The AA. Less Adverts, Better Service

I've been a member of the AA for a few years now and up till 2000 I didn’t have to use it much! But from 2000 till the beginning of 2001 was a bad year for me as I broke down about 4 times! Talk about bad luck!

I’ve never ever felt dissatisfied with the service that AA provided; in previous years it had helped me out when my cars went dead on me and they really provided an efficient and friendly service. Yes, they could be late, but like another review here on Ciao, I can accept that people can get stuck in traffic so I never had a problem with them being up to an hour late!

I was in Hackney, East London and after playing some Basketball, I phoned the AA at 1pm when my Volkswagon Golf TDI would not start. First of all, the operator said I would have to wait an hour for the AA van to arrive. It didn’t arrive until nearer 2:30pm, which was 1-½ hours but considering it was a Saturday, I accepted there might be higher demand than usual.

He then tried to tow start the car around the roads available but with no luck.

And this is when the level of service started to deteriorate.

I sat in my car waiting for him to get back to me and when he did he said AA Technical HQ had determine the problem as ‘contaminated fuel’ which I was not willing to accept as I was certain I put in the right Diesel.

The AA man continued to explain to me that sometimes Petrol stations could have contaminated fuel. I also made sure this point by asking my brother to ask the garage whether they had any complaints that day of contaminated fuel, in which the answer was negative. At this point I even offered the AA man to fax the fuel transaction from BP to the AA HQ to verify that I had put in the right fuel. The AA was still adamant that it was contaminated fuel in the car and my only option was to tow it the nearest AA approved garage to have my fuel flushed out and at a cost.

I got towed to South Bank Recovery Services garage in Canning Town by 5pm. Here the mechanic told me that it would cost me £99.45 to get my contaminated fuel flushed out from the car and it would take about 1 to 1 ½ hours to do. I patiently sat in the customer waiting room and when the mechanic drained out all my diesel at about 6:30pm, he showed me that it was nothing but pure diesel as when he tried to ignite it, it didn’t burn like petrol would. At this point I was very angry with the AA that I was right all along and they had not listened to me. To be absolutely certain that it wasn’t contaminated fuel, the mechanic then tried several attempts at putting in his own diesel, which he was certain, was pure diesel and there was still no luck in starting the engine. He did however say it had something to do with the fuel line and it might have been leaking. He finally gave up at about 7:30pm and advised me to ring the AA back and explain the situation and did not charge me but out of courtesy for all his hard work, I gave him money for a drink or two. At the time I felt it was unfair to voice my complaint at the AA call centre representative as I knew it wasn’t her fault and all I now wanted was to get home after a long day disputing with the AA whether I had ‘contaminated fuel’ or not.

I arrived home in Bedford eventually at 11pm. In total it took 10 hours for the AA to ‘help’ me home. I also had a look at my fuel gauge (with the ignition on) the following morning to find that the mechanic had not replaced my flushed out diesel and as stated I had just under half a tank left in the car.

So to conclude, my final thoughts are that the AA have changed significantly since its takeover by Centrica a few years ago, and they have become more stringent against fraudulent claims by non-AA members, but because of this, this sometimes affect the way they treat their genuine members. Whilst I was talking to the first AA guy on the day, he mentioned to me that the AA were more hesitant about towing cars since the takeover. From my case, I think it was evident. I do still very much recommend the AA as a breakdown service and I hope my case was just a one-off, but I just like to point out that the AA wasn’t as good as it use to be and people should shop around more carefully. If anyone else had a bad experience, I would like to know!