That must have been many many years ago for them to be using Escort van!Homer wrote:Ouch.jgra1 wrote: better at bagshot than almost making it I guess.. hope the truck is swift.. I have had 3 consecutive 10 hour waits for the xantia the last three times I have called the aa.. all times within an hour from home
I ditched the AA many years ago after twice letting me down.
The first time was a snapped cambelt on a BX, "my cambelt has snapped, I'll need a flatbed" I told them. 20 mins later the AA guy arrives in an Escort van, "your cambelt has snapped, you'll need a flatbed" he said. "that's what I said" I said. 4 hrs later the flatbed turns up.
The second time I had a broken suspension pipe on the BX, on a Sunday, in the Peak district. "I'll need a flatbed" I told them. 20 mins later the AA guy arrives in an Escort van, "you'll need a flatbed" he said. "that's what I said" I said. 6 hrs later the flatbed turns up.... best bit is, it was a National Breakdown truck.
Apparently the guy in the van counted as attending within the specified timescale.
At NTL one of the project managers used to work in IT for the AA in the early 80s.
He had a cortina which he'd bought a scrap gearbox for and fitted without checking oil level. It seized on the way to work giving him only 2nd gear, so he spent the night shift ditching his gearbox and fitting one from a patrol van that had been left at work!
Most of the time with the AA they've always turned up within 10 minutes.
The only time I had a problem was going up the M1 to Grimsby in Sophie my Laguna DCi, which decided to throw a "fuel injector system faulty" wobbly just after J13 forcing me to pull over and reboot.
As usual I got a puncture, and while trying to change the wheel, the car slipped on the jack, crushing it.
AA recovery flatbed turned up in 10 minutes and took me off to Coachway to meet an AA patrol man with a suitable jack.
Unfortunately being nearly midnight, the patrol man "misunderstood" which services to go to so finished for the night, meaning we had to wait for their out of hours contract garage to respond.
If the Laguna had proper suspension I could have raised it up and used the recovery man's lorry jack, but it didn't so I was stuck until it arrived.
Back when I worked for the AA one of my friends' jobs was to check that 3rd party collections were genuine. Often if a 3rd party garage was closer they'd send them out. If a recovery was needed, they'd then have to come out in a flatbed and would get paid for 2 visits. Many would turn up in a flatbed in the first place so would be defrauding the AA as they'd claim for 2 visits.
She'd also monitor patrol vehicles as several would park up in areas too far away from traffic to be called much, especially if it was near the end of the day and they were close to home.
The AA's own recovery drivers were seriously screwed by Centrica.
