Breakdown cover - all much of a muchness?

We have the AA as part of our bank account benefits with the Halifax. They are frankly superb whenever i've needed them (rarely). And way better than when we had Green Flag, but that was a long time ago.

Do some still cover the car and other the driver?  Something to watch out for if you drive multiple cars.

AutoAid was the cheapest last time I looked.

We've been with Britannia for years (now LV). They use independent recovery companies and I've been rescued a few times...

https://www.lv.com/breakdown-cover

Check your car insurance company too - you may be able to add it for less than taking out separate cover.

I have been with the AA, Greenflag and another one that used local garages.

The AA have always fixed my car and sent me on my way.
Greenflag seemed to just want to transport you home/to a garage.
Local garages was mixed but I only used it twice. Once was superb witht he guy spending an hour chatting while he fixed the car. The other guy seemed to object to being there and basically wanted to leave me by the road as his garage couldn;'t fix the problem.

See https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/breakdown-cover/

I found my super cheap cover for 5 of us across 3 vehicles was sub optimal (Eversure) - they initially told me an hour wait. As soon as I had paid my excess they extended that to 4 hours, and then called after an hour to say 'maybe leave the car and come back tomorrow'....(it was 4pm...). I am not renewing with them. The *only* reason we went with them initially was the issue of 5 drivers and three vehicles, two needing European wide cover meant that with AA/RAC/GreenFlag I was into the hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

Before that we used AutoAid for years, and although we never claimed the reviews are good.

I can only comment from recent experience.

I flood damaged a car in a stream in deepest darkest Wales. The AA basically put the call out to 3rd parties to deal with, and no one would come and deal with it who was on their books, but that process took 36/48hrs with no positive action from the AA, it was us chasing them all the time.

Luckily we had separate cover from Green Flag. On their database they did have a 3rd party who would come out and help. (more luck I think that professionalism)

Ive always chose AA/RAC because I expected it to be one of their people that would turn up. For the AA this obviously is not the case, they operate the same model as Green Flag.

I almost wonder if its better to get to know your local recovery garage and give them a bell if you need help

AA aren't cheap, but have always turned up in a reasonable time - usually stupid stuff, wife left lights on, flat battery away from home, clip on wiper failed in hissing rain (AA man applied rain X and did a temporary repair), then snapped bolts at a tyre garage, oops sorry, car immobilised, you'll have to get yourself to another garage for repair !

Paying £33ish a month for four drivers(Relay/home start etc). My son usually uses them more than us.  Managed to get the fee down a tenner on renewal last year, so will try again this year - normally over £40

We are with Autoaid. Cheap. Covers driver and spouse in any car.

Had to call out the AA in Glasgow for a work car yesterday on local public holiday.  Arrived within the hour. AA van. Driver had been with them for 39 years!

AA also covers you in all cars, even if it is someone elses car and they are driving. Very useful if you have many cars or friends

Nationwide Flexplus account includes AA cover and European cover - £13 a  month (you also get travel insurance and phone cover and nice woolly feeling as part of a mutual)

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/current-accounts/flexplus/breakdown-cover/

RAC have delivered for me when (rarely) required.  I think the level of service often relates to the age of the car and the patrolman - old car and old hand and they get stuck in, new car and it's for recovery for anything beyond a puncture.  I really object to their propensity to penalise renewals over attracting new customers, so sometimes it's a case of not renewing and then coming back at vastly reduced rates.  On last "new" subscription they had a quite good menu approach to adding other names and features.

I was with the RAC for years, price had stayed the same but needed to call up and moan at each renewal to stop it hiking.

Once called out due to not starting on the drive and they were there in 45 minutes, then more recently, I was stuck on the side of a busy A-road and was told it would 6+ hours before someone could come. In the end I did a very sketchy drive to a garage and got a taxi home (coil pack wire had frayed against the engine and shorted every time you went over a bump and cut the engine out) and cancelled my policy.

Autoaid now, but haven't had to call them out yet.

Oh didn't realise Nationwide breakdown cover was with the AA now. Thats good to know.

I had to use mine a few years ago when we had a blow out and the car didn't have a spare so couldn't get anywhere to fit a new tyre. Called Nationwide and they had someone there in about half an hour and took the car to kwikfit. Only issue was that the recovery vehicle driver was a massive racist, but thats not really Nationwides fault!!

Another vote for Nationwide FlexPlus account.

Had to use it a few weeks ago. All done on the AA app so they can see your location. I had managed to safely pull in to a Toby Carvery car park but they were still with me in about 40 minutes. Couldn't fix it at the roadside (aux belt had somehow disappeared), but put a new battery in as a temporary fix then followed me 15 miles back to my local garage. Then swapped the batteries back over and gave me a lift home.

As an added bonus that I wasn't aware of, and included within the Nationwide cover, they also arranged a hire car for 48hrs from Enterprise which was sorted within a few hours.

Check the small print on policies that advertise national recovery - very often it's worded such that they will actually only recover you to an address of your choosing if a local garage has failed to fix it.

the AA national recovery doesn't have the caveat about being towed to a local garage first.

As above, check out the nationwide account as the AA cover also includes European cover which is rare, and you also get very decent travel insurance, phone insurance etc...

Start Rescue which I use, apparently has been Which? Recommended, if that even counts as a recommendation

Cheapest I found, with national coverage using local independents

Call out times have been good, and certainly no slower than AA

If you have questions for an AA mechanic feel free to PM, also possibility of slight discount

AA through my Bank (Nationwide) fantastic the time I’ve used them. Came to work and plugged my motorbike tyre at work. Took twenty minutes from phoning to arriving. Plugged the tyre and off I went.

Golf is a few miles from home

Do you have any friends who know how to drive a tow or be towed?

Buy a tow rope (handy thing to have anyway) and tow it back yourself.

Biggest issues is you may not have power steering or power brakes so you have to be really carefull, but if it's just the clutch thats gone, easy peasy.

I might be out of date now but the RAC's control rooms used to be pretty second rate compared to AA (ime). Stuff like demanding a postcode when you're on a hill in the middle of nowhere and not seeming to understand that I couldn't just ask someone, or insisting on sending a van with no bike gear out to a bike that'd been on fire, so that 2 hours later the guy could arrive, take a sniff, go "that's been on fire, you need a relay" and then I could wait another 2 hours for a truck. The crews were always great but the controllers were never much good. I've had equally fantastic treatment from both RAC and AA once there's someone actually on scene.

These days I'm green flag and there's a sort of helpful boskiness about it, every time I've had someone come out it's been a local independent in their chain who just basically doesn't give a crap- which is good and bad, they've broken the rules and recovered me places they weren't supposed to, and they're really good at finding you since they can make use of instructions like "If you go out of innerleithen northwards on the road that goes over the golf course, I'm up there" but also they're maybe not the top priority, I waited an awful long time on a very bad day when I was stuck in a flood and so were a lot of other people, I got th efeeling I was just low in the pecking order.

AA and RAC I always found ok when I needed to call them out.   Green Flag consistently kept me waiting for hours and hours to the point where the agreed to compensate me, but I'd rather have decent service.  GF seem to outsource to local recovery firms so I think it just depends on your location

Check the policy for limits on the age of the vehicle.

E.g. For explicitly declared cars, Greenflag don't seem to have a maximum age but wont cover cars older than 16(?) years on the "Family" or "Personal" cover.

Also, IIRC, the latest renewal doc requires the car is "working" when the policy commences.

I've been with GreenFlag for years as they're loads cheaper than AA/RAC. I think they're owned by Direct Line now, certainly their paperwork had the same style.

Anyhow I had to call them once when a pothole down a country lane managed to blow a hole in the side of my tyre. No spare and gunk wasn't going to touch it. Phoned them and they arrived in an hour, got be on the back of a low loader and I had the choice of being recovered home or to a garage.

Chose home as it was a Sunday and I new I could get a cheap interim tyre from the place down the road on Monday.

So based on that I'd use them.

TBH for me it's an insurance policy, for if I break down on the motorway and need towing off.

Edit: I think they have options for insuring the car or the driver.

My only recent experience of the breakdown companies was with the RAC for my Mini. The patrol was there in under an hour and was an older gent who knew older cars, had me up and running in under 20 mins. The cover came as part of my Classic Car insurance through Footman James so didn't have a choice on the provider. My daily is covered by RescueMyCar.com via one of the comparison sites. I know it's just local garages that come out but will get me to a destination of my choice soni can get the car fixed which is all I need. Haven't used it though so still to see if the £40 cheaper price than the main companies (£26 annual premium!) due to high mileage on the car is a bargain or just too cheap. Amazed how many places refused to cover me as the car is over 100k, some were no more than 150k but I'm well on the way to 200k so that does limit my options. About to tip over the 10 years that others stipulate too, more fun come renewal.

For those with Nationwide/AA cover, is it a basic version?

Will they relay you home if a long way off or to a local garage?

I've had cover through autoaid for a number of years, about £60 a year to cover me and wife

I've used it twice and was recovered to home no issues. They use local recovery providers so I guess there potential for variability but my experience has been ok.

I have Mazda assistance breakdown cover as part of an extended Mazda warranty.

The cover is contracted out to local providers. I have found the quality of response very much depends on the individual contractor providing the cover but most have been excellent.

Only issue is when you break down outside of one contractor’s area and they won’t recover you to anywhere outside their area. Worth checking the small print to find out what happens in that eventuality.

I think this would be the case with most.

I assume that most providers have some sort of performance targets they need to satisfy to go on a list.

Good and bad with AA and Green Flag. Once had cover with 'Britannia' I think and they were useless. I've got Mayday (GF) via Caravan Club as I need cover for the caravan as well as the car. Miles cheaper than AA/RAC, but they have generally always been good when called upon including recovering car and caravan home from Norfolk to Newcastle. I have AA with bank account too, so between the 2 covers, we've got mine and Mrs Fazzini's cars plus Fazzini-jnr-snr's car covered. AA did leave me and jnr stranded for 7 hours waiting for recovery in the Lakes once. Blew 2 tyres out swerving/hitting something, to avoid car on wrong side of road. Only 'nearby' recovery truck was en-route to Glasgow then coming back for us! Fortunately, I managed to limp to a random hotel car park in the middle of nowhere and the hotel staff were amazing with jnr 🙂

For those with Nationwide/AA cover, is it a basic version?

Will they relay you home if a long way off or to a local garage?

All the details are here:
Nationwide Flexplus

And here:
Policy Document

But to answer your question - yes national recovery is included. I've been transported from Leamington Spa to York a few years ago. Single truck so no relay.