13 replies to this topic

[Dog]

Hey all.

As its past no moan week, I want to moan now

Let me set the day out for you... Your due to catch a flight at 12midnight, so with plenty of time, you take your time to go and pick your friend up, that lives 2hrs away.

I decieded to go in the Van, as its NEVER let me down before, and after doing almost 13k miles since April this year, and never missing a beat, a small trip of 200miles is nothing. Well....

Head of to pickup my said friend, Van is trooping away as normal, but get near the M4 after going though Swindon, and the Van starts to "choke".

I put up with it, thinking its just a bit of C**p in the carb, and it'll clear........ get going properly on the motorway, the Van would rev past 50mph, foot to the floor and nothing, just plain flat, choking, couching and spluttering. Get to my destination, and the engine dies, and it found it hard to restart.

Get it going, and head to Hell-frauds for some carb cleaner, just incase it was C**p in the carb, and it needed a help.. nope, get about 5 miles down the road, and it a pull over and ring the breakdown company...

Ring the AA, explianed what the syptoms are, and that I'll NEED a tow, as I suspect it to be head gasket. This being around 1pm, found my membership had run out :doing: (lost paper work their end apparntly) So pay £120 to get a tow home... only to find as I was already broken down, they'll only tow me for 50miles, and I'll have to pay £2 per mile after that... so I agreed to it all, I needed to get home.

So sat on the hard shoulder for about 2hrs, when I get a call, "Hi, its the AA, Where are you, I can;t find you"... explained I was on J10 of the M4, and then he said "Oh, I am MILES away from there, the office has given me the wrong details"

So ring head office, and I eventully had to put onto the Manager, as the muppets on the phones were useless. Give him his due, he did try all he could to get someone to me asap. But eventually, he organsises a tow to a safe place, then arrange someone to pick us up from there.

So the first truck arrives around 5pm, and takes us to reading services (that chap was a awesomly nice man taking us there) so rang the AA again and told them I am at the services, and "politely" told the to hurry up. While eating a quick snack, the second AA man rings "Hi, its the AA, I am with your Van. Need the keys to load it onto the Dolly". So theres me skipping with joy that after ringing at 1pm, saying I had broken down, we eventaully got on our way at 6pm....

Remember now, I needed to be at the airport 2hrs before the flight... and I live 2hrs away from the Airport... so ideally need to be home BY 7.30/8pm. Get on our way as I said, 60mph all the way from Reading services to Hereford. We arrive home, finally at 8.30pm!!!!

So it was dump the Van, load the Nissan and away we went Thankfully, the Airport was Coventry, and just lucky it is a VERY small airport, so never needed to be there 2hrs before (as we thought we had to) but we got there with 40mins to go... phew.

But since getting back this morning, I have found whats wrong with my poorly Van...... the Rings in #2 cylinder have gone
Not really a problem as such, as now I can use the 998, as spares to finish the 1380

Sorry for the rant, but AA are C**p!!! I am now a member of the AA AND RAC as according the friendly AA man that took us home, the biggest problem was due to Minis being narrow, it might not fit onto the Dolly, so they were hunting round for a pickup, and a driver that was ok with going to Hereford (even though, its their job to pickup and tow home ANY member)



So Rant over, and I have this as a memory...

[minili]

Doh

I've been with RAC a couple of years after a farcical evening with Green Flag and never had any complaints (yet)

And at least you made it after all

[Phaeton]

Only ever had to use the AA the once on the way back from MITS the fanbelt snapped, told them where I was & explained it was raining & I had no roof. The guy was there in 30 minutes, fitted a fanbelt, charged me £5 for it & off I went. Couldn't ask for more really.

Even managed to wave to a couple of laden Mini's also obviously on the way back from MITS who although waved didn't stop to help.

Alan...

[Dog]

Well the main thing that got my back up, is I explained I was on the A329 heading SOUTHBOUND, I was just before the J10 of the M4... what more info did anyone need? I was in a green Mini Van, Hazards going, bonnet open, was just past a bridge, and less than a mile from the juntion... how the hell does someone end up in Chearsley? Whats worse, after talking the AA bloke that took us back to Hereford - he said its a common thing get it sorted!!!

[minijmoore]

I am with RAC. Once i was in whales (i live in Norwich/Norfolk) and had to call them because my signals went ca PUT!, so i call them and it took them six hours to find me (even though they said they have a mobile tracker thing so they can find me).

Then the guy spent all the time checking all the fuses even though i told him i had constantly. (he was a nice guy though).

Had to use my hands to signal all the way home. That was fun!

[panelbeaterpeter]

Once i was in whales,

Never a good idea to drive around in sea mammals..

Sorry.

[Bristolboy]

Once i was in whales,

Never a good idea to drive around in sea mammals..

Sorry.

LOL.

Tough luck there dogmatrix. Personally i think the aa are alright. My parents have used them a few times and aa has got there quite quick, fixed the problem and are usally pretty friendly. But having said that i expect my next visit (in any (hopefully lol)) will go kaput .

[jack_marshall]

AA= failed mechanics.

Sorry, but tis true, generally.

Some are alrite though.

[mike.]

I'v found that the AA send alot of people to halfords where i work for batterys to be fitted. Isn't that something they should do?

I get loads of customers coming in saying they've left the car running because the AA man told them to until we got to halfords to get a new battery.

[mini-mad22]

lol sorry to sound a spof but it depends on what cover you have! if you have the cheapest cover they take you so many miles 50 i think or to the nearest garage! thats the main thing that you have to check like the adverts say 39 quid an but thats the cheapest an shittest cover you could want!

[Dog]

lol sorry to sound a spof but it depends on what cover you have!

Actually, i dnt normally go 4 the cheapest things. The cover i was ment 2 of had was relay, which in the paper work, says it'll take me home. But who cares aa suck. I am with rac too now. I got a slight refund off the aa. ?52. Out of ?280.

[Dan]

AA= failed mechanics.

Absolute rubbish, the AA has the best trained mechanics in the country working for them. Sadly it's main dealer mechanics who aren't up to much these days and work merely as parts fitters.
They have to pass all kinds of tests and be highly qualified before they are even allowed on the AA training course. Most of them can actually find out what is wrong rather than simply replacing what the computer tells them to. I had a Saxo once upon a time and it had a recurring problem that I told the garage about every time I took it in. The garage I used for the car was run by a guy who had previously been the head mechanic for Citroen UK, had worked on their production lines and ended up running mechanic training for the whole of the Citroen UK dealer network before setting up on his own. He knew of the problem with my car and said it was common on the Saxo single point injection system but Citroen wouldn't recall or repair the cars despite knowing the fault (and several others) and I paid for expensive new injection parts almost every year which would tide it over for a few more months. Then one day it properly broke down outside a hotel in Buxton for a different and unrelated reason. Called the AA, bloke arrived while I was still on the phone to them. He fixed the car in a few minutes and while he was there also fixed the original intermittant fault (which I hadn't mentioned to him) with the injection unit permanantly without me buying any new parts. He also told me a few tricks about the ECU that aren't mentioned in the manual like emergency starting routines and things. The car never failed me again in all the remaining time I owned it and was vastly improved over Citroen spec. I don't know what he did but it worked.
Dog hasn't had trouble with the mechanics, it's the way the AA is run that seems to have let him down. Myself I've never had a bad experience with the AA, the RAC on the other hand...

I think they must have messed up your account Dog because they'll tow you a lot more than fifty miles if you have Relay, they'll take you wherever you want and you shouldn't have to pay extra. If you have minimum cover they'll only tow you ten miles but they will arrange further towing or place of safety using their network if you pay the extra.

Edited by Dan, 29 September 2007 - 11:45 PM.

[Amy]

I absolutely agree Dan, some people come out with such nonsense!

Our best mates Dad was an AA man for thirty years until he retired a few years back... what he didn't know about ANY car you could write on a postage stamp!! Seriously good mechanic and every single AA mechanic I've ever met has been the same.

Ok, when the Mustang had problems on our recent holiday, that even the UK Mustang Owners Club and half the mechanics at Oulton Park race circuit couldn't work out.... we didn't have much faith that calling the AA out would do us any good what-so-ever, and expected just to have to pay for a tow home, (as we only had roadside recovery at the time).

But... the guy who came out, and was with us within twenty minutes I might add, was amazing. He had some sort of OCD, but that almost helped because he was soooo efficient and checked every single possible thing on the car- he was with us for a staggering 2 hours in the dark, at a service station, just trying to find the problem. We had hundreds of pounds worth of diagnostic tests done on the engine, but he was still stumped! As we assumed he would be. Eventually he diagnosed air getting into the carb through a faulty gasket, which only showed when the engine was running and causing movement of the carb. He wasn't allowed to stay for the three hour job to rebuild the carb, but apologised so many times that it got uncomfortable! He even gave us a telephone number for a guy who would tow us to his garage for £30 the next morning, instead of using the AA! We didn't need a tow however, and rebuilt the carburettor ourselves during the night making it all the way to to the Lake District before the problems showed again....



I won't go into the problems with the car, which turned out not to be the carb at all...... as the story is too long!
But you couldn't fault the effort by the AA, he was a genuinely intelligent, nice man, who really tried his best with an engine that not many people in the UK have set eyes on, let alone worked on..... It restored all faith in the AA and we're happy to continue paying our membership fee!

[jammiedodger26]

I broke down in my mini a few months ago, rang the AA at 5pm, he arrived, promptly at 6.30, sorted a couple of bits out and sent me on my way, 2 hours later the car cut down again, rang the AA back at 8pm, the bloke arrived at 10pm, tried and tried and tried, couldnt do it so called for a "tow truck"....at 11.30 another AA man turns up (not a tow truck) changes the points, tightens fan belt etc etc, sends me on my way....by now i had only got 15 miles away from my house and it was now 1am so i turned around and started driving home again safe in the knowledge that it was properly fixed this time!!

surprise surprise, 5 miles later coughs and splutters to a stop....slightly irate ring the AA AGAIN and tell them in no uncertain terms to send out a tow truck immediately....an hour later a truck turns up and takes me home...so i eventually end up back at my house at 3am in the morning...no better off!!!

Needless to say...didn't renew my AA membership when it came round for renewal in september!! Useless!!!