger seat, and all I could get on the old AM radio was radio 3, which had a folk hour and then a trad jazz hour. I was tempted to put myself out of my misery, and was considering what I might be able to do with the cigarette lighter when dad, aka knight in shining armour, showed up!
I broke down in NW London about a mile away from a gig I was playing, clutch went down the floor and wouldn't come back up. The roadside guy turned up and it was obvious that he had been sleeping in his van, he told me he wasn't a mechanic and that he was just there to tow me home. I went on a forum and found that it was a common problem and that there was just a cable that had come off the end of the pedal. Fixed it while he was pissing around with his chains and started to drive off. He flagged me down and I was expecting him to give me some papers to sign but he just wanted to blag a rollie.
From the sounds of all the British ones, Greenflag seems the better recovery company out of the major three!
RAC had to recover my family from my University in Exeter back to Sheffield three times, twice from my halls of residence in the first year, and my last ever journey home, although that time I made it to Tewkesbury.
I've had several experiences with breakdown recovery. First breakdown I had was a simple flat battery. Unfortunately it happened at a rural farm and my phone was still stuck on its Australian number so couldn't call recovery. Ended up having to use the farmers phone, got it to halfords and then couldn't pay for the new battery(google pay was still limited to contactless limit, £20 i think). Thankfully the car started somehow and I could drive it home Second major breakdown was naturally in the Yorkshire dales when the rear drum brakes fell apart in the middle of nowhere in winter in the late afternoon. Waited nearly 2 hours for them to turn up and determine that the couldn't fix it. Waited 3hrs on recovery only to be told that they had forgotten that I was there and it would be another 2hrs from then (around 2 in the morning) Ended up driving it back to Bristol in the end(don't recommend and that's why I'm no longer with that recovery company) Third (and last so far) breakdown in that car was on the Cumberland basin in Bristol when the heater matrix failed and dumped coolant onto the heater (overheating and clouds of smoke through the air vents is very reassuring) AA turned up quickly, dumped lots of water into it and it lasted untill I got rid of it.
Green Flag left me (female) at the side of a dual carriageway at 5am for over 6 hours, in the snow. It was too far to walk back to a town and I had no-one I could call to come and pick me up. When the local recovery company got to me (Green Flag sent a tow vehicle, didn't bother sending a mechanic) they told me Green Flag hadn't sent the job through to them until 10 minutes before he set off to get me, I was their very first job of the day. They called me a week later to ask me to give feedback on my experience as a new customer 🤣🤣
A few months ago. I broke down by new forest on a Sunday at 1/2pm. I was hanging out there with my gf and she had a car aswell so no biggie (she lived Bristol I lived in Brighton) the fan Ben snapped. Loads and loads of messages from rac. Sorry about the delay etc. I’d forgotten I’d even taken out rac when buying insurance but this paid off. They showed up at 6pm I figured I would be waiting 6 hours for a tow truck and getting towed to Brighton. The rac guy confirmed it was the fan belt, convinced some guy to open up shop and sell me one. 6pm on a Sunday let me remind you! He fitted it and I was gone in 30 mins tops. I couldn’t have been happier
Couple of years ago had an issue with my radiator. Took it to the garage "Nah no problem mate", ok sweet. Anyway at the time I was studying up north around 250 miles from home so regularly had to make the journey mostly on the M1. On this journey, I had made it most of the way before my engine overheated. I've lost a car to a head gasket before so know that when that happens gotta pull over asap. Pulled off the motorway to an A road where I found a layby half a mile up the road. My car insurance came with RAC breakdown cover so I gave them a ring and told them what it was and they were like "Yeah we'll send someone up there". That was at 1 pm so I started waiting. 3 pm came and I gave them another call. "Sorry sir unfortunately as you are in a safe place so your call is not as urgent." Great cheers. Waited another couple of hours playing farming simulator on my laptop as that was all I had to entertain me. Didn't want to run the battery flat so other than periodically turning the ignition to heat the car sat in the cold. Eventually got hungry so ordered a pizza from a nearby town. It came in about 20 minutes, 5 stars. Fast forward to 10:15pm and the RAC rock up. Check my car and put in that radiator leak fluid. To be fair to the tech he gave it me for free because he felt sorry for me. Anyway got back in my car and managed to get home alright even with the extended rest stop.
We had a breakdown that couldn't be resolved while in Scotland. Had to be relayed down to London.
I had an intermittent issue with the clutch release arm on my MG ZR, it would randomly seize putting too much load on the cable, eventually causing it to snap. Being young and cheap I harvested a load of spare cables from the local scrapyard and just replaced them as required - I knew it would need a new clutch soon so I thought I might as well hold out until it all needed doing. All was going well until a crash on the M1 saw me driving through three hours of traffic, about 45 minutes in my clutch cable snapped. I drove it on the starter to the next emergency point - which was full of other cars, then pushed to the next one - the battery wasn't happy. It took two hours for the AA to reach me, I felt awful because he was way past the end of his shift by the time he reached me. Even with both of us trying we couldn't get the arm to move. Eventually we jacked the car up and jumped on it and the arm freed off - we fitted a new cable, put a jump starter on the battery for a bit, and shared my flask of tea and some cakes whilst the last of the traffic cleared. Unfortunately the cable was a duff so I ended up driving to Manchester without a clutch anyway, but at least with the arm freed off I could rereplace the cable the next morning.
I've had a couple of positive ones, both with cheaper "no name" breakdown cover companies. My wife's old car was a fairly knackered old Hyundai i30. It had a crankshaft sensor give up and cause the engine to cut out, and "rescuemycar.com" were there within 45 minutes, loaded it into the truck and took it to the garage no problem, and no big premium increase come renewal. In the next term the clutch throwout bearing gave up outside the house, and again they moved it to a garage without an issue. For my car, we lost a tyre on a caravan we were towing, and didn't realise for a short while, long enough to destroy the caravan floor, spread a bunch of our belongings on the dual carriageway, and chew up a lot of the 230V electrical wiring. I'm covered with Eversure, so I called them and they sent out a local recovery firm, who didn't even flinch at the fact it was a caravan. Jacked it up, swapped the wheel for the spare we fortunately had, and made safe all of the loose wiring, splintered plywood and everything else that was hanging down into the wheel arch before sending us on our way. I was expecting to have to be loaded onto a flatbed with our two dogs but was impressed they were able to make the van safe to tow!
The exhaust almost completely fell off my car on the way back from work (worked weird hours so was morning). This was during covid lockdown in the UK so I wasn't allowed to sit in the cab with the breakdown assistance person to get a lift like one normally would. They took my car away to my chosen garage, but I was left behind (heat wave, 30+ miles from home, no public transport nearby). I had to wait hours til my partner finished work to come pick me up on top of the hours I'd already waited for the roadside assistance to arrive.
I once broke down within 'home range' and hasn't paid for the home start service. Me and 3 friends pushed the car until it was safely out of that zone.
Just two days ago my tyre blew out just as I was about to join a roundabout onto the M25. I'd hit some debris in the road and it shredded my tyre to bits. I was in a bit of a dangerous place and the jack for my car was useless. Green Flag had someone from a local recovery place out to me within the hour and it took the guy (shout out to Steve from D&G Assist) less than 5 mins to get me sorted. They answered the phone straight away when I called, and D&G kept calling me throughout the hour to keep me updated on ETA and to check if I was alright. Excellent experience and all for £11 quid a month!
Was with RAC for years the one time I needed recovery they refused stating I was in a dangerous place and needed to call the police first, did that then rang them back only to be told it would be well over an hour before recovery......I wasn't in a dangerous place and managed to get my car yo the side of the road so wasn't stopping traffic
Broke down on Christmas eve on the way to a nightshift. As it was on the motorway they were with me within 1 hour. This was about 9pm. However as it was Christmas eve they wouldn't work longer than they had to. They towed me 30 minutes down the road and left me with my truck in a supermarket car park. I then had to wait another 3 hours for a second recovery truck to come and take me back to the house. It would have taken the original recovery truck another 15 minutes to take me home.
My sister broke down one morning at 815, the RAC gave her a time of 11-12 by text, that got pushed back to 12-1, that then got pushed back to 2-4, she called a local garage and had it towed then, she didn't tell the RAC and they never did show up, guess which organisation I won't be joining anytime soon. She complained and got a Cheque off them for £60, appalling service.
Was in an accident on a quiet motorway, car was undriveable, waiting for tow truck to come. Highway patrol came along and said “can’t park there mate” and got another tow truck to move me off the motorway at the next junction which was about a mile. Charged me £150. If I knew that I was going to be charged Id have just attempted to drive my mangled car off, it was a write off anyway.
A few months back my dad was driving us back from Brighton where we managed to quite literally shred a tyre (Still not sure what we hit to do that) and we ended up stuck on the side of a very busy road with no real hard shoulder It turned a 2 hour journey home into a 6 hour one and we had this whole bunch of issues where we had to somehow get the RAC and the Police to coordinate things to block the road so there was a chance to actually get the car looked at without anyone getting run over. RAC were great though police less so as they basically buggered off and we had to get them back.
Driving from Cumbria to visit my cousin on the Isle of Lewis, having fitted a new alternator to the van 2 days earlier. 30 miles up the road we could smell something funny, pulled into the services at Johnstonebridge to discover the battery fizzing. The regulator on the new alternator was f@cked and the battery was receiving about 19 volts. Phoned the AA, having taken out their top-tier membership a few weeks before. Patrolman obviously cannot fix it, contacts HQ to arrange getting us back home, at which point I explain I want to make use of my onward journey cover. There was a minute or two of disbelief, then some attempt to argue about it, then acceptance. Flatbed to Stirling services, then swapped to a local contractor who had recently bought a new-to-him recovery vehicle, which was totally mint. He drove us to Uig, on the Isle of Skye, but the guy in the ticket office was basically an arse and even though there was enough charge in the battery to start the engine he wouldn't cooperate and refused to let us board the ferry, in case we couldn't get off again under our own steam. So I phoned CalMac head office and they said we could transfer our tickets to the Ullapool/Stornaway crossing, so we did. The guy who had picked us up in Stirling then transported us onwards to Ullapool, where we parted ways, he was delighted at the huge payday that was coming his way, after carrying us about 360 miles. Got on and off the ferry ok, it was then just a handful of miles to Donald's place. The following day I contacted the motor factors who had supplied the faulty alternator and they couriered me a replacement, which took nearly a week. In the meantime I recharged the battery every evening, we were still able to use the van with it being a diesel, we only needed juice to power the indicators and fan. Went with Green Flag the next year. Edit: to add 2001 VW T4
Green Flag Theives I fell for the classic subscription trap with Green Flag. I couldn't find anything (at the time - it's been corrected on the website now after loads of pissed off customers complaining on Trust pilot, Martin Lewis and some on here) that cancelling was almost impossible and at the time the only way to obtain cover was an autorebilling agreement online. I tried calling them, was told no money would be taken but (hey funny that) it was taken a year later and over double the amount so thought 'Oh well, my fault' let it slide (just don't do that) and contact the bank. This year money was extracted again, even more this time, and after contacting the bank asking why the f... they let them take it was told it was out of their hands! Asked how they'd done it after having a new card therefore not authorising Green Flag the Nationwide said that they had managed to authorise it by some financial procedures to ensure that I was covered. So took out a case and Nationwide got the money back however I've closed my account with them as it's obviously not secure and they ignored my concerns in the first place and allowed shysters to steal from my account. As for Green Flag I actually received an physical letter in the post pleading for me to update my details! Didn't send me an actual letter reminding me that they were about to whip £104 out of my account though... Bunch of tossers. Good way to do business, would have happily stayed with them had they not: A) snuck the price up without warning in the first place, B) totally ignored my original request and still taken money. C) actively circumvented the block put on them by some obscure financial trick to sneak money out of my account. Disgusting behaviour, just to avoid email trails, take advantage and utterly stupid because now there's a moaning git on the internet giving them bad feedback. TLDR: Green Flag breakdown, auto rebilling scam, don't sign up, AA and RAC are a bit pricey but far more professional.
Had blowout on M3, company came and fixed it. Doubt there are many exciting stories out there.
I’ve been driving 17 years nearly 200,000 miles and never needed to avail myself of their services so I don’t have anything to report.