Tow coverage?

So I had Hagerty Drivers Club, which covered all the vehicles in my garage.  They've changed their program and it'll only cover the vehicle you have insured with them or other classics, not your daily drivers.  Ok, lame! 

So I called AAA and kinda got sticker shock.  It was $170 for the RV+ coverage (covers my motorcycle that way) plus another $85/person.  So $340 for myself, my wife and my daughter.  Ouch!  Is AAA still the best option or are there alternatives?

TIA!

I have Good Sam for the RV and Auto coverage.  I don't recall the cost, but they've been pretty good.  The only downside is that the towing is to the closest shop that they recognize so if you want the car towed somewhere specific, like home, you've got to pay the difference.

I thought AAA had one person included and you only needed to pay extra for additional drivers? At least I think that's the way the coverage my wife and I have (which IIRC is also RV+ because motorcycle). Edit - nevermind, I think you math checks out.

That said, have a closer look at how the m/c coverage is supposed to work. I vaguely recall they made some changes there and turned it into more of a reimbursement program that requires you to find someone to tow the m/c in the first place. I'd love to be proven wrong on that front, though.

Hagerty is one way to get tow coverage from your auto insurance company.  I'm sure you can get a tow coverage (reimbursment) progam from your non-classic car insurance company also.  But, like Hagerty, it too will only be coverage for specifically listed vehicles with a cost associated for each vehicle.  

AAA protects a person, not a specific car.  You could even be driving your neighbor's or fiend's car and if you need a tow, AAA will tow that car (as long as you are the person there present when the car needs towed.)  

I previously had a fleet business with many drivers in an hour's radius.  I had a AAA policy for only my name.   On the one occasion that my driver needed a tow, I drove 45 minutes to "the scene of the failure" and sent my driver on with the car I arrived in.  I called AAA and then I was the person present when the car got towed (and I rode back with the tow truck driver.)

Is it possible that you could do similar with your wife and daughter thereby only having one person, you, listed on the AAA account?  A way to save $85 time 2?  

Which AAA plan are you signing up for ?
 

the best we have gives you 3 - up to 100 mile tows and 1 - 200 mile tow 

the cheaper versions give you a couple 10 mile tows , 

Have you priced a tow lately?

Planning a week in advance I called 6 companies to flat bed my Datsun Z 31 miles from one Chicago suburb to another.  $370-$525 with a $20 discount for cash.

In reply to californiamilleghia :

The RV+ plan because that covers my motorcycle too.  Although the plan below that one wasn't a whole lot less money.  Guess I'll just suck it up and pay for it...

AAA left me sitting in the middle of town for six hours and never did show up. 
 

My wife got off work, drove home, and picked up the truck.

She picked me up, we went to Harbor Freight and bought a tow strap, and towed the car the quarter mile ourselves. They never did show up, despite my multiple follow up calls. 
 

I'd rather pay $500 for a tow if I need one than ever give AAA another cent. 

Hagerty towing never showed up to jump the battery in my daughters car.  Never called, nothing.  They also were intergalactically late towing for me.  When I called Hagerty about not showing up for my daughter, they were apologetic and did refund the cost of the annual membership, so from that respect, awesome customer service

In reply to docwyte :

That sure beats the berkeley you response I got from AAA. 

I guess it depends on where you live, but I've always had great service from AAA.

Last AAA tow I had took 8 hours for them to get a truck to my location.  berkeleying rural Wisconsin. berkeley you Tomah. 
 

I was a paying member for years and never used a tow and them one time I really need it the fiddle fiuck around so much I dropped them.  
 

never again.  

I went back and looked, and apparently the Good Sam coverage I have (RV+Auto) is $150/yr and covers every vehicle I own as long as my wife, dependent children, or myself are driving them.  The towing is "unlimited" but to the "nearest service center".  So, if you're looking for a way to transport project cars it's not really going to work.  I've had to use them three or four different times.  The one time I needed roadside for the RV, I can't recall if it was when I had Coach Net or Good Sam, but I had them sneak into the Geico West camping lot at Daytona to change a tire on the motorhome.  The other three times were all for cars.  When I had a blowout on the Excursion, they sent the roadside guy to change a tire for me, but we discovered that the spare had a giant split in it.  I called them back and they put me on hold for a while and then came back and told me that they had called around, found a place that had four tires in stock in my size and could get the job done while I waited and there was a tow truck on the way.  It was the place that I would have gone to for tires anyway if I had picked, so I was quite pleased.  They also have an RV hotline to call for help troubleshooting things.  I've never used Good Sam's, but I have used Coach Net's in the past and found it quite helpful when I was trying to figure out why my water heater wasn't working.  Or maybe it was the fridge.

The next time was when I had oil pressure problems in the Excursion and I wanted the truck towed over to the shop.  Since the shop wasn't "the nearest service center", they charged me the difference which I think was about $25.  I was not unhappy with that.

The most recent time was last year when der Scheißwagen tossed its serpentine belt.  I was only a couple miles from the shop, but there were a handful of other actual service centers between the parking lot where I left it and the shop, so I expected to pay a little extra.  Since I had a ride home and it was late at night, I called in the morning to schedule a truck and the dude showed up 5 minutes early.  No extra charge to go to my workshop.

Previously, I waited for.freaking.ever. for AAA to show up to tow the Neon when it crapped out an axle while I was on the way to the courthouse to get it registered for the first time.  I was blocking the road and the cops were starting to get a little pissed off about it, and AAA kept saying that a truck would be there in 5 minutes.  The third or fourth time I called back they asked me (for the first time) what the license plate number was.  When I told them it wasn't plated yet because it died on the way to get one, they cancelled the tow because their service is only for plated and registered vehicles.  So I called a towing company myself and then cancelled AAA.

I tried roadside assistance with my insurance company (Grange first and then Safeco) and that was an absolute joke.  My wife and I both had incidents where we needed roadside assistance - her to change a tire and me to have someone bring me a couple gallons of fuel - and we both waited for hours and they never showed.  And every call back in was "they're on their way and will be there in about 10 minutes!".  Bullcrap.

10 year AAA customer, and overall pretty happy.  Cost is 100 bucks per car everyone in the family is on it.  We have the plan that gives up to 100 miles free.  Wait time has been less than 2 hours every time and I use it alot.  Great for buying a parts car and getting it home.  Or even getting a car to the shop when you can't get a ride home.  My only gripe over all these years is once I got stuck paying 25 bucks for tolls even though they didn't use the turnpike to get there and didn't need to use it to get home. 

I ditched AAA many moons ago because they started getting picky and "blackballed" some of my cars because I used it too often.  It's a real thing.  They blackballed the Impala SS and the Bonneville, so I blackballed them.

My insurance company offers different levels of tow assistance.  I got the cheapest one, it's $5/yr, and covers the first 20 miles.  I think the next one up is $8.50 and covers 80 miles.  The nice part about it is that they don't contract with one or two tow companies, they just call any company that can get there the fastest and cover the bill.  Longest I've waited (granted, I've only used it twice) was 20 minutes, and that was for a specific motorcycle tow.

I would have kept the AAA if I used the travel side, but I don't.

porschenut said:

10 year AAA customer, and overall pretty happy.  Cost is 100 bucks per car everyone in the family is on it.  We have the plan that gives up to 100 miles free.  Wait time has been less than 2 hours every time and I use it alot.  Great for buying a parts car and getting it home.  Or even getting a car to the shop when you can't get a ride home.  My only gripe over all these years is once I got stuck paying 25 bucks for tolls even though they didn't use the turnpike to get there and didn't need to use it to get home. 

What AAA do you have that you pay per car? I pay per person and I am thinking that I will probably drop them when renewal time comes.

Regarding wait times, the problem is that both Hagerty and AAA (and any other companies for that matter) sublet to the same tow truck companies.

My favorite AAA recovery was one subzero night when I came out of a restaurant and all the locks were frozen on my car so I couldn't get in.  When the tow truck driver arrived, he used one of those little inflatable bladder things to open up a space between the driver's door window and the door frame, then stuck a hose over the tailpipe of his truck and aimed the hot exhaust down inside the door.  It took about two minutes to thaw out the lock and I was able to get in and drive home. 

I did have to roll down the windows on the way home to get rid of all the fumes, but I still thought it was pretty innovative.  

In reply to stuart in mn :

I hate those bladders, they tend to bend the door frame.

In reply to docwyte :

 got offered a "free" second member after I payed my yearly fee , well it was free for the first year , then back to regular price , 

Not sure if that was a local thing or not ,  if you have a local AAA office I would visit and say you are thinking of changing  and what deals they have.  
Good luck

I would not pay for any towing coverage. Working in the insurance industry as I do, I know too much about how they (don't) work.

Other than AAA, none of these companies manage their own towing. 90% of them are farmed out for dispatch to a company called Agero. Agero is where the incompetent people of the planet find employment. Agero (and AAA) only have contracts with some of the towing companies out there. So, you could have a tow truck 2 miles away that will never get called because Agero's tow guy is 90 minutes away. The rates they pay to the tow guys are so low that these tows are NEVER a priority. And, lots of tow guys will refuse to do them unless they have nothing else going on at that exact moment. This is why there are horrifically long wait times or drivers that never show. Agero doesn't care; they get their monthly fee paid by the insurer up front to provide the (awful, crappy) service.

Call a local body shop and ask them who does reasonable tows, then just call the tow company directly. That once in a decade tow you need will probably not cost more than the wasted fees you paid annually to an auto club or insurer.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

Have you priced a tow lately?

Planning a week in advance I called 6 companies to flat bed my Datsun Z 31 miles from one Chicago suburb to another.  $370-$525 with a $20 discount for cash.

This. I spent $190 for a 7 mile tow one time. The $150ish a year I pay AAA for me and the wife has been well worth it.

With one exception, they've shown up within an hour, and take my broken stuff where I want it to go. 

I tend to use it at least once a year, whether for locking the keys in the vehicle or blown out brake lines, or just because I don't feel like making the drive. 

In reply to Slippery :

4 drivers on the policy, about 400 every year.  I just did the math.

In this old thread you will find creative uses of AAA Towing done by myself and others.  

I don't know why I had $200 stuck in my head for pricing, but I did.  I guess because I was paying Hagerty $175/year for all drivers/cars.  So $340 year for all drivers/cars for AAA just seemed like a lot.  Although it looks like that's the "normal" amount and I'll just sign up

I had a year ban once from AAA, for having them tow project cars. In my defense they have left me stranded for hours, honestly they cannot be trusted for anything other then opening your car or picking up cars that don't need to be immediately towed. I am wondering of Good Sam is reported to underwritting for insurance and exposure aka premuim adjustments.