AA Breakdown Cover

I have been waiting for my van to be recovered from Manchester back to Liverpool since the Aa mechanic placed an order for one at 1pm yesterday . The wheel bearing has disintegrated, and the vehicle is un- drivable.

I was initially told that I would be recovered within 90 minutes. I had no word from anyone, so called the Aa, only to be told eta 4.30 pm. When no one showed up at 4.30pm, I called back, and was told that Mansfield recovery were too busy, and couldn’t give me an eta. Obviously, this was very upsetting for me, as I had been waiting since 10.30 am. It was now dark, raining and the road I was on isn’t a safe place to be at night.

The Aa operator then offered to call me a taxi back to Liverpool, with the promise that, if I left my keys in the wheel arch of the van, then the Mansfield recovery truck would collect my van later that evening, and deliver it to my mechanic in liverpool.

This I agreed to, as I needed to load up another vehicle for work in Manchester the next day.

My van still hasn’t been recovered for me, and my mechanic had moved other jobs, so that he could fix my vehicle today, ready for me to work with tomorrow.

Mansfield quite clearly don’t see Aa customers as a priority…… and the Aa operator couldn’t find anyone else to recover my van either.

Which begs the question, what am I paying for? I was told I had upgrade my cover yesterday from gold membership, to cover the transit as a business vehicle. I was charged £107, only to be treated appallingly. This has caused me a great deal of stress. I have been left worrying that my van could get vandalised or stolen….. the keys are in the wheel arch, as the operator suggested. If something bad happens to my van, because the Aa hasn’t recovered it, who will be liable.

I am now going to have to use another smaller van, and make two trips tomorrow…. This has messed me around, and so I would like to know how the Aa think this is a good way to treat loyal Customers?

Definitely going to leave them asap, after pursuing them legally.

I’m now told they will recover it at 9.15 tomorrow, but I’m not holding my breath…

They have lost another loyal customer……

I was absolutely shocked to see that my 82-year old mum was quoted £353 for her Gold coverrenewal.When I rang to query the high cost, a'nice-sounding' lady basically told us how fortunate we were to be Gold members and tried her utmost to reassure us we were getting a great deal! My mum owns an old VW Polo and has hardly used any of the perks so I had great delight in binning them off after I briefly thought about it. I feel she's been ripped off over the 17 years and feel pretty disgusted. They may be good at responding in a breakdown but if you aren't in a situation which needs a 'gold standard' breakdown service e.g. as a doctor or travelling business person, I'd be very careful about taking out a rolling subscription.

I was driving in Somerset in the early evening of 24/11/24. I drove through standing water which dislodged part of the flooring of the engine compartment. The engine was unaffected. I reached my destination, a hotel in Sherborne and parked in the car park. I contacted the AA via their app and was given the name of the breakdown company and an eta. This was subsequently changed. When they failed to arrive I contacted the AA to be told "We don't come out to flood damage. " I was then told to hold and someone would give to a quote for recovery to Manchester. Nothing happened. After 2 hours I was called to be told "We are too busy to give you a quote"

Fortunately I am also a member of Green Flag. I get my AA cover through my NatWest credit card.I called Green Flag, an engineer came out and fixed my car in 20 minutes!

I submitted a complaint to the AA.

The AA's Terms and Conditions (page 17) state "Matters outside the AA's reasonable control. The AA shall not be liable for service failures where the AA is faced with circumstances outside its reasonable control which include...snow, fog and FLOOD or other bad weather conditions." I asked the AA to explain how a car damaged by standing water but parked in a hotel car park was in a situation outside the AA's control. The AA replied that "the wording with regard to this flood water issue (which I felt was unclear) has always been our business policy." My complaint was dismissed.

The AA awarded me £50 towards the inconvenience caused by the 2 hour delay" before I was informed that would be no recovery quote and was, in effect, left stranded.

Green Flag's Terms and Conditions state that "We won't be able to help you at all if your vehicle is in a place where we can't get to you." No mention of flood damage.

My conclusion- Green Flag 10/10 - the AA 0/10.

My motorbike broke down , I put diesel in my tank by mistake, 100 yards up the road my bike died. Rang AA up on someone's phone has left my phone and money at home , the guy was very unhelpful looking for any excuse not to help as I had a bike.i asked for a Recovery but all I was offered was a tank clean out by another company at £270 . I bike bike wouldn't go I had no money or phone. I had to walk home 5 miles away .can't believe how they now treat customers and won't be renewing our AA cover next year .

Took out an AA policy costing £261.58 as a new customer via the Quidco Cashback platform which should have paid £149.50 Cashback as advertised (and still listed on the site). I've used Quidco for years and seldom have an issue however I was extremely disappointed to see my tracked cashback recently declined (despite following their T&C's to the letter and following the usual Quidco protocols/clear cookies etc.). I also submitted an appeal to Quidco which was also declined without explanation. Given the cashback was the only reason this policy was cheaper than their big name competitors it's has left a very sour taste with me as I feel I've been mis-sold an expensive policy and left out of pocket without explanation. I'll be switching to RAC or Green Flag next year and not returning or recommending AA!

***Update - I have since read a few money saving forums and the like and it's apparently commonplace for AA to decline insurance cashback despite advertising on these platforms. If the cashback/affiliate sites weren't such a grey area with little or no option to approve ot disapprove claims, I'd be inclined to report them to Advertising Standards. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED!

***Update 2: Contacted AA as per their request and supplied them with all the information I had from Quidco. Basically just got a default answer about clearing cookies. Spoke to my friend who works in affiliate marketing who agreed this is a load of nonsense as if it tracked 1st time the decline has nothing to do with cookie tracking. And more than likely someone at AA can't be arsed doing their job properly so just clicked decline on a raft of affiliate commission requests. Advised AA I won't be renewing to which they didn't seem phased. AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!!

Also as a side note one of their drivers blocked my driveway for an hour while fixing a broken down taxi last month without any request for permission or apology. I wasn't going anywhere but I'll add that to the mix.

They did £3000 of damage to my van and refused to pay for it to be fixed

You are attempting to charge me £47.17 for the same policy I found on your website for new customers at £21.39. Why are you charging a loyal customer more for the exact same policy?

Great experience with the AA with what was a difficult situation on a busy road. Very professional, friendly and kind. Great conversation about cars.

Thank you for getting me and my car back to Colchester safely!

Unfortunately broke down on the way to Gatwick airport with my partner and 3 children, parked up at service station and upon coming out car wouldn’t start, initially thinking it was the battery my partner bought some jump leads and a kind employee of the service station assisted in trying to start the car. This was unsuccessful realising we had a bigger problem and a short time to sort this if we had any hope of making our flight I contacted the AA. As I was not a member they stated it would be 150 plus another 150 and then £9 a month following, I informed the lady on the telephone that I had been told that the problem was a fan belt and if I joined would I be able to get this fixed road side as we had a flight to catch she assured me fan belts can be fixed at road side if they have one with them. She asked if I wanted to go a head and join the AA for assistance, I then said so it’s 300.00 for someone to come and look they will fix if they have a fan belt for my car but if not they will tow me to a garage to fix. She then said no they will leave and someone else will come and tow me to a garage to be repaired but as it was early hours of Sunday morning this wouldn’t be until Monday! She also said that I could be towed home at a cost of 4.50 per mile! Given I was 200 miles from home and the part I needed was only 23.00 I opted against this. I decided at the time to try ring around other places as this didn’t help my current situation. I tried in vain to solve other ways however as I had missed my flight had 3 upset tired children I contacted the AA again to sign up as had tried all other options.

This time the lady I got went through the spiel again when being asked questions she said is your car insured to which I confirmed she then asked does it have business insurance to which I confirmed it had! At this point she abruptly said well I am unable to sign you up as you are a commercial user! O enquired why this made me a commercial user stating I worked for the nhs they don’t own my car I just use my own car to go to patients houses! She told me she doesn’t make the rules. I accepted this and asked to be put through to commercial line. She then said that they don’t open until Monday given it was now 2am Sunday morning I was becoming very stressed and manic laughing! Stating to her course it not! She then said it would also cost more again I replied course it does! I then went on a rant about how I don’t understand how I can be a commercial user when I don’t have people in my car it is purely to allow me to claim my mileage becoming really frustrated with me she said I will ask my supervisor putting me on hold. On her return to the telephone she said that my situation is a grey area and they have agreed to accept me as a customer today!! (Accept me like I wasn’t paying them 300.00 for the privilege)

To my surprise the guy was there before I even ended the call!

I went outside the service station to meet him with my partner who had said we have been told it’s the fan belt, to which he replied well your stuck then! My partner said can you not fix that at road side to which the AA guy said do you have one? My partner saying no he then said well no the your stuck! Becoming really frustrated that I had paid 300.00 to have a guy tell me im stuck (I already knew this and thought I was paying 300.00 for a solution) I went on a rant telling him we had missed our flight, my kids were tired and upset, I had spent loads of money and had been informed by joining the AA would help my situation. The guy then replied you have kids with you? I said yes, he said have you been here all night again I replied yes. This appeared to make him mellow and become more helpful deciding to actually look under the bonnet, he informed me that he would need me to order a part from euro car parts, pay for it and he would go collect the part from Luton 30 mile away. He came back with the part and fitted it around 8am took him 15 minutes cost me 23.00.

Yes the AA did get me back on the road but a shocking experience! He didn’t want to help us until I went on a rant and he realised I had children with me! I did the ordering of the part and payed for it, it would have been cheaper for me to find a mobile mechanic that could have done the same for probably cheaper.

Very unhelpful staff, really rude and very expensive for the privilege of dealing with them being unhelpful and rude

I ordered an AA inspection for a potential new car, and the experience was dreadful from start to finish. I used their inspection service for an Audi, paying £235. Despite this high fee, the inspection was outsourced to third-party inspectors. They checked the car and assured me that there were no issues with the bodywork or any other problems, providing a report that everything was in perfect condition. The inspection took place in a car park, and they failed to notice oil in the shock absorber, essentially just taking some useless pictures.

When I traveled 2.5 hours each way to see and purchase the car, I immediately discovered that it had been poorly sprayed and painted all over. This was obvious to the naked eye, both in sunlight and shade. Opening the car door revealed rough edges of paint. The windscreen had been replaced with a cheap one, poorly attached, and none of this was mentioned in the report.

Upon noticing these issues, I used a Thickness Gauge to further inspect the car and recorded a video, from which I will attach screenshots. Additionally, the non-Audi windscreen replacement was easy to spot. The inspector did not send any pictures of the car’s oily suspension, and the inspection was conducted outdoors, not in a garage. I suspect there were more issues with the car, but I stopped my inspection and drove back due to these significant problems.

Otherwise, I cannot understand how such obvious flaws were missed. I am convinced this was intentional.

After writing to their customer service, I received this response:

“We can only inspect the vehicle as presented on the day of inspection, regardless of weather conditions. It is also a possibility, whilst we are not suggesting this, the windscreen may have been replaced after our inspection. Whilst we accept you may remain dissatisfied, the decision has been made not to uphold your complaint and no further action will be taken on this occasion.”

However, I could easily see the paint issues and verified them with a thickness gauge. The windscreen was the same as in the report pictures, and I don’t think the seller could have changed it overnight. And they didn’t want to be responsible and just do a refund.

Overall, it’s absolutely unacceptable for a company that charges a premium price for their inspections. AVOID this company. Don’t buy anything from them. They just want to take your money and not provide a proper service.

I have already started the Mastercard Chargeback and am now preparing to sue them with my lawyer.