First RV disablement, good and bad Roadside Assist
The disablement:
Almost 5pm on a Thursday and we are heading southbound on the Garden State Parkway (New Jersey), 1/2 mile from Exit 67. Four hours into a five-hour trip and as we are leaving a rest stop and merging back onto the Parkway, I smell a burning smell at the same time my TPMS comes on for high heat. Brake pedal is soft and goes to the floor, feels like a drag to the left: but luckily I am able to safely pull off to the side of the road. I get out to assess and see smoke from behind the wheel and small drops of what appears to be brake fluid on the ground. My assessment: front left brake caliper locked up and blew a line.
The good:
Call Good Sam (I have Platinum +) and get a prompt answer from a pleasant gentleman. We determine where I am and he asks a couple questions, puts me on hold to speak to an RV tech and then comes back and concludes we need a tow. He puts me on hold to find the nearest tow company and not twenty minutes later the local highway patrol shows up so that he can relay to the heavy tow operator what the situation is (heavy tow was another 15 minutes out). I receive a text from Good Sam that includes both the name of the tow company as well as the ETA (15 minutes). I hang up from being on hold to give me info to the highway patrol and we wait for the heavy tow. Heavy tow arrives on schedule and drops the drive shaft, gets us hooked up and towed to the repair facility that's maybe 7 miles away.
The bad:
Literally as the tow operator is finishing his work to get us towed, Good Sam calls back. The condensed version of the conversation is: "The Garden State Parkway is a restricted roadway and as such Good Sam has to use the contracted tow operator for the area of your disablement. We can choose whether or not to pay the tow bill and after speaking to my Supervisor, we will only cover your tow starting from the point that you exit the restricted roadway." I confirm this with the tow operator as well (the fact that Good Sam said charge the customer not us) - and fork over my credit card for a $300 charge (broken down into a tow charge, a drive shaft drop and to use a set of wireless tow lights).
So overall I am happy with the prompt and courteous response, but being that there are many, many "restricted roadways"; if I have to pay the tow charge any time I break down on one of them, I don't think I need GSRA?
....as a follow-up to what caused my disablement - the master cylinder was bone dry and when they filled it up they couldn't get it to build any pressure. They replaced the master cylinder and bled all the lines, took it for a test drive and found no other leaks. I was back on the road 24 hours later.
Almost 5pm on a Thursday and we are heading southbound on the Garden State Parkway (New Jersey), 1/2 mile from Exit 67. Four hours into a five-hour trip and as we are leaving a rest stop and merging back onto the Parkway, I smell a burning smell at the same time my TPMS comes on for high heat. Brake pedal is soft and goes to the floor, feels like a drag to the left: but luckily I am able to safely pull off to the side of the road. I get out to assess and see smoke from behind the wheel and small drops of what appears to be brake fluid on the ground. My assessment: front left brake caliper locked up and blew a line.
The good:
Call Good Sam (I have Platinum +) and get a prompt answer from a pleasant gentleman. We determine where I am and he asks a couple questions, puts me on hold to speak to an RV tech and then comes back and concludes we need a tow. He puts me on hold to find the nearest tow company and not twenty minutes later the local highway patrol shows up so that he can relay to the heavy tow operator what the situation is (heavy tow was another 15 minutes out). I receive a text from Good Sam that includes both the name of the tow company as well as the ETA (15 minutes). I hang up from being on hold to give me info to the highway patrol and we wait for the heavy tow. Heavy tow arrives on schedule and drops the drive shaft, gets us hooked up and towed to the repair facility that's maybe 7 miles away.
The bad:
Literally as the tow operator is finishing his work to get us towed, Good Sam calls back. The condensed version of the conversation is: "The Garden State Parkway is a restricted roadway and as such Good Sam has to use the contracted tow operator for the area of your disablement. We can choose whether or not to pay the tow bill and after speaking to my Supervisor, we will only cover your tow starting from the point that you exit the restricted roadway." I confirm this with the tow operator as well (the fact that Good Sam said charge the customer not us) - and fork over my credit card for a $300 charge (broken down into a tow charge, a drive shaft drop and to use a set of wireless tow lights).
So overall I am happy with the prompt and courteous response, but being that there are many, many "restricted roadways"; if I have to pay the tow charge any time I break down on one of them, I don't think I need GSRA?
....as a follow-up to what caused my disablement - the master cylinder was bone dry and when they filled it up they couldn't get it to build any pressure. They replaced the master cylinder and bled all the lines, took it for a test drive and found no other leaks. I was back on the road 24 hours later.
