Let down by the AA

[Vivienfay]

I am a gold member of the AA and

 

I have been with them for 23 years and they have never let me down until now.

 

As extra cover for myself and my son I took ot the AA Repair Plan 3 years ago.

 

I am retired and on a limited income so I thought it would be sensible to have this extra cover.

 

My son's car broke down last week

The pipe which takes the coolant to the engine broke and his engine was damaged to the tune of about £800.

 

the AA who initially said they would pay me up to £500 are now refusing to pay as I did not have the car serviced

exactly twelve months after the previous service in 2012.

 

My stupid fault I know as I should have read the small print of the policy much more carefully.

 

I have appealed to the AA and Vauxhall have supported me,

as this fault could not have been predicted and could have happened at any time even an hour after servicing.

 

I know I have made a mistake but I feel the decision by the AA is very harsh in not offering me anything at all after all the years I have been with them.

 

How stupid of me to think that loyalty counted for something.

 

I am a single parent so this bill is down to me and I don't have the money to pay for it.

 

Thanks AA and a happy Christmas to you too.

[citizenB]

We have an AA rep on the forums - will send an S.O.S for you.

[citizenB]

the AA who initially said they would pay me up to £500 are now refusing to pay as I did not have the car serviced

exactly twelve months after the previous service in 2012.

 

How long after the "12 months" did you have the vehicle serviced ?

 

I would have thought this could be considered an unfair term.. the garage might not have been able to make you an appointment for "exactly" 12 months after the previous service !

[Raykay]

The AA require the vehicle to be 'serviced in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations', which may not be exactly 12 months. Most manufacturers have an allowance for mileage and/or time - which would be within their recommendation.

[Kiki1]

I am a gold member of the AA and

 

I have been with them for 23 years and they have never let me down until now.

 

 

I know I have made a mistake but I feel the decision by the AA is very harsh in not offering me anything at all after all the years I have been with them.

 

How stupid of me to think that loyalty counted for something.

 

The AA that is around now has absolutely nothing to do with the AA that was in existence 25 years ago.

[Slimm]

Not really a 'let down' if you failed to comply with the conditions. I wouldn't expect my household insurers to pay out if I was burgled after leaving the door open.

 

I'd have thought that periodically checking engine coolant pipes were in good condition was a part of the vehicles service requirements.

 

If you are absolutely 100% convinced that the problem would not have been picked up in a decent service then put the details of the failure and service history down in black and white then approach the AA on the grounds that your non-compliance was not material to the failure at hand. Vauxhall should be able to tell you exactly what service is due at specific times/mileage and what they recommend that service comprises of.

[Surfer01]

One of the reasons why we refused to have anything to do with the AA as they will try and weasel out of paying if possible.

[citizenB]

Hmm, I wonder where our AA rep is ? No response to my S.O.S or here on the thread ??

[Old Cogger]

the AA is no more i.e. the real old AA that we knew, and anybody who tries to state the hose pipe prediction in a service will burst in say 5-10,000 miles needs shooting if that is what they imply.

[Billy's mate]

The engine coolant hoses would have to be in pretty poor condition for one of them to split. They normally bloat up when they're on their way out, and " crunch " when you squeeze them, so they should have been picked up on the service. It seems that your Vauxhall dealers are trying to pass the buck for their own shoddy servicing. Also, your son must have carried on driving the car in order to cause £800 worth of damage ( cylinder head gasket failure ? ). The AA Breakdown repair Cover has a £35 excess, so they would pay out £465 IF they accept the claim. As with all insurance policies, you have to watch the small print, and you can't complain if you haven't complied with it. Check when it was last serviced and at what mileage, then check with Vauxhall when the next service was due. If there's not much of a discrepancy, it may well be wort contacting the AA again.

[Old Cogger]

But some hoses blister on the inside so you would not see it, but a careful check of the outer hose casing would show a soft area which would be suspect and in need of investigation, as for the damage then as has been said continuing driving would be the main cause of problem, but if seen to straight away then the damaged limitaion would come in to it.

 

Remember decades ago whilst a RAC Patrol many a hose pipe blistered and it came to be norm to take off and inspect, also a case of a New Car on Motorway and a fault occured in another part of the car BUT the driver admitted the noise had been there for 150 miles, you guessed it the warranty was void in respect of the full damage, I remember that case as I heard about it after I had recovered that vehicle to main dealer.

[9000Parts]

Ive never had a coolant hose fail slowly before. They dont give you any audible or visual warnings and I bet not a single garage would go round and grope and squeeze every inch of all the coolant pipes in the car. Half of them arent even accessible without a bit of dismantling to get at them so the coolant hose failure is not service related.

 

However, if you lose all the coolant then continuing to run the engine and drive it is asking for damage to be done. It takes less than 5 minutes when the engine is idling and has no load on it to seriously overheat from cold, if its up to temperature and under load it will overheat in a couple of minutes and this will do damage. At the very least you are looking headgasket, possibly a cracked head, damaged water pump. These faults can then cascade into even more serious trouble which will end up in a replacement engine.

[rashidhussain69]

you can try email the CEO Chris Jansen