I am signed up for Autovantage ( roadside assistance) and it took them 3 hours to get to me. Unnacceptable?

Question

I was in the middle of Des Moines Iowa. There must have been a dozen towing services within a 5 mile radius, but from the time I first called until they actually arrived it was about 3 hours....in freezing temperatures. It took them over 30 minutes to even call me back with an ETA. Does anybody else have this service or other roadside assistance services. Is this normal? I don't think it is worth $15 a month. What do you think.

Answer 1

I used to live in Des Moines.  I doubt that there are a dozen towing services in the whole city, let alone within 30 minutes of where you broke down.  I'm sure you were not the only customer needing service on the day in question, because cars never break down on nice, bright sunny days.  They always wait until it's snowing or raining or the wind blowing 40 MPH!

What did you expect for $15 a month?

Answer 2

That is a long time to wait, but then I had to wait 1.5 hours two weeks ago for my service to arrive. I have AAA and it really isn't up to them as to when the service truck arrives since they contract out to a local station. It may take awhile since they may be out on another call, but your service should have given you a call back to let you know that. It is not too much to ask for to have an ETA of the service truck. I think your service is pretty expensive. I would have your gf check into another one like AAA and compare services and cost.

Answer 3

That's absurd.  Mercedes gives roadside assistance for life on every car, despite age, mileage or how many owners its had.  I've only used them twice in the past 12 years, and they're much, much quicker than that.  The last time I used it, I only had to sit a half hour, from the time dummy me ran out of fuel til the time I got back on the road. On top of that, it's free for jump starts, tire changes and running out of fuel, and my newest car is 23 years old.  Can't beat that!  I can't see ever paying for a roadside assitance plan...unless I am unfortunate enough to have to buy an American made car some day......I figured I'd get a thumbs-down from one of you American-made car buying suckers! Ha!

Answer 4

I've had the same experience with Good Sam's Club and also the Camping World towing service.  Simply said, they are a waste of money.  

I also have towing with State Farm and I like it.  I call any towing service and get reimbursed when I send the bill into my agent.

Most of the services have contracts with towing companies.  These towing companies get paid a lot less for "contract" service so they do the better paying ones first and when they have time they do contract towing.

Answer 5

If its a Summer day it would be unacceptable...during the winter...that waiting time could be normal

Answer 6

Did you call and speak to a person after the whole thing was none and over with telling them that you were not happy with the service?

If not then you NEED to so they know that their contracts are not performing properly, they may not be aware. But $15 a month to sit broke down for 3 hours is way too much you could have hired your own tow truck driver in that amount of time and been home before they even got to you.

My ex was a tow truck driver once his company recieved the call he had less then an hour to get to the car. If they didn't get to the car in a timely manner they were suspended from getting cars for a certain amount of time as punishment.

Answer 7

I believe that $15. per mo. is too expensive !

I pay $75. per year for triple a PLUS which gives more benefits such as more towing mileage, etc.

I also do believe that a wait of 3 hrs. is unreasonable unless there were some big weather problems which could affect the wait time.

Answer 8

yeah that's normal.. i've got AAA AND live in atlanta (though i was about 20 minutes out of it when i had trouble).   30 mins for eta, 1 hour for locksmith (in the panic, my gf locked her keys in the car, heh)  and 3 hours for a tow truck...

edit.. we just got her car unlocked then i drove her home.. i wasn't waiting that long..

Answer 9

Is it acceptable no, is it the norm yes.

With any road side assistance they will take their time, one because they are over booked and second these companies will low bid on these contracts just to get the large amount of tows.