is it the aa or rac or something else? based on price
Based on service, GEM.
Bernard
£38 a year, if you breakdown you pay the costs of recovery/repair by credit card then send off for a full refund.
It’s hard to find on so called comparison & alleged review sites 'cos no one gets a referral fee ! But having spent many years working in light vehicle recovery I could only ever bring myself to recommend AutoAid.
Almost everyone I know is signed up, if they did pay referral fee’s I’d be rolling in it, one or two I’ve converted have used it & I’ve never heard a bad word said.
Having worked the contracts, I wouldn’t pee on the RAC or AA. They can be good a lot of the time but when it goes wrong, oh boy does it go wrong.
Green Flag.
AA is good.
voodoo1:
AA is good.
Far too expensive and have you ever tried to get out your contract its like mission impossible 
I am with The AA purely because they offer a breakdown repair warranty cover. It means if my car breaks down, I phone them, the patrol comes out and if it can’t be fixed, it gets recovered to a garage, I pay an excess of £35 and they pay the rest of the repair bill of upto £500. I can use the cover upto 5 times in a year if I’m unlucky enough to break down constantly.
voodoo1:
AA is good.
How many times have you used them?
Green Flag and the RAC use ‘super ops’, their contractors are few in number and cover massive areas.
So when there’s no RAC staff available, they put the job out to a contractor. They could be coming from 3 counties away.
They’ve both earned reputations for crap customer service.
AA is currently tendering for more contractors covering smaller areas, with the aim of offering shorter ETA times, more available local garages and better customer service.
Mondial/Allianz (who’ve historically only covered prestige motors), now have general policies. They emphasize on looking after the customer and their customer service is the best by far.
My money is with the AA, bought through Quidco.com. Cost me £100 for roadside relay for me and wife, with £55 back through quidco, so worked out at £45 all in.
That’s actually cheaper than the trade discount we get (my company works for all the motoring clubs, RAC and GF included).
If you travel outside UK, then go for the German company called ADAC.
Works worldwide.
damoq:
I am with The AA purely because they offer a breakdown repair warranty cover. It means if my car breaks down, I phone them, the patrol comes out and if it can’t be fixed, it gets recovered to a garage, I pay an excess of £35 and they pay the rest of the repair bill of upto £500. I can use the cover upto 5 times in a year if I’m unlucky enough to break down constantly.
I’d like to put this type of bovine excrement to the test. I’d like to buy a disposable car & sabotage it, call them out & then see what happens.
Did you know that the AA were successfully prosecuted a few years back 'cos they put their roadside patrol staff on a £bonus scheme according to how many new batteries they sold ?
They sold thousands of gazillions of 'em. I’ve heard said it was somewhere in the region of an 8000% increase in the amount of breakdowns caused by total battery failure!
cieranc:
My money is with the AA, bought through Quidco.com. Cost me £100 for roadside relay for me and wife, with £55 back through quidco, so worked out at £45 all in.
That’s actually cheaper than the trade discount we get (my company works for all the motoring clubs, RAC and GF included).
You’ve never heard of AutoAid then?
If you were to breakdown 300mls from home, would you be happy to enter the AA’s relay system to get you home?
Yes Chas, I have heard of them 
They offer the same service all the call centre/contractor only clubs do - Call Assist, IPA, First Call, Europ Assist, they all the same.
I won’t use any service where you have to pay up front. What happens if you don’t have the dosh up front?
As I’m sure you’ll agree, some contractors are far better than others. How many times had your old place sent a lift and shift lad out to a breakdown because they had no fitters available? That’s great for the company, gets the job covered.
But not so good for the customer who ends up getting recovered when the car could have been an easy fix.
This happened to my missus a few years ago. Her car cut out down country and a contractor was sent out. Guy turned up and said he’d come to recover it. Missus said she wanted it fixing. Guy said he wasn’t a mechanic. He turned the key, battery was flat so he jump started it and told her to crack on. Now my missus ain’t a mechanic, but even she questioned it. How come the battery is flat when it’s been driving all day? Guy assured her it was ok but she was having non of it and insisted a mechanic checked it out. So the guy called his mate to come out and give him a hand. The second lad wasn’t a mechanic either but had a multimeter. He checked the car, no charge across the battery terminals. He condemned the alternator and put it up for recovery. She was working down country so I had to arrange a hire car for her. Hers was recovered back home.
Imagine my ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ when I lifted the bonnet to find the nut missing off the alternator post, and the main lead hanging off.
1 new nut and 5 mins later the car was repaired, I had to get it back down country and off-hire the car she had.
Now this wouldn’t have happened in my company, as we only send fitters to breakdowns, but as I say quality between contractors varies hugely. For that reason, I prefer a club with trained patrols. That way I know they’ll send a mechanic in the first instance, and they’ll be suitably equipped for doing repairs.
I’ve used that AA warranty cover last year. Mitsubishi Challenger, dampened crank pulley seperated and chewed through the plastic timing case (and into the timing belt, but hadn’t thrown the belt off).
I knew what the fault was, but rang the AA as I didn’t want to drive into work in fear of the belt going.
AA guy diagnosed the same thing, I got recovered to the garage.
Garage prepared a quote for the repair, to include timing belt kit including tensioners, balance bar kit, timing case, crank pulley and alternator belts and tensioner. Full price with labour came to £450 ish.
Rang the warranty place, they took £35 payment from me, gave the garage the go-ahead. Garage did the work and the AA paid them directly. I was back on the road dinnertime the next day, the delay was getting order parts overnight.
So for me, the warranty was spot on with no hassle. I was expecting a chew on, having to send them the service history/mot certs etc, but they never asked for them.
The bonus for me? It was my garage that did the repair!
cieranc:
I’ve used that AA warranty cover last year. Mitsubishi Challenger, dampened crank pulley seperated and chewed through the plastic timing case (and into the timing belt, but hadn’t thrown the belt off).
I knew what the fault was, but rang the AA as I didn’t want to drive into work in fear of the belt going.
AA guy diagnosed the same thing, I got recovered to the garage.
Garage prepared a quote for the repair, to include timing belt kit including tensioners, balance bar kit, timing case, crank pulley and alternator belts and tensioner. Full price with labour came to £450 ish.
Rang the warranty place, they took £35 payment from me, gave the garage the go-ahead. Garage did the work and the AA paid them directly. I was back on the road dinnertime the next day, the delay was getting order parts overnight.So for me, the warranty was spot on with no hassle. I was expecting a chew on, having to send them the service history/mot certs etc, but they never asked for them.
The bonus for me? It was my garage that did the repair!
I’d like to put this type of bovine excrement to the test. I’d like to buy a disposable car & sabotage it, call them out & then see what happens.
Did you know that the AA were successfully prosecuted a few years back 'cos they put their roadside patrol staff on a £bonus scheme according to how many new batteries they sold ?
They sold thousands of gazillions of 'em. I’ve heard said it was somewhere in the region of an 8000% increase in the amount of breakdowns caused by total battery failure!
RAC paid for with Tesco clubcard points.
im with the rac all service with them has been good
■■■■■■ van with flat battery in winter when it snowed heavily couple of years phoned at 2.30am came out 5.30am which wasnt bad goin considering the bad weather conditions
dud battery on a mondeo phoned them came out within a hour
saab bottom end blew phond them on boxing day they arrived within a hour to recover me home
with the AA through the bank account, used it twice for recovery, drive shaft failure, and a major electrical fault that involved eletrical specialist for a couple of day’s. very happy with the service.
As most of you know, I work in the Motorway Control room, and deal with all the various recovery clubs on a daily basis, speaking only about recovery on the motorway, not normal roads, most of them are very similar to each other when it come to attendace times etc, one or two are “not so good” but I can’t mention which, for obvious reasons.
Speaking with my colleagues in other RCC’s in different area’s of the country, where one particular recovery club constantly perform good in our region, they are not as good in another region and visa-versa.
Before buying breakdown recovery cover, make sure you know just what is in the package. Certain policies will not recover you if you’ve had any sort of accident, or got a flat tyre and don’t have a usuable spare. Also if your vehicle is over 15 yrs old, some will not cover it, and you might only find out when you suddenly require assistance. Some also have a fair play clause, ie a maximum amount of call outs per annum. Some even give a discount on renewal if you’ve not used them during the previous year.
Not many of them will automatically include European cover in the basic UK recovery package, so if you may need this at any time, you’ll find an extortionate extra fee requested just for a few days cover.
Before going with any of the recovery clubs, first enquire with your insurance supplier to see if they can offer a package.
I was with one of the main recovery clubs for over 25 years, but I now get full recovery for any vehicle that I’m driving or passenger in, complete with 30 days European cover, and with no vehicle age restrictions (I have a WW2 vehicle that I take to France in June) The price that I pay, just £59 (renewed less than 2 weeks ago)
Remember that these are mainly BREAKDOWN RECOVERY CLUBS, and should you have an accident, they may not attend. In this instance, contact your insurance, (they usually give you a 24 hour claim line number) they will often arrange the recovery of an accident damaged vehicle that they provide insurance cover for.
Within one year of working for Highways, i switched from the yellow vans to the orange vans. The 4th emergency service’s customer service is non existent from my experiences on the motorway. The longest attendance time was 12 hours, on two separate occasions. 
Since being with the orange vans, I called them out once last winter and arrived in 30 mins, in snow. Superb service.