RAC not listening on the phone
"I am in Tesco's car park and my engine has exploded. Send help"

So they send a man in a small van to come and assess the damage. The engine has exploded, right enough. Nothing he can do about that then, are we surprised? No.

"I'll need to get a tow vehicle, one is on it's way to you now" and off the RAC man in the small van heads to another job.

More bored time later a nice big giant lorry appears, you know, the kind that tow busses, for my little car. Overkill maybe? Oh yes. Can it get under the 2.1 meter height limit for the car park? Not even close.

Cue myself, RAC man and 2 members of the public (thank you very much) pushing my car up and out of the car park (and over speed bumps, thank you Tesco) all the way to the truck.

Entire episode took close to four hours.

Not my longest by far but the longer story is just too long to explain in detail and I am lazy. Was involved in an accident approx 10 miles from home. 9 (NINE) hours later I was 40 miles from home. Aren't the RAC clever? No. They are cunts.
( --=| Daz |=-- has been masturbating over a picture of you since, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 8:48, 3 replies)

I had a similar much wasted time with the AA.
I realised that those insurers / breakdown people who use smaller local recovery firms rather then their own fleet are the best.

I came out of work and simply had a flat battery. I had a battery booster thing but it didn't have enough to turn over my monster engine.

So phoned Seat breakdown, who in turn use the AA. Waited and waited, finally got a call off a guy on his way to me. Gave him instructions where I was. "Just off the main A633 road, huge business park. You cant miss it". Two hours later.. nothing, where is he? I phoned again, and they're like. Oh im very sorry he couldt find you so closed the job. We'll send someone else now and put you on priority.

I wouldn't mind. I didn't need a recovery truck. I knew what the problem was, I told them that. It was just a flat battery. Finally someone else came and he had travelled 35 miles to get to me as well.
I got £30 goodwill gesture from the AA for winging :)
(Miggyman, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 9:20, closed)

Oh, if only the National Road and Motorist Assocation (New South Wales)
had local call centres. A friend had a breakdown at the "Glenloch Interchange" in Canberra a few years ago. Now the wonderful thing about Canberra is that the suburbs are defined by major roads and the interchange isn't officially in any of them. So the call centre person asks what suburb and friend says that the area does not have a suburb name, but it's the Glenloch Interchange. Everyone in the city knows it. "I can't send someone out unless you give your suburb." "It's not in a suburb, it's near Black Mountain and Lake Burley Griffin, it's not in a suburb" and more of the same. Call centre is of course in Sydney.

Actually a kid died in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney recently when he got lost in the bush. He called 000 at least twice but was ignored because he had no suburb name for the call centre folk to put on their form.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 12:31, closed)

I've always found the RAC to be OK when I've used them.
I was particularly impressed when I locked the keys in my wife's car. It took less time for him to unlock the car than it did to fill in the form afterwards.

And when her car started to smoke on a dual carriageway before dying, they arrived within 30 minutes and correctly diagnosed a burnt-out starter motor.

Reading your tales of woe though, I guess that I've just been lucky.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Sat 24 Apr 2010, 19:32, closed)