Good Sam Disappointment

MdKamper wrote:
Has anyone ever had a vehicle towed at 3AM (or such), did they tow you to a closed facility? Just curious as when we travel we do alot of late night / Sunday travel.

Thanks,

Member Number: 51238442

Yes me. Last summer, on a Friday night coming back from Garner SP, about 2.5 hours from home our Class C broke down. I knew from reading these boards that I could "count on" it being at LEAST 4 hours to get service. It was my son (16) me (old lady) and a little 8-week old kitten. We left the C on the side of the road and walked to a nearby gas station (about 2 blocks away). This was at about 8PM, so still light.

Called GSRA, and they advised when they'd found a large tow truck to tow us. About 12:30 tow truck showed up (he was on another call about an hour away), so 4 hours was about right. We ate supper in the gas station. Left the kitten in the C and kept going back to check on her. She was fine.

We were nearly in the middle of nowhere, but they had found a repair shop that would look at the C. We were towed about 45 minutes OPPOSITE the direction we'd been going, to a place that would open back up Monday AM. Yep, closed up tighter than a drum. We had gotten a motel room for Friday night, assuming the repair shop would be open on Saturday AM. The tow truck driver had dropped it off in their parking lot (had no trouble doing so!) so what they told you was a bunch of malarky -- unless their policy has changed in the last year.

Luckily I had found a motel (thank you cell phones!) and the tow driver dropped us and the kitten off at the motel as he left town. He was a very nice tow driver.

When the fact that the shop wouldn't be open until Monday AM became clear, I called GSRA and asked about another tow. Nope I'd have to pay for that as it was the same incident. I asked why would they take us to a place that was closed for the weekend and they said it was the only place they could find that would work on the C.

So I prevailed upon my sister & her husband to drive 3 hours to where we were and rescue us. MY WONDERFUL brother-in-law brought all his tools and portable air compressor and proceeded to find out what the problem was (Coach Battery hooked up was somehow drawing power from the car battery and draining it and the battery was dead) and fixed us up enough to limp home. What a blessing he was (and IS!).

Anyway, yes we were dropped off at a facility that was closed for the weekend with no qualms from GSRA about it. But they DID tow the C from the side of the highway to a repair facility that had been going to repair it -- so I guess they fulfilled their part of the contract. And that one tow would have been $450 -- the tow driver told me. So I definitely got my money's worth -- just to be out of harm's way and in a safe place.