European Trip & Comprehensive Breakdown/ Repair Cover
Discussion
I have an 04 BMW M3 SMG and am off to Austria and Slovenia pretty soon for a 10 day trip.
I did this last year in my E39 530i and broke down. The RAC were excellent, got the car towed to the nearest BMW dealer, even paid for all my additional hotel bills due to the breakdown. However, I still had to pay £650 to get the alternator changed, which was a bit of a sting.
I was thinking of extending the RAC EU breakdown cover I have to include parts and labour up to £2,000. This would cost £130.
However, reading through the terms and conditions, it's unclear whether the SMG pump would be covered as it could easily be argued as having failed under "wear and tear". Also the labour rates at a BMW main dealer may be too expensive for them to pay out on, there are stipulations.
In summary, has anyone ever had the misfortune to breakdown abroad and if so did you use any of these extended parts & labour warranty type functions offered by breakdown services?
For £130 it seems a no brainer for piece of mind, unless they try and wiggle out of paying for anything.
Am I best off going with the RAC or AA. Are there any others out there that are better?
I did this last year in my E39 530i and broke down. The RAC were excellent, got the car towed to the nearest BMW dealer, even paid for all my additional hotel bills due to the breakdown. However, I still had to pay £650 to get the alternator changed, which was a bit of a sting.
I was thinking of extending the RAC EU breakdown cover I have to include parts and labour up to £2,000. This would cost £130.
However, reading through the terms and conditions, it's unclear whether the SMG pump would be covered as it could easily be argued as having failed under "wear and tear". Also the labour rates at a BMW main dealer may be too expensive for them to pay out on, there are stipulations.
In summary, has anyone ever had the misfortune to breakdown abroad and if so did you use any of these extended parts & labour warranty type functions offered by breakdown services?
For £130 it seems a no brainer for piece of mind, unless they try and wiggle out of paying for anything.
Am I best off going with the RAC or AA. Are there any others out there that are better?
I purchased breakdown cover/parts & labour etc. with the AA for my road trip last summer. I had a water hose flange give way on the Switzerland/Italy border at 4.30pm one day on our way to St Moritz. I called the UK call centre, they took my location from my GPS reading and within an hour a local garage picked up the car, towed it to their workshop, diagnosed the problem, ordered the parts and told me to come back at 11am the next morning when it would be fixed. The AA rep was able to speak to the garage owner as they spoke some sort of hybrid German/Italian and my GCSE German let me down. I turned up the next morning with nothing to pay and the work completed with genuine parts. The bill came to c.£300 and the AA also paid for my accomodation that night (or at least the first £50).
Well worth the premium IMHO, if only for peace of mind.
Well worth the premium IMHO, if only for peace of mind.
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