Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Saying goodbye to a fleet member!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

This sort of reminds me why I've been a member of the AA since 2012. At least they actually turn up, sometimes very quickly indeed....

[outlaw118]

13 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

This sort of reminds me why I've been a member of the AA since 2012. At least they actually turn up, sometimes very quickly indeed..

Work have just changed to RAC from the AA, and having had to call them out twice (#AVAS) that's nigh on 6 hours of my life I won't get back. 

Still, on company time, so every cloud and all that.

I've got Green Flag for my own use, not had to call them out yet....,.

[brownnova]

RAC do seem to have got significantly worse over the last couple of years… glad you’re home Chris. Good luck with the diagnosis! 

[Dick Longbridge]

I'm not a mechanic. However, did you leave the Carlton parked next to something French? Alternatively, it's had it's sturdy nose put out of joint due to influx of further ageing GM tin into its fold. Especially the Manta coupe - that one is likely to get the crowds swooning, rather than give the dependable* Carlton a friendly pat on the flanks. 

[Six-cylinder]

27 minutes ago, outlaw118 said:

Work have just changed to RAC from the AA, and having had to call them out twice (#AVAS) that's nigh on 6 hours of my life I won't get back. 

Still, on company time, so every cloud and all that.

I've got Green Flag for my own use, not had to call them out yet....,.

My RAC renewal is November and I don't want them again.  Back in Nov 2018 I needed my Alfa 156 taken 19 miles and that took them 7 hours. Also a few months ago they left my friend's wife, who is an older lady recovering from an operation on the side of the road for 4 hours because she needed a wheel changed.

The problem with other breakdown companies in the past has been that I have quite a lot of needs that have disqualified them.

There is Mrs6C and myself who need to be covered.

We tow with our Range Rover a car trailer and a boat that weighs 2000kg and is 7 m long, 2.08 m wide.

The other problem is except the Range Rover all our cars are at least 16 years old.

[anonymous user]

Glad you got it home, did you remember to get the RAC to stand down. I only mention it due to occasions a few years ago when I got the car going myself and cancelled, only to get one of their warning shots later that I had called them out too many times. I had to remind them that they hadn't turned out.

I'm still with them and have had mixed experiences, one time the patrolman removed and then lost part of the points on my Land Rover meaning it then had to be recovered. Last year the one who came out to the Allegro was great and managed to find a, get me home, fan belt in his van.

[Longbridge Apologist]

I’ve been with AutoAid a few months, having to call them out twice when the ECU died on my Bavarian Sierra.

They use whatever local breakdown company are near you and so far have had someone turn up within 45 mins - once in South Birmingham before the M42 and then when it completely died between Croydon and Sutton.

[Cookiesouwest]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

My RAC renewal is November and I don't want them again.  Back in Nov 2018 I needed my Alfa 156 taken 19 miles and that took them 7 hours. Also a few months ago they left my friend's wife, who is an older lady recovering from an operation on the side of the road for 4 hours because she needed a wheel changed.

The problem with other breakdown companies in the past has been that I have quite a lot of needs that have disqualified them.

There is Mrs6C and myself who need to be covered.

We tow with our Range Rover a car trailer and a boat that weighs 2000kg and is 7 m long, 2.08 m wide.

The other problem is except the Range Rover all our cars are at least 16 years old.

I have AA family cover for me and Mrs CSW. 18 quid a month. No age limit on cars.

[worldofceri]

I have full fat cover with the AA which, to be honest, costs a fortune. I know I could probably ring up and haggle every year but, honestly, I cba. They have always sorted me out without quibble; Twice  they’ve recovered me and a loaded tri-axle trailer. Over a twenty year period I’ve called them out dozens of times and rarely had any cause for complaint. In fact on a couple of occasions they have saved me money by repairing at the roadside, so on balance I reckon they are well worth the money.

[beko1987]

5 hours ago, Slowsilver said:

Scoop! Satin Red Vauxhall comes to the rescue of Satin Red Vauxhall. Not all Vauxhalls are sh*te, just 50%of them!
 

They do look the exact same shade of red in the pics! Are they? You'd probably have to go by the paint code as they'll be faded into completely different colours over their life now... 

[beko1987]

5 hours ago, Ghosty said:

Saturday's going to be interesting for me as it turns out I'll be arriving at the FoD in the Accord. And at some point, I'll be leaving again on a collection mission and returning with a different car. 

But how will you drive 2 cars home after? 

Or is one a vauxhall and your just gonna hide it amongst the others? 

[Six-cylinder]

31 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

They do look the exact same shade of red in the pics! Are they? You'd probably have to go by the paint code as they'll be faded into completely different colours over their life now... 

Yes they are both Satin Red.

[Dave_Q]

Autoaid are good and would cover you and Mrs6C in any vehicle with no age limits for £70 a year or whatever it is now.

They do have a length limit on vehicles which is I think 5.5m (my 5.2m van is within) but their limit on trailers is 10foot.

[wuvvum]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I joined the RAC one year when I ran out of "lives" with the AA.  The one time I needed to use them - when the prop shaft snapped on the BMW 635CSi I had at the time (boy do I wish I still had that now...) - they took 3 1/2 hours to send someone out.  I was on the Norwich ring road at the time so not exactly remote.

I am back with the AA now and am a "gold member" - I've had to call them out a few times recently and they've been great, always getting a patrol to me within the hour, although the one time I needed a ride on a flatbed it took a bit longer.  It's not cheap but in the grand scheme of things it's not a huge amount and I intend to stay with them for as long as they continue to be decent.

[bezzabsa]

suffered with the AA & RAC so now have Green Flag, no complaints what so ever, longest I've had to wait was 45minutes!!!

And By 'eck thats an early Zaffy!!!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

.....I am back with the AA now and am a "gold member" - I've had to call them out a few times recently and they've been great, always getting a patrol to me within the hour, ...

They've had to rescue the CX about five times in the last three years, twice on a flatbed. On the most recent FTP/FTS (the key snapped in the lock), they turned up in 15 minutes, which is something of a record....

Think they're used to it by now. 

[N19]

1 hour ago, Dave_Q said:

Autoaid are good and would cover you and Mrs6C in any vehicle with no age limits for £70 a year or whatever it is now.

They do have a length limit on vehicles which is I think 5.5m (my 5.2m van is within) but their limit on trailers is 10foot.

£59.99 - mine renewed this week. Only used them once - and they were fine then. 

I think the 'any vehicle' as well as lack of age limits makes them appeal to shiters...

[Six-cylinder]

1 minute ago, N19 said:

£59.99 - mine renewed this week. Only used them once - and they were fine then. 

I think the 'any vehicle' as well as lack of age limits makes them appeal to shiters...

Unfortunately the limit of 10 foot trailers excludes Autoaid.

[wuvvum]

The biggest thing the AA ever recovered for me was this rig.

Which was quite big.  A trailer with a Saviem tipper on it sitting on top of a 10-tonne AA tilt'n'slide was quite a sight.

[Ghosty]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

But how will you drive 2 cars home after? 

I'm not, it's a swap affair.

[Ghosty]

On the topic of recovery, I'm on my mum's AA membership as the second cardholder. An unintended side effect of being the second cardholder is that the membership card is printed with the policyholder's join date, so I've apparently been in the AA since 1989. 

I was born in 1995! 

[red5]

Satin Red ftw

 

[High Jetter]

25 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

I was born in 1995!

Yer older than you look!

[Floatylight]

Just now, High Jetter said:

Yer older than you look!

10,000 post in 6C's thread!

[High Jetter]

2 minutes ago, Floatylight said:

10,000 post in 6C's thread!

What's my prize?

[Ghosty]

broken xbox m8

[Slowsilver]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

They do look the exact same shade of red in the pics! Are they? You'd probably have to go by the paint code as they'll be faded into completely different colours over their life now... 

Oddly enough, unlike the infamous bright red which ages to pogweasel pink, the Satin Red does not seem to suffer at all from fading with age. The Zafira paintwork is the 22 year old original and, although recently expertly refreshed by @Andyrew, I believe that most of the paint on the Carlton is also from the factory.
 

[High Jetter]

If only I could fix em...

[Slowsilver]

2 hours ago, bezzabsa said:

And By 'eck thats an early Zaffy!!!

Indeed it is. The Zafira model was launched in the UK in, I think, March of 1999 and this one was registered in June 1999. It could even be the oldest example left on the road now.
 

[chodweaver]

Took AutoAid's cover a couple of months ago when I CBA arguing with RAC about the cost of the full fat service. Cover for me and Mrs CW was about £65 iirc. Used them for the first time tonight, as it happens.

The pink Corsa decided it wanted a rest from delivery duties, half way through a shift. Fortunately, it decided to throw in the towel outside the shop, so I was able to hop in the boss' (or perhaps it's the boss' wife's) 1 series BMW and finish the shift in that, before having a firtle then deciding to call for help. They told me I was looking at about an hour's wait, but in fact the recovery wagon turned up after about 25 mins, looked at the same things I did and drew the same conclusions: that at 11pm on a Thursday night, an automatic Corsa which had a healthy battery and no warning lights and had been starting without a hiccup since 5pm, suddenly refused to crank, should be taken home and left to think about what it has done: - fixing it could wait till tomorrow.

Poor bloke - he'd been on since 8am this morning and his previous call had been to a right bunch of herberts at services on the M6 with a Citroen Relay tipper that he felt was clearly overweight, possibly by a ton. When they'd phoned it in, they said it was unladen.  Added to this, they had it stacked very high so if he'd got it loaded, he'd have been well over 16'. They refused to sign a waiver that if the recovery rig with the Relay on got pulled for being overweight, they'd pay the recovery guy's fine (2 grand he estimated, based upon looking at their load), so with the backing of his boss, he left them to it. Their loss. My gain.