Club Arnage

Hopefully breaking down in France is a rarity for us? 

Looking for experiences and views and what you might have done differently about a breakdown, what was the response like, how did you cope, especially the language difference, if you needed to speak to a non-English speaking operator. 

Also the part played by your insurance company/vehicle breakdown organisation.

This is a subject which occurs on a regular basis and would like to get a collective view.

your editorial team.

Which company / how much / how many days/ how old is the car

All makes a difference...

(Hi Peter)

>Martini...

For good advice, I have heard of this site,

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com

he's the guy on Radio 2 once a month. He did a bit on roadside recovery and if you look at this link it takes you to that section.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1094823518,14076,

not sure about the companies quoted, has anybody else tired them? but they seem worth looking into.

But for euro cover the oldest car is 20 years, at first look.

Have a look at their forum, near the bottom of the page, gives more views.

For classic cars, most car insurance companies offer euro cover,

I have a 1971 Herald - I have to check my insurance cover and get a quote for euro cover if not already covered.

I'll let you know.

HI Guys, the purpose of the thread is to get YOUR VIEWS and EXPERIENCES of vehicle breakdowns and cover.  It is for next years CA guide.  I'm very happy with my own cover.

The idea is to pool people experiences for the guide, ie termietermite chum lost his keys, the AA didn't cover that, so they had use a local garage.  Not much use to me as my French is rubbish.

Peter

Not sure if this helps you FS, but it is worth mentioning in the guide to check your cover has an international number ie +44 to dial where you can speak to an operative in your native toungue who then liase with the local vans, i know the mini cover was like this as i double checked before leaving, but happily i never had to use it.

My experience with P's Moggie and Mondie was that on both occasions he did get an English speaking helpline, but not an English speaking mechanic!  Was just intereted to know how other people might have coped with this.  Paul just drags his translator around with him!  Not a facility available to everybody?

Sorry, experiences,
 
Herald broke down in France a few years ago, the rear half shaft snapped. The car was recovered to a French garage and they spent 2 days welding up the shaft on instructions of the insurance company. When I got there and found out, the insurance company said it would be OK. Totally dangerous, after big argument with the insurance company they agreed to recover back to the UK.

Moral – Stick to your guns, if not happy. Also know where you can get parts sent over to you. I sent the garage a copy of a car parts supplier in the UK. The garage said they would be happy to fit them once they arrived and the supplier told me he often sends parts abroad (over night) for these occasions

As Dave says make sure you have a number that you can contact, when we had trouble in Spa last year the 0800 numbers on the card didn't work as either Orange or the local network didn't support them (never quite got to the bottom of "why").   So do make sure you have either a "normal" UK number that you dial from abroad or a local number for the countries that you are visiting.

Secondly, always remember that most of mainland Europe closes for the summer!  We got recovered from Spa to Liege last year (when the rodent ate the Saab) but were told that the Saab garage didn't have any mechanics as they were effectively closed; they only had a technician and if the technicial could fix the problem then fine but if not >>shrug<<  

Also if you're travelling with lots of gear read the small print of your insurance policies about what you're entitled to in the event of an accident or breakdown.  We worked out that if the car couldn't be fixed the breakdown cover would provide an alterative car to get us back to the UK but that they would not guarantee a car of the same size or a car that was compatible with our roof bars so we would not be able to take the roofbox. This for a short while left us playing "scissors/paper/stone" about whether we would leave behind the wet camping gear, the camera kit or the 6 cases of champagne that we'd bought!!  I have heard of people who have managed to persuade the insurance company to give them a van rather than a car but this presumably only works if there are two of you.  

Language wise it was pretty tough in Belguim, the guy who turned up spoke no English and neither my Flemmish or French are great!  We had got the car back to the hotel and the hotel owner speaks some English so was able to translate and luckily when we got the the garage the owners son was there and he had spent six months in England so we got by.

A couple of years ago, our trusted group support vehicle, a 1950's Chevrolet pickup, suffered a terminal automatic transmission failure down by Arnage corner on the Friday of race week.
The truck was kindly towed back to Houx Annexe by a camping neighbours' Land Rover and sat forelornly until Sunday after the race had finished.

The truck's passenger then realised he had AA cover that included European breakdown.  A call was made to the provided UK number and we were told a truck would be with us "within an hour".  Fat chance of that, we thought, so we tucked into the remaining Leffe.

Forty five minutes later, a DAM recovery lorry arrived to take the Chevy away.  Hastily, we dismantled and packed our marquee into the back of the Chevy, whilst the patient recovery driver had a cold one.
The Chevy was taken to a compound in Le Mans, to be back loaded to a UK bound vehicle transporter.

The following morning, the two Chevy passengers were provided with a French hire car, repatriated to the UK via the tunnel (they already had ferry tickets though) and were provided with a UK hire car to drive back to Norfolk.

The Chevy eventually returned to the owners house a week later, with no damage or loss to any of the contents.

A first class service by the AA.

(http://static.flickr.com/60/193295805_80b6089cac.jpg)

(http://static.flickr.com/58/193295806_00619350e4.jpg)

Couldn't have been that terminal she stiil managed to make it the next year . Albeit minus a white wall tyre. A winter project I presume replacing the transmission?

What a good service, a perfect advert for European breakdown cover

this year one of the Kuntari suffered clutch failure late friday night.  we towed the car back to the campsite and called the AA.

The following morning, a truck arrived to take the car to a garage, where it found pleasant companie with numerous TVR's, and a few Fezza's etc.    The could have fixed it in due course, but the owner decided he just wished for it to be returned to the UK.

The AA said no probs and arranegd for a hire car in France, mainly for purpose of getting the two occupants back to the UK.  When reaching the port, they would have had to return the car, and board as foot passengers, and then pick up another hire car at the Portsmouth docks.

But this seemed a bit silly, as a group we had 15 cars left (out of orginal 17).  So we just gave lifts to the two guys back to the port.

The hire care was waiting as promised for us in Portsmouth and as I understand it, the only problem with the hire car was it wouldn't donut easily!    The broken car was returned later in the week, and is still broken, but thats a dealer issue and not the AA.

only other situation with this car, is when we were pushing the car into the campsite, one of our crew decided to lay down in front of the car wheel.  1 ton of car  meets bare foot = broken toe.  Aside from that, a thumbs up for this AA story!


As for the 16th car being missing, that was cos one of our group broke his knee on the day we arrived, so his mate had to drive him home Sat morning. 

That raises a good point - we always try to have a second driver for each car that we take with us so that if someone is unwell or injured there is always someone else to bring the car home.  It's perhaps not always possible but worth thinking about (although not strictly on topic!  Sorry FS!)

Piggy wiggy, good point and very worth mentioning.  It had been mentioned in the driving section although this was in case for some reason the main drivers , driving license had been confiscated by the gendarmes.

Direct Line offer a good service as well, very similar to the AA, only cost an extra £32 for the 5 days we were at the classic. Hire car, hotel expenses, loss of money all included, so personal cover as well as the car.
We already have the full recovery, home start etc for the Jeep, but as a bonus they cover the cob on breakdown and recovery for £23.00 a year as a second vehicle, bonus.

One year someone had a go at breakinging into my Impreza when I stopped on route to Le Mans at Rouen.  When they failed to get in they punctured a rear tyre instead.  I couldn't get the wheel nuts off, and in any event the spare was a spce saver and didn;t fancy driving a heavily laden car on that.  So called Subaru Recovery provided by Mondial.  Spoke to a UK based operator who sent a french speaking breakdown truck.  He tried removing the wheel nuts and couldn't so decided I needed to be taken to a tyre dealer, and we soped in a combination of arm waving and franglais!

At tyre dealer they also didn't speak english but when they pointed at tyres, and said Non I realised they had none of a suitable size!  The breakdown truck therefore took me to the Subaru dealer who also had no tyres and spoke no english!  However he went to another garage to find someone to speak english!

They arranged to get 2 new tyres (as said needed to replace pair) I spoke to Mondail who said they would pay for me to stay in hotel but I would need to claim on car insurance for attempted break in damage (rear spoiler ripped off and a couple of small dents) and for the tyres.

So spoke to Direct Line who told me to pay for tyres and sort out rest on return to UK, and they would refund the tyre cost.  So thats what happened.  The French Subaru dealer complained he had to drill off the wheel nuts as they were on too tight, and said make sure they aren't so tight in future!  But the car was ready for the following day to go onto Le Mans.

On my return to the UK I got the car repaired submitted my bill for 2 tyres to Direct Line who then said only 1 should be replaced.  I spoke to my Subaru dealer who said that best practice would be change both although Subaru UK had just announced it wasn't essential.  Spoke to Direct Line who then agreed to pay for both tyres.

Been paying increased insurance premiums due to the claim ever since!

However got to say Mondail on behalf of Subaru were fantastic and the language problems were got round by various ways.

Also got round language problems when I wrote a car off in Portugal many years ago so I don;t think it is too much of a problem

we also go on the premise that as we travel in convoy, if someone in the convoy gets hit by a fine for speeding, then we can share the cost of the cars in that convoy.  the most likely person to be nabbe dis either the leader or tail ender anyways

Due to my Dad's van being 7.5 tonne, it makes it difficult to get one of us younger guys to legally drive it. Insurance is the other problem too! If Dad was to have a problem driving it home then I would drive it albeit without a license or insurance! If we were to be stopped then there would just be a explanation that infact Dad was driving. The Van only has one main door, (halfway down the length of the van.)

Our experience of Euro breakdown cover was bad.

English speaking call center by AA was RUDE!!
Cover did not include vehicles over 3.5 tonne (We declared this before we took the cover out!)
Cover did not include vehicles over 10 Meters (We declared this before we took the cover out!)
Recovery truck took 4 hours to arrive
Recovery truck driver spoke NOT A WORD of English
Recovery truck had NO TOOLS not even a spare FUSE!!!
Recovery truck was WAY TOO SMALL TO TAKE US. We dwarved it!!
Once recovery truck left we were told the recovery to the UK was going to cost us £2000. Another £2000 if we wanted to continue the journey.

We had onward journey cover with them!!!

Useless. I now have no breakdown cover especially as I managed to fix it on the carriageway.

My tip is a simple one.  Don't lock the phone number for your breakdown service in the boot with the keys.

These buqqers are so keen to take your money, but won't do ought.

Be prepared.  Dib dib dob dob