Questions about Good Sams roadside assistance..

Hello oldalfa - Thank you for your post. I apologize for the confusion with your disablement. I would like to review and resolve for you, if you can send me a private message with your member number and contact info.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

I am having a problem getting my Alfa See Ya towed. It will not start. I called roadside assistance and they sent out a "service truck" to assist me with the problem. When he arrived he tried everything he could to start it but was unable to resolve the problem. When I called roadside assistant back, they gave me several names of "qualified" repair facilities which I called/check the net to follow up on. One had gone out of business, one had several complaints, mostly bait and switch and one was not able to do repair at all. So, I called them back and ask how they "qualified" these service providers, the response was "we ask them, and if they say yes they are qualified." So, then I called the Extended Warranty People, and there qualifier for service is "they must have certification for the repair needed." So, I went back to roadside assistant people and ask them to tow it to the nearest Freightliner dealer which is 90 miles away and they 1st told me I would have to pay the difference for 50 miles @ $4.00/mi. Then they called back and told me tow company would need me to pay the full tow up front. So I asked if I would be reimbursed for the difference? The person then told me she would check on it. Later called back and told me they were not equipped to tow my rig but she found another who would for $700.00 charge to me. I do not understand why if under the terms of the contract it says "unlimited" miles to nearest qualified facility, that facility is only qualified according to "that" facility. And may not meet the terms of extended warranty plan.When the 2 services offered by Good Sam Club have different definitions of "qualified" I have no good options. Based on this experience, it looks as if I would be better off just going it alone and I have wasted several years of $$$$ on services they never intended to provide. Not to mention the 2 days on the phone trying to sort this out. signed:"Very Frustrated"

the other roadside service that many RV'ers use is Coach-Net. They don't have a fixed miles limit on towing, but its still limited to "the nearest qualified repair facility". In either case you have the option of paying extra out of pocket to get towed to wherever you want. If the nearest qualified repair facility was 100 miles away, and your home shop is also 100 miles, there would be no issue. But if your shop was 200 miles, they'd want to charge you for the extra 100 miles.
No roadside plan is going to tow you a farther distance home on their nickel when there are 10 qualified shops along the way.
On the other hand, if you never travel more than 100 miles from your own shop, then just use your local contacts to get a tow when needed.

Mr_MrsSchlepprock250 wrote:
Hi,my wife and I are looking for some roadside coverage. I've read that GS Roadside will tow up to so many miles "to a repair facility" . But AAA will tow you so many miles to the location of my choice. My family owns a big truck garage so we have always done our own repairs no matter what so towing me to a repair facility would do me no good.. Thoughts

GS basically tows you to the nearest repair facility that agrees to service your RV/tow vehicle. This is great if you are in an area where you don't have a preferred facility. From what I've heard their 100 mile towing option is 100 miles - not connected to tow truck rates.

AAA tows you up to 100 miles to a facility of your choice - HOWEVER, the 100 miles is actually not 100 miles - it is 100 miles at the standard hourly rate for a standard size tow truck. That means if you need any bigger than a standard car tow truck, you will end up getting less than 100 miles of towing paid for. The bigger the tow truck, the more expensive the rate.

When I had AAA tow my clipper, I needed a "medium wrecker tow truck" and was having it towed 60 miles. Because the tow truck was "special service", there were fewer available and it had to come from an additional 20 miles away. So, the mileage was based on 30+60+80 (travel to my clipper plus travel to my shop plus travel directly back to their home base). The rate for the medium duty wrecker was more than the rate for a standard tow truck (I can't remember the exact costs, so I'm going to use $104.50 for standard tow and $175 for medium duty wrecker tow - as that calculates to about what I remember the various calculations to be).

So, the total expense for my tow was 170 miles at 4 hours x $175 per hour for a total cost of $700. The max cost allowed for the 100 mile tow was 100 miles (1.67 hours) x $104.5 per hour for a total of $175. So, they paid the first $175 of my tow and I had to pay the additional $525 out of pocket. The total actual towing distance was 60 miles.

My point with all that is that just because the advertisement says "100 mile towing", that can be severely limited by other factors.


Since you have your own repair facility, will you always tow your RV home regardless of how far away it is located? 100 miles? 500 miles? 1000 miles?

If so, then AAA might be the better deal KNOWING that you will be paying for some if not most of the towing. They will take you further than the 100 miles (or the comparable rate for that 100 miles with a bigger tow truck).

If you have other vehicles and will often drive the RV withing a 60-100 mile radius of your shop, it could be worth getting one or the other. But if you will only be using outside the area so you can get towed to your shop, it might be more cost effective to skip the memberships and just pay out the tow fees when needed.

Not all regions have AAA RV coverage. If you are in a region without an RV contract you will have to pay for the tow and then request "reasonable reimbursement". AAA is great for cars in cities. On the highway they will tow you to a "safe location" and then may return within 3 hours to tow you to a repair facility. It happened to my son. Towed to a rest area, then later towed about 60 miles to the Chevy facility for the new car. Of course it was not Saturday after 5pm so the Chevy dealer could not look at the problem until Monday. We cancelled AAA.

I had to use aaa the first time about a month ago. I called they said they'd be out within the hour to help me. 15 minutes later they called back and said sorry. We can't get anyone to you. I was on my own. I canceled my AAA and am signing up for Good Sam roadside assistance. I have paid for service for three years without incident and the one time I needed help, they weren't there. In their defense the did reimburse me quickly for part of the service. It's not about the money for me, it's about feeling stranded and left alone. I was only about 20 miles outside a large metro area!

Matt

So you never travel more than 100 miles from home?
Will AAA tow your trailer if the truck breaks down or is it left at the side of the road?
Good Sam will tow your trailer to a CG and ALL THE PASSENGERS in your rig.
WIll AAA come to you on a dirt road?
GS will.

Will AAA dispatch a mechanic to fix something on your trailer?