On 1/2 my car broke down on a limited access highway on my way to work. I pulled over at 8:15 am. The temperature was in the teens. I have an older car and I have used AAA many times (in fact they gave me a jump for a dead battery just after Thanksgiving) so just called them like normal. The road side assistance number told me they were no taking any more calls and I should go online or use their app. I tried a few more times and it alternated between that message or a fast busy. Tried to go to their site on my phone but it wouldn’t load because it was getting hammered with traffic. I tried to find their app in the Google store and no combination of searches would bring up an app that looked legit.
Finally I tried calling their travel office and telling them my situation and pleading for them to transfer me to road side assistance. They person was nice enough to do it. I finally got a tow request in at 10 am. From there my morning was basically:
Failing to get through to Road Side assistance directly, calling the travel office and pleading (most would transfer me but a few lied and said they couldn’t) and being promised that a tow was coming within some time frame that kept moving. Multiple times I debated just trying to drive on it. I was a few about 10 miles from work but it felt like something was grinding when the car moved and I was afraid I would make something that was bad worse. Plus I was pretty sure if I lost my tow request by moving to a new location I would never be able to get another one. Several times I was assured someone was on their way. At one point I was told a truck was “twenty minutes away”. About a half hour after that I saw a tow truck blow by me in the left lane. Maybe it was mine? Probably not. Finally at 2 pm a truck came. He told me the call to get me came in only twenty minutes earlier so the stuff I was being told all day was BS.
I understand that it was an extremely busy day for them (I saw on their Facebook page I was by far not the only one stranded) and luckily I was able to run my engine a little at a time to keep warm and keep my phone charged but five hours on the shoulder of a busy highway on a frigid day really sucked and if they had been straighter with me I may have attempted to drive on it (it turned out the wheel bearings had gone and while it felt and sounded bad and there was a slight chance of wheel damage, it probably would have been safe to drive to my office).
Post Script: By the time the tow truck had taken me and my car to the repair place I really really had to use the bathroom so of course the cold had frozen their pipes so their restroom was out of order.
Post Post Script: Next door was a Burger King. Thankfully they had a working bathroom but, no lie, they were about to close it for cleaning when I tried to use it but the woman saw my face and took pity on me. Also, even as starving and miserable as I was, Burger King’s food was still disgusting. The coffee was okay though.
Sorry for your problems, but through that longish post, the last pair of sentences are my take away. Gave me a laugh at least.
The few times I’ve used them, roadside service was never quick but never hard to get through to at least. That is not a good sign if they are cutting back on phone service. The AAA app is available pretty easily for Google & iPhones.
For the Google Play Store, I just type AAA in the search and it suggests AAA mobile App for Android. This is the App for Roadside service. The install took 1 minute on Wi-Fi.
One of the reasons I stick with Verizon is because of their roadside assistance program. It’s $3 a month. If you’re not signed up but have an emergency and need immediate assistance, they’ll bill you $90 if you call in the middle of an emergency.
If you have a Verizon account, you can talk to Verizon at any time by dialing 611. You can read about their program here -
I’m also in AAA and have nothing bad to say about them. I like that Verizon is my backup to my backup. I’m pretty sure ATT has a roadside assistance program, too.
I have a Visa Signature credit card and one of the perks is a “roadside dispatch” service. You still have to pay for the tow, of course, but it’s a toll-free number to call and arrange a tow. And since I mostly stay in a small area, I added the names and phone numbers of some of the local towing services to my phone’s contact list, so I can just call them directly.
My one experience with AAA was a total fuck-up. I got a flat tire in north central Mass. I called and the automatic answerer asked where I was balling from. Barre (pronounced Barry). The machine said, “Did you say [incomprehensible]?” No, Barre. Rinse and repeat. Finally I said Boston and that got me an actual human in, of course, the wrong office. She asked where I was and transferred me to the correct office. Who asked where I was and I said I was 12 miles north of Barre on Rt. 122 (I had actually just passed a road sign giving the distance. She could not find Rt 122 on her maps. Try it, google Barre and get the road map, you will see it immediately. After a lot of useless back and forth, I gave up and started to change the tire myself. About 15 minutes later state trooper Driskell showed up, put up a flare and finished changing the tire for me. He commented that I was his father’s age and he hoped if he needed help someone would come along to do (I was about 75 at the time). Four hours later, long after I reached my destination, I got a call from a garage up the road from where I was asking if I still needed service. AAA is useless.
I have had really good luck with AAA although the service times can be slow in urban areas. I once had a tire failure in the smallest town (pop. 300) in Florida and needed to get to Gainesville that night. It was 2 am and I had AAA Gold with 100 mile free towing. They loaded my SUV on a flatbed and took me to a tire repair shop in Gainesville about 94 miles away. That must have been a long night for the driver and it would have been a really expensive tow for me if I didn’t have it.
I had to have another tow because of a blowout just a few weeks ago. It wasn’t that far but the truck showed up quickly and got me to the repair shop in less than 45 minutes. The whole problem was solved in less than 3 hours.
Their regional office is within walking distance of my home and they provide a whole lot of services if you ask. They renewed my driver’s license with no wait this past summer for example. It beat the shit out of the DMV.
The membership is basically free or even a net positive if you use it correctly. Many hotels and restaurants among others offer AAA discounts. I usually don’'t think to do it but I know people that do and it more than pays for itself very quickly.
Damn - that sounds ugly. I have AAA Plus (for the 99 mile tow service). I find I sometimes have to wait an hour or so, but that is the worst I deal with. I just bought a new batter off of them for my truck, and got great service from the guy who showed up. A neighbor asked him a question and he took care of her as well.
I think part of it is the quality of their local network of providers - we are fortunate where we live.
Wow, I’m intrigued by the negative stories. I’ve used AAA a lot over the last twenty plus years (we tend to drive our cars into the ground) and can’t think of a truly bad experience—though I agree their estimated wait times are sometimes a bit…rosy. (Well, one situation when they implied that I could get towed to a particular garage for free, and that was not the case.) but they have generally been reliable and on the ball, and have bailed us out of many an unpleasant situation. I often like to say that getting a membership was one of the best investments we ever made.
Really unfortunate what happened to the OP and Hari Seldon though.
We had to call AAA for a flat tire two days after Xmas in a mall parking lot. They arrived less than 20 minutes later and took care of the tire in just a few minutes. I’ve had other experiences that weren’t quite as quick but they’ve always been fairly efficient.
FWIW I don’t think I was clear enough in my original post. I have used AAA a lot and almost always had a good experience with them. In fact between the tows and other services plus discounts, I am reasonably sure I saved more money than I ever paid them. This was definitely an aberration but it was a pretty miserable experience (that I wanted to bitch about :)) and a reminder that sometimes they won’t be so readily available.
If it makes you feel better, wheel bearings grinding is a “fix it ASAP” issue. It will not get better and the bearings will eventually seize, locking up that wheel. If that happens at highway speeds really bad things can result. You never know how much time you have once you can hear the bearings…