I’m currently with the AA but am not happy the way they set you up with a direct debit on the sly, who else is good?

you will be glad of that direct debit when you break down a couple of days after your year contract ends and you forget to renew. I fyou dont like them then cancel before they restart the year

Tesco clubcard points and the RAC. Full years membership etc for £27 with all the options.

Alternatively, if you’re planning European travel at any point I’d go with ADAC. A german company but as it’s european cover it can be used here also. All for the cheap price of 79Euro’s.

Yep Tesco vouchers for me.

I’ve had the odd grumble about the AA, but I wouldn’t be without them – I’ve had to call them out three times over the past four weeks! The first guy was a bit ‘Don’t give a toss’, and ‘the system’ didn’t show that we had the full level of cover, so he kind of left us to sort everything ourselves.

The other two guys were great though, really friendly and professional, with the last one suggesting a possible reason why my five-year old Micra has burnt through three starter motors (two in the last month – Micras are a bit shit). He also sorted a hire car for me, which technically I wasn’t entitled to – I have the ‘Stay Mobile’ cover, but if your car can be bump-started, apparently you’re not covered. :/). I think it was the crying that did it…

So basically, I pay just over £200 a year for the AA, but over the past four weeks they’ve been called out three times, sorted me a hire car, and paid for over £300 worth of repairs!

However, if you’re really against the AA…when I first got my car it came with RAC cover. The first time the engine electics/starter motor kicked the bucket (just before the 3-year warranty ran out…did I mention Micras are a bit shit?) I had to call them out. They were really good – despite the fact the car could be bump started, they arranged to tow it back to our house, then arranged for another tow to the garage the next day (as it had broken down on a Sunday). From that one experience, they seemed to go a bit further than the AA – the only reason I went with the AA is because they have more patrols and a faster response time, and assumed they’d be fairly similar.

Most fully comp insurance includes some sort of cover now might be worth checking, assuming you haven’t already.

AA all the way, every guy I have ever dealt with has been supperb.

I did get a warning one year that I had called them out 8 times and I only had 2 more call outs before being charged an excess. It was the hazzard of running a classic mini.

They have always been very interested in fixing my car for me not just towing me to a garage. One AA guy spent 2 hours on the drive diagnosing a problem with an imobilizer and he was successfull.

They have built a loyalty that I think would be hard to break know.

We stopped using AA when we realised they were trying to charge us £30 for rolling over the cover and as existing customers (for the last 17 years) we were being charged more than new customers. To get the new customer price, we’d have had to transfer the cover into my name.

We’ve also had a couple of issues where we’ve called them out and told them exactly what the problem was, that the car was undriveable and too big for a van to tow, and they’ve sent a van out to us to keep their response times down, so we then had to wait an hour or two at the garage half a mile down the road while they sent out a sensible truck.

We’ve just moved to Green Insurance (as recommended by Guardian Money), who charged half the price for better cover, but haven’t had to use them yet…

Green flag for motorbike – been excellent both times I’ve called them out.
Car is with RAC, which was free (don’t know if this still works, but basic cover used to be available as follows)

Call 0800 056 2481 from a household phone, select option 2
Say “Ive got a letter in the post regarding free cover cos i learnt with BSM”
They’ll ask you for a reference code…
Reference: bs4001.

My experience – AA good / RAC bad (twice sending local recover agents = lack interest in fixing) …I get the impression (via internet stuff – not real experience) that AA has gone downhill in the last 5 years or so (probably about when I last called)