Our breakdown travelling in Europe about a month ago was on a friday night driving over cobbles in a northern German city. A broken fan belt – which would normally take half an hour to fix been told.
Although our policy covered this sort of thing with a hotel, alternative car even having the car taken back home – none of this happened. It was the last thing at end of long day on German autobahns. The clatter of fan belt snapping – thought was us being hit from behind – but after a hundred warnings telling me to stop at once – luckily outside a cafe – reallized something had happened to the engine. Thought it was because run out of oil.
Until, about midnight we waited for help and watched happy people rolling home. Several stopped including an old man on a bycycle and later his wife who helped me top up the oil, a fireman who cancelled our booking to the hotel we couldnt get to and persuaded them not to charge and the lady from the cafe who made us something to eat and brought her mobile out to us – to keep us in touch with the recovery firm – but we still spent a night in a German Ford Dealership – waiting for the sun to rise.
Our car had been serviced before we travelled but checking the fan belt – is not part of a service unless you ask for it..
Main reason we spent a night sleeping in our car waiting for dawn – seemed to be because i dont know my own mobile number and our home land line number had been taken down with a number missing by call center, And my number wasn’t stored by phonecalls i made to them. Good to know
The night was long and car battery died, after midnight and couldn’t charge mobile and torch when they ran out – and everything on the car stopped working including the locking system.
When asked about a toilet – breakdown man motioned to the grass around as he left us in the open car lot. In the morning we had access to the garage’s bathroom and coffee machine
When we got home and followed this up perhaps to make a claim, discovered two major things which was clueless before and meant our policy – more than recover us – was useless.
– Important to know who you should be contacting if you make a claim. Breakdown recovery policy is in 2 parts. Selling of the policy is covered by Financial Conducts Authority (FCA) and they have 8 weeks to handle and complete the claim not as told 8 weeks to start invetsigating it. But quality of service provided – more likely what effects people in this situation when you break down – is covered by whoever underwrites the policy in our case – Acromas,. The FCA will help you work this out and provide you with the Regulator for Acromas who are based in Gibralter.
Make sure you contact/email – FCA, Policy Underwriter and your breakdown provider.
– Second major thing – The service side of the breakdown cover is handled by the partners of your breakdown company in the country where you break down. The UK breakdown cover provider told us if your service is not good – it was not their responsability but their partner orgnisation in Europe. At best – they would provide them with feedback. So you are caught in the middle. The recovery men felt their reponsability to us was just to recover the car. Also in Europe, breakdown recovery men – mainly recover the car not attempt to fix it – even if a small problem.
Main thing took away from this experience (apart from write down my mobile number somewhere) – when you give your contact number if you take out a policy – give mobile number using abroad (and several numbers to people who know you) and ask them to read it back and take a small charging pack for your car battery. Maybe avoid cobbles and ask for fan belt to be checked before travelling long distances.
The next morning, while we waited for the garage – luckily open on a saturday – to fix the fan belt – we had breakfast in a German B & Q and brought back croissants for the garage – they were very kind and spent the afternoon face down asleep in the hotel when we got there.
sunnypolarbear 