The other day i was driving along and my temperature gauge shot up so i stopped, popped the bonnet (hood) and sure enough clouds of steam were coming out - 'not good' I thought so called the AA.
I was told by the AA operator that all the AA men were busy so they would send a "local approved agent".
40mins later a guy arrived with a tow truck. I explained what had happened, and he started to take a look. This is where the fun started...
Given that it was a dark, moonless night, one of the most vital bits of equipment for a mechanic to carry would surely be a big powerful torch - But not this guy - the torch he had looked like one of those lights the doctor uses to look in your eyes to see if you're dead - not much light, and certainly not much use!
So by the dim light of his pencil torch he proceeded to look to see how much water was I had left... good plan, but he looked in the screen wash bottle and told me i had plenty of water left so there couldnt be a water leak! i didnt even comment....
It was at this point I started to realise what I was dealing with here... this guy obviously was not a mechanic, and had no intention of or ability to repair my car. No, his sole objective was to load my car onto the back of his truck and drop me off at the garage so that he could move onto his next breakdown. Obviosuly the AA's locally approved agents are simply paid by the number of cars they recover and not the number they fix!
So thats what we did. we loaded the car up and began the slow drive home....
Since i was pretty sure the problem was a simple issue with a water hose, i had the car dropped to my house, and when i eventually got rid of the tow truck guy, i called the AA and told them exactly what i thought of their incompetent "approved agent". I also insisted that they send one of their trained AA staff to diagnose the fault the next following morning in the light of day (a sunday) after all, the AA boast on their website that they fix one car every 12 seconds, and i pay my membership feed to have the car looked at by a trained mechanic not some local bloke with a tow truck!
So the following day at 10am i got a call from a lost AA man. He was trying to locate my house...conversation went a bit like this:
AA: "Hello im having problems finding your house"
Me: "ok where are you now?"
AA: "Road xyz... Southampton,"
Me: "ok, we i'm in Kent.... over 100 miles away..."
AA: "Oh...."
So not only do they send untrained incompetent 'local agents', when they actually do send a proper AA man, they send him to an address i've not lived at for over 5 years!! great...
So my review of the AA - not worth the money. i've cancelled my direct debit, and they wont be seeing another penny from me again!!