Breakdown Cover : RAC vs AA vs ???

Couldn't find any specific conversation about this, so here goes...

I need to sort out breakdown cover for Lulu and am interested in opinions from other owners. Does one company favour the Kombi over another, or is it horses for courses?

Scooby has AA Cover - RAC would be the same I guess
There is also Green Flag as an alternative - may be cheaper?
Note sure about specific Kombi Kover
Could depend upon travel plans - UK or Europe wide?
Would not want to put Scooby in quarantine for Europe so we stay in the UK
Rooby Roo

Tallulah has vehicle specific AA cover, this covers her for 'any driver' meaning she is also covered when on hire. RAC and Green Flag WON'T cover a vehicle on hire.

That aside, there is a club discount for RAC - RAC Club Discount

Rudi - exactly the same as Tallulah.

And the AA guys were nicer on the phone when I called them for quotes...

We've alternated between the two over the years.

I've had the AA out on two occasions, and one of them was for the camper and they were really good. There's no complaints from me anyway.

Our AA membership covers the drivers so we can call out for any car, which is ideal.

I've got cover through my debit card, but in 4 years, it has never got close to breaking down......

I've been a member of the AA since they rode around on motorcycle combo's, and they always saluted you unless there was a speed trap down the road, happy days!

Had to call them out twice in that time, both trailer jobs, so I probably haven't got my money's worth in real terms, but the assurance of some help when stuck on some remote moor in the middle of a thunderstorm is worth having.

Whoever you decide on for cover, do ensure that their recovery promise would be to take you to a facility that can repair Brazilian T2s - not just a garage within 10 miles of your destination.
osg

I had to test the AA breakdown service this week
Can't fault them. They got to us in about an hour, couldn't fix the problem by the roadside, (tell you in a sec.) So they had to wait about another hour for a vehicle big enough to give Adie a piggyback home. They couldn't tow us as Adie has no tow point fitted, I thought that was a standard on modern vehicles, will have to get one fitted.
I have had to call the AA a number of times over the years, I would recomend them to anyone.

ADIE'S BREAKDOWN.
We set off on Thursday for Southport area. We were due Friday at Martin Mere, the wildfowl and wetlands nature reserve, as we were invited to be on the maiden voyage of their "canoe safari" My wife Emma is disabled and we were going to test their wheelchair adapted boat. We were having a good day and Adie had come out of hibernation stronger than ever. We were cruising at 45-50mph over the Buxton moor near Macclesfield, close to the Cat and Fiddle. We were on a little white road, just about to cross the A54 and the A537 ( I think, My Emma is the navigator who knows road numbers) I stopped at the junction, Tried to put her in 1st gear, nothing! No gears at all, no tool kit, no mobile phone,(ours broke) OOPS!
Fortunately a very nice man stopped within 5 mins. and lent us his mobile phone to call the AA. The AA man arrived looked underneath and established nothing was broke there. So we took the mats up, he undid the bolts and found the problem straight away. The Gear lever had snapped in two just below floor level. Thats why they couldn't get us going by the roadside, who carried a spare T2 gear lever with them?
Still, look on the bright side, breaking down in a T2 doesn't disable the kettle and unlike "old" T2's we have a heater, Adie used her last amp of power keeping us warm. Thank God we broke down on the little white road and had an enforced picnic. For a couple of hours we sat watching Jugernaughts and heavy traffic thunder past at high speed 50 yards away. Breaking down there would have been a totaly different experience.
So as Adie is still under waranty Danbury has agreed to send us a gear stick repair kit, (not an expensive part £30.64 at just campers) which will hopefully arrive soon as we are off to the lake district in a weeks time.

We have RAC MotorCaravan cover though our Insurance (Comfort) and were unfortunate enough to have to use it in Calais on our way home from a 3K mile tour last summer.

The response from the RAC was very very good, the local mechanic was very helpful but didn’t really help…if that makes sense We lost a lot of time and the whole scenario of getting home became very complicated (Eurotunnel wont take faulty vehicles, so had to go by ferry, cost more one way than euorotunnel return).

However, this was not the RAC’s fault and they were in contact at all times. Long story but we got going again on the quay so the RAC monitored us all the way home. The only comment I would make is make sure you have plenty of charge in your mobile phone

yabbit wrote:

ADIE'S BREAKDOWN.
Danbury has agreed to send us a gear stick repair kit, (not an expensive part £30.64 at just campers) which will hopefully arrive soon as we are off to the lake district in a weeks time.

I hope that their stocking and ability to quickly send out a "gear stick repair kit" isn't symptomatic of an issue they're well aware of. ;-)

All useful advice. Thank you all.

lostlogik wrote:

I hope that their stocking and ability to quickly send out a "gear stick repair kit" isn't symptomatic of an issue they're well aware of. ;-)

I do seem to have read quite a few instances of gear sticks snapping on here...

There is a few threads on here about the gear stick problem, so it does seem to be a common fault.

We've never had it though (touch wood).

Does anybody know if it's something that they've fixed with the newer models?

Here is a link to the Snapped Gear Stick Thread.

You will have to add yours yabbit.

It just like a fault across the range and not specific to air/water cooled.

I carry a spare geasrstick under the back seat after all the problems people have had, it’s an old German one, got it off ebay for £26. Last time I checked JK stopped selling theirs due to continued problems.

It remains a concern and although it seems to mostly affect 2005-2007 models there are a few later models now with the same issue.

If you look at the numbers, there are 18 reported occurrences of this problem by forum members (there may be more that are unreported) which is just a fraction shy of 9% of the 201 owners that are registered.

I know that Danbury have offered to replace the gear sticks in affected vans and to check/replace the sticks in vans from a certain age FOC (someone might like to confirm this), but with almost 1 in 10 of forum users being affected, it must surely require a more pro-active approach from Danbury to get this issue resolved?

Tim - I have posted this in the Snapped Gearstick Survey thread too, feel free to moderate if needed.

IF you are heading of to europe ADAC is worth having a look at - This is the German equiv of the AA but have coverage throughout Europe. They have an english page but you do a membership over the phone. The Germans are Europes biggest motorhome nation so ADAC are fully prepared for a camper breaking down. the other thing that tends to make ADAC pretty good is that at least in Germany, Austria, benelux and switzerland all of the breakdown guys actually are mechanics and many will be VAG trained originally. WE broke down in switzerland about 4 years ago totally flat engine wouldnt turn over and it was a bank holiday. The ADAC in this case the swiss auto club guy came out at 9pm checked all the plugs and starter ignition etc even did the valve lifters then using very bad french as he was german speaking informed me that we had a compression problem which needed a garage to fix but if we wanted to limp home to Belgium he could show how to start an engine with low compression. It is not something you want to see very often means turning the engine on the key continually until it catches - took 15 minutes the first time. The other option wold have been to take us to a garage that could fix it but as it was a bank holiday that would have meant sitting for three days at least but we would have got an equivalent hire car (a VW MPV in this case)

Would really recommend looking at ADAC if you intend to do more than one or two european countries at any time

http://www.adac.de/mitgliedschaft/adac_membership/

Ive heard ADAC is good but with any recovery co always check what they cover and where you want to go if you should need to use them....

Quote :

I've got cover through my debit card, but in 4 years, it has never got close to breaking down.....

I too had AA cover with my bank account through LloydsTSB and was sure it included Relay, but it was only when I broke down that I found it was only for a maximum of 10 miles!!! and had to pay the AA £180 to get taken home!

Quote :

They couldn't tow us as Adie has no tow point fitted, I thought that was a standard on modern vehicles, will have to get one fitted.

I took the belly pan off the front of mine, and they managed to hook a rigid bar on the cross member and towed me with the AA van.

Andy wrote:

I too had AA cover with my bank account through LloydsTSB and was sure it included Relay, but it was only when I broke down that I found it was only for a maximum of 10 miles!!! and had to pay the AA £180 to get taken home!
.

I've just looked at my Lloyds TSB AA cover T&Cs and it says

"Relay provides recovery of Your Vechicle, together with the driver and up to a maximum of seven passengers to any single destination of your choice in the UK"

I only looked because I didn't want to (a) be stuck after only 10 miles or (b) have to take out alternative cover. Thankfully it appears I'm sufficiently covered.

Hi Andy, Lostlogik,

I just looked on the LloydsTSB site too as I rely on this cover for my daily driver, the site states:

“Roadside Assistance - roadside repair or recovery home or to the nearest garage (whichever is closer) for you and your vehicle for breakdowns more than 1/4 mile from home”

For all “value” current accounts Silver, Gold, Platinum or Premier, and relay kicks in for Platinum and premier, so that doesn’t sound like the experience you had?

Mine was a silver account, and have cancelled it since becuase of what happened.

I have just read through the T&C's on LloydsTSBs site and it appears that I should have been covered.

May have to have a bit more of a look into this, but have cancelled that account now so dont know how much luck I will have.

Added my snapped stick to the poll, allfixed now.

not sure about the need for the ADAC cover which a lot of people are talking about (German AA/RC). Ive been looking around today for European breakdown cover. RAC Euro breakdown cover looks to be just the job. £213 for 12 months cover.

https://www.rac.co.uk/breakdown-cover/european-breakdown-cover

Q. What vehicles are eligible for European Cover?

We insure most vehicles types and we also cover vehicles that are towing caravans or trailers so long as they meet the following criteria. The insured vehicle must be one of the following and must be permanently registered in the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man as a private vehicle: car, motorcycle 121cc or over, motor caravan, motor home, minibus fitted with not more than 17 seats including driver, light van, estate car, MPV, or 4x4 sport utility vehicle.

The vehicle must also have:

A maximum legal laden weight of 3,500kg (3.5 tonnes). This weight is called the Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM)
Maximum overall dimensions of: length 7m; height 3m; width 2.55m (all including any load carried).