Road Side Assistance - Is it worth?

LXplosive on 03/08/2014 - 07:59

Hi Fellow OZ Bargainers

For some time I have been wondering if forking out that extra cash every year for road side assistance is really worth it. In past 4 years of driving on Sydney roads, I only needed the service once. The experience was not so great anyway since I had to wait for 2 hours for the assistance to arrive and 2 more hours for the tow truck.

From my limited knowledge, most of the people call for assistance for flat battery (I could be wrong). You could always keep a jumper lead and ask your good neighbor for help to jump start. And for anything major for which you need a tow truck, just look up on truelocal or yellow pages on your phone for the nearest tow truck.

What do you guys think?

Automotive

Comments

  • Geewhizz on 03/08/2014 - 08:31
    +3

    If you have a newish car that includes roadside assistance, then it's of limited value.

    Rainy day and you inadvertently leave the headlights on to come back and find you have a flat battery…… are you absolutely sure you want to be asking a stranger to help you in the rain? Good luck with that. I would highly recommend to ANYONE who is ever likely to need jumper leads to buy yourself a jump starter instead, and keep it in the car - you can do it yourself in about 2 minutes flat, no waiting around for roadside assistance, and no having to rely on sometimes questionable strangers for a jump start. With older cars it's far too easy to lock your keys in the car. Worse still, the newer cars capable of locking themselves …. with the baby sitting in the car while you're pumping petrol. It happens! Clearly in that situation you don't wait for roadside assistance to take their good time coming. I'm pretty sure they'd have emergency procedures in place for dealing with this. If not, call the police.

    Things can go wrong with cars, and if you have a single call out in a year the cost of membership is negated on what you have saved. What did you save on the cost of the tow - the equivalent of a couple of years of membership?

    Car decides to spit a timing belt, or simply just dies inexplicably, an hour and half from nowhere … who else are you going to get that will come rescue you?

    Membership also has other benefits and cost savings that can easily add up to the equivalent of the year's membership. Having said that, I do think they're pricing themselves out of the market a bit these days though.

  • c64 on 03/08/2014 - 08:57
    +1

    if your car is reliable then why are you spending money on road service membership. if you are worried about a flat battery, buy a portable jump-starter using the money you would otherwise spend on membership.

  • kwaker on 03/08/2014 - 09:11
    +1

    I use it a lot but I have an old bomb and im prone to lock my keys in the car and leave the lights on and when the car is broken down and I have no money to fix it they save my silly socks so for people like me the price is cheap. if you don't use it then its not worth it.

    their competitions are frequent and for members only and its very easy to win things from them too. its just a type of insurance.

    Its like saying is car insurance worth it because after driving 4 years I never had an accident. well circumstance are different, how long is a piece of string? - how much is your car worth. if it breaks can you afford the tow truck or do you need to call the scrapyard to collect your bomb and get a new one, or are you stuck on the side of the road with no money? and is the tow truck going and the hassle to be more than the fee is hurting you.

    I think its worth it and so do a lot of people given by how popular they are. They are worth their weight in gold to me. The mobile mechanics are so respectfull and nice (even though they have to be thinking how silly we are sometimes) 2 hour wait is very very uncommon. the only time I had a 2 hour wait was on a busy Friday night which I suspect a lot of young drunken people need help at this time. most are 30 mins and if its bad 1 hour. even in the middle of nowhere they are surprisingly quick

  • coin saver on 03/08/2014 - 09:40

    I let my membership lapse with the raa a number of years ago when they started giving priority to new signups rather than existing members.Havent needed them since so saved a fortune if i need them i will join on the day

  • PissLUR on 03/08/2014 - 09:47
    +2

    You can always join on the spot anytime and then call from help.

  • Xplosive on 03/08/2014 - 10:09

    How much does a towing service cost, lets say for 20km. If anyone has experience on that.

    • YouLIKEyouLICK on 03/08/2014 - 11:28
      +1

      I paid $150 4years ago, that was considered cheap, it was only 15km during daytime.

    • kwaker on 03/08/2014 - 14:03

      you can google it and all that info is on their website. plus you can add extra towing now

    • peterlong1952 on 04/08/2014 - 07:36

      I paid $75 to a local towie. Almost had to force him to take it as 99% of jobs are NRMA.

  • sparkles on 03/08/2014 - 10:23
    +4

    Like any form of insurance it's only worth it when you actually need it.

  • donga100 on 03/08/2014 - 10:30
    +2

    I don't think it's worth it personally. Jumper leads or jump starter will cover most of your needs, spare keys can be collected/delivered from home and changing a tyre is not complicated. Cars don't normally break down and require towing without some sort of warning signs first. Service your car and if it starts making weird noises or behaving unusually get it looked at by a mechanic sooner rather than later.

    • opt on 21/06/2015 - 15:12
      +1

      I think its worth every dollar. Because you can't plan for every single thing that can go wrong. Besides compared to all other expenses associated with maintaining a car ~$100 (less if you go with a cheaper provider) is almost insignificant.

      There were a couple of times where road side assistance saved me thousands of $$ and a load of hassle. One time was when I accidentally locked my keys inside with only few hours left for an overseas flight (My house keys were also on the same key ring). Second time was when I was skiing at mount Hotham when the car failed to start (the problem was later traced to a combination of factors but it was triggered by the unusually low temperature, I got the car serviced and checkout by a mechanic a week before the trip, bottom line : there was nothing else I could've done).

  • YouLIKEyouLICK on 03/08/2014 - 11:37

    If you have a Japanese car that is not older than 10years or a fairly new car, don't get it! If the battery is flat or dead, change it yourself or call a trusty mate.

    I use my mums NRMA card to shop at Repco and buying cheap movie tickets online $11 at Event Cinemas(not valid only on Sat after 5pm).

    The best way to do this is to buy it online when your car actually breaks down or needs to be towed on that day, my mate done that.

    • Davo1111 on 03/08/2014 - 14:02

      just fyi you can sign up to repco yourself for free, if you use one of the online forums. I followed a link from ozb, then signed up to repco from that, a week later a card came through in the mail

  • Randxyz123 on 04/08/2014 - 08:14

    Worth it. Yes changing a tyre is pretty simple in your driveway but not in the service/emergency stop lane on the freeway. If you break down the roadside assist will cover the tow truck and contribute up to $1400 should you get stuck somewhere and need to get a motel . Unless you have a heap of shit that when it next dies that will be that and you will replace it. Then I think it is well worth it.

  • backpaqer on 04/08/2014 - 08:31

    If your car is getting long in the tooth, probably good to have it. My wife has had her membership forever and has the gold 25% membership with RACV…which then gives you some good bargains, discount at IMAX, some other ones that I always seem to remember AFTER we've paid full price :(. I see it as a good investment as I can tell my wife to call the RACV when she calls me to tell me the car has spat another alternator (Maxima's do that from time to time). Coles do a roadside assist also which is cheaper than the RACV offering…so we've kept one car on RACV so she can keep her uber-long-membership-discount…and the cheapie Coles one which I don't expect to use.

    A mate drives a sh*tbox and shells out for the TotalCare package - he expects the car to break down in the middle of nowhere and that RACV will come along and fish him and his P.O.S. out from wherever it decided to die this time. Adds to the adventure I guess.

  • ramshead on 04/08/2014 - 12:34

    There are jumpstarters and there are pretenders. Cheaper versions (what Oz B would have an expensive one)are pretty useless after a couple of years. And you do have to keep them charged. Unless you have roadside assistance or a new car, membership gives good peace of mind for less than $2 a week.

  • frysie on 04/08/2014 - 12:35

    I only want to get RACQ so i can get the 5% discount on wish gift cards… lol

  • Brucet on 17/06/2015 - 20:22

    If your car under 3 years old, you don't need it.
    If over that I suggest you buy a multi-function jump starter ( portable one ) very handy and just leave it in your car.
    Don't need to paid for roadside assist……
    Go to gumtree you can find a good one around $110 with LCD display………

  • tonyjzx on 21/06/2015 - 16:37

    depends on how useless you are and how crap you car is

    i have the contact details of a towie who will flatbed my car for $80 anyway if worst comes to worst

    you can also claim in under business

  • Dalmington on 20/11/2018 - 10:02

    I have a decent amount of experience with this because I went through the exact same thought process a while ago. Long and short of it was that I didn't pay it for a while because I take meticulous care of my car and only use it for about an hour and a half a week to go to and from work. Overall I think it depends on overall use, if you think you're driving for more than 8 hours a week on average then you're better off getting the assistance. Service is going to be pretty bad across the board but my dads car broke down a year and a half ago and he said these guys were nice to him so I'm going to take an opportunity to plug them https://www.gardenstatetowing.com.au/

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join