Emergency Breakdown Cover – Yes
Yes,emergency roadside assistanceis definitely worth the money. It should be regarded as an investment. Cars can breakdown at any time. It is a fact of life.
Working for one of the big breakdown rescue services in Great Britain, one could see how often motorists saved themselves a small fortune by having Breakdown cover. It makes no difference whether the car is new or old. There may come a time when it will break down. Of course it may not.
Driving along a lonely road miles from anywhere, in the dark and rain, without breakdown coverand in a hurry to see your loved ones, is not the best way to find out!
At midnight, or in the early hours of the morning, a long way from home, breaking down is bad enough, but if you have no breakdown cover, it is down to you to resolve the situation. There are not that many garages open late at night. If you have cover, all you need to do is contact the rescue control room.
If you have no cover, first you have to find where the garages are, then find one that is able to get to you. I often got sent to cars that had broken down on the way to a holiday destination, the driver's would have no idea of where the local garages were.
Should the fault be a broken fan belt, which is relatively, an inexpensive if you have rescue cover, you will only have to pay for the fan belt. If you don't have rescue cover, you will have call out cost's plus labour for fitting the fan belt. Maybe a total of around $100 or more.
If the breakdown is more serious, and cannot be fixed at the roadside, the car will have to be taken to a garage to be repaired. Again, especially at night, there is the added call out fee, plus labour getting the car removed to a garage.
If you have rescue cover in the UK, your car will be taken to a garage of your choice, or taken back to your home, or on to your destination point. This applied to small vans and trucks as well.
It is true that some new car's had rescue cover as part of the Warranty. I had to go out to some new cars, but mainly the car's I was called to were about three to four years old.
Fan belts were a common on the road breakdown, followed by electrical failures, usually ignition or battery's. Early morning calls to cars that would not start were common in the autumn and winter. The cost of me going to the drivers home and getting the car started, would cost the member nothing, if no parts were used. Compare calling a garage out with the cost of being a member of the rescue service.
If there is a down side to being a member of a rescue service, it has to be something like sometimes having an hour or so wait, for help to arrive. Females travelling alone got priority on the list, and it did mean that at some busy times, a wait was inevitable. It was annoying for the driver, but help would arrive as soon as it was possible.
Not being a member of a rescue service meant that driver's would have to solve their own breakdown problems. Often, while I was driving to a breakdown, I would be flagged down by a driver who had also broken down. Usually, they would ask to join the rescue cover there and then to get their car fixed. It was difficult to explain to them I was unable to help as I already had a member waiting for me, which sometimes didn't go down very well.
It was through going to rescue a Damsel in distress, that I met my second wife......
