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RAC - Car cover - Terrible service ....
- Thread starter Skippy
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Update:
Having returned the £100 cheque along with this letter:
Fao: Customer Care, RAC Motoring Services, Great Park Road, Bradley Stoke, Bristol, BS32 4QN
9th October 2026
Dear Sirs,
Following on from my first letter outlining what I consider to be an appalling service from The RAC recently and the subsequent cheque you sent for £100 as “final” settlement of the complaint, I am not prepared to accept this and have enclosed the cheque for you to deal with.
Let me be quite clear, we have a contract with the RAC and have had for decades, placing our trust in you to ensure we are assisted, if and when required. Over the years, we have rarely called on you for assistance, because we endeavor to always maintain our vehicles. I believe the RAC failed to deliver on this contract.
On the occasion we did need call you, we were badly let down, causing significant concern for the health, welfare and safety of not only our three dogs, but also my wife, who will be 70 years old this month. Having been left at motorway service areas throughout the day and night, the discomfort for all of us was not insignificant, requiring us to heat the vehicle through the early hours and retrieve bedding from the caravan in attempt to stay warm. Numerous treks across the service station car parks were needed to use the facilities, exercise the dogs and for food and drink for the two of us. Most of these were in the dark.
At my suggestion, we did eventually receive some “assistance” in the form of a taxi that would take my wife and the dogs home from the M1 services at Toddington, the driver was taken by surprise when he was required to take three dogs, this despite me very clearly telling your telephone agent to spell this out to the taxi firm when arranging. His driving was poor, too fast for the traffic conditions, too close to other vehicles and erratic lane changing to gain ground, all of which compromised the safety of the dogs, who were loose in the load space of the estate car, and my wife.
This left me to wait with the vehicles (car and caravan) until assistance arrived at some point later that day. At around 04:30, I was told nobody could assist now, as pick up companies would be changing driver shifts at 06:00. I could expect service to resume at that time. At 07:00, I called your contact centre, as I had not been given an update.
I will not recount further details as previously given, you can refer to these yourself.
Suffice to say given the circumstances, I am not satisfied with your somewhat insulting offer of £100 and ask you to revise this, in order to draw this matter to a conclusion. At the very least, I believe the RAC should refund my subscription for the year and add something for the hardship and very significant discomfort, suffered as a direct consequence of your poor service.
Yours Sincerely,
I heard nothing. I called and went through it all again and was told they could not find the letter or cheque. I was also told they had closed the original ticket as they had made a settlement. The call handler opened another ticket and assured me the matter would be escalated and I should expect a call. No call was forthcoming after 10 days. I called again, went through the situation .... again and was assured it would be escalated. I got the following reply ...
Dear Mr ********,
Thank you for contacting us about your concerns. I've now completed a full review of your complaint, and this letter sets out our final response.
Summary of your complaint
You told us about your experience following a breakdown while towing a caravan, which involved a wait for assistance, multiple recovery relays, and concerns regarding a taxi service arranged for your wife and pets. In particular, you explained that this situation caused distress, disruption, and inconvenience.
My findings and the outcome
Having carefully considered all of the information, I've decided to partially uphold your complaint.
When you called for assistance, our Patrol arrived in around 2 hours. While we normally reach most of our members within an hour, we can't guarantee attendance times as there are often circumstances outside of our control, such as traffic and emergencies, which cause delays. I'm sorry that we didn't get to you sooner. Due to the recovery distance, the recovery couldn't be completed by a single driver, so we had to arrange multiple linked recoveries. You were also towing a caravan, had a roofbox, and 3 small dogs. We managed this as best as we could, though I recognise that the journey took longer than expected.
Regarding the taxi arranged for your wife and pets, you mentioned that you were worried about the driver's behaviour. RAC doesn't have direct control over third-party taxi drivers, so I'm unable to uphold this part of your complaint.
As a result of our findings, we sent you a cheque in the amount of £100 as a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience.
Our service fell short of the standards we pride ourselves on. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the RAC.
We appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with us. We take all feedback seriously and will use your experience to improve our service.
Kind regards,
Vijay
RAC Customer Care
And my reply .....
Dear Customer Care,
I have previously rejected your offer of £100 as settlement and returned the cheque to you the day I received it, along with a further letter from me, both of which you seem to have misplaced.
It is my belief The RAC failed to uphold their end of the contract in so much that it took 24 hours to get me home from the Midlands, a journey of a mere 160 miles. In addition, your communication with me during the entire recovery saga was extremely poor, requiring me to call you on numerous occasions simply to get an update on when our next relay pick up would be. On each of these calls, little or zero information was given to reassure us that help was on the way.
Myself, my wife and our three dogs spent hours on end in dark motorway service station carparks, dropped off after only a few miles on more than one relay. That is totally unacceptable and quite frankly, disgraceful and in my opinion, a breach of contract. The RAC as an organisation, should be ashamed of the poor level of service provided, the lack of empathy to my wife and myself and the dreadful communication during this episode.
You can be sure that my experience of your service will be shared widely amongst numerous groups I belong to, not least the 10,000 members of a motorcycle organisation, many of whom ride bikes, own cars and motorhomes and frequently travel abroad.
As for the £100 (that I no longer have), please feel free to donate this to charity.
After decades of loyal membership, we will not be renewing in the future and hopefully, many others will take into account my experience, when choosing a breakdown company.
Regards, *********.
The upshot is ..... The RAC are truly awful with not only providing the basic service they are contracted to provide, based on any reasonable expectation, they are appalling at communicating during the active breakdown and equally as bad when dealing with a genuine complaint.
Finally, I hope this serves as a useful warning to anyone considering taking out a new policy with them or, renewing and existing policy, for a car, a motorcycle or a motorhome, in the UK or abroad.
Having returned the £100 cheque along with this letter:
Fao: Customer Care, RAC Motoring Services, Great Park Road, Bradley Stoke, Bristol, BS32 4QN
9th October 2026
Dear Sirs,
Following on from my first letter outlining what I consider to be an appalling service from The RAC recently and the subsequent cheque you sent for £100 as “final” settlement of the complaint, I am not prepared to accept this and have enclosed the cheque for you to deal with.
Let me be quite clear, we have a contract with the RAC and have had for decades, placing our trust in you to ensure we are assisted, if and when required. Over the years, we have rarely called on you for assistance, because we endeavor to always maintain our vehicles. I believe the RAC failed to deliver on this contract.
On the occasion we did need call you, we were badly let down, causing significant concern for the health, welfare and safety of not only our three dogs, but also my wife, who will be 70 years old this month. Having been left at motorway service areas throughout the day and night, the discomfort for all of us was not insignificant, requiring us to heat the vehicle through the early hours and retrieve bedding from the caravan in attempt to stay warm. Numerous treks across the service station car parks were needed to use the facilities, exercise the dogs and for food and drink for the two of us. Most of these were in the dark.
At my suggestion, we did eventually receive some “assistance” in the form of a taxi that would take my wife and the dogs home from the M1 services at Toddington, the driver was taken by surprise when he was required to take three dogs, this despite me very clearly telling your telephone agent to spell this out to the taxi firm when arranging. His driving was poor, too fast for the traffic conditions, too close to other vehicles and erratic lane changing to gain ground, all of which compromised the safety of the dogs, who were loose in the load space of the estate car, and my wife.
This left me to wait with the vehicles (car and caravan) until assistance arrived at some point later that day. At around 04:30, I was told nobody could assist now, as pick up companies would be changing driver shifts at 06:00. I could expect service to resume at that time. At 07:00, I called your contact centre, as I had not been given an update.
I will not recount further details as previously given, you can refer to these yourself.
Suffice to say given the circumstances, I am not satisfied with your somewhat insulting offer of £100 and ask you to revise this, in order to draw this matter to a conclusion. At the very least, I believe the RAC should refund my subscription for the year and add something for the hardship and very significant discomfort, suffered as a direct consequence of your poor service.
Yours Sincerely,
I heard nothing. I called and went through it all again and was told they could not find the letter or cheque. I was also told they had closed the original ticket as they had made a settlement. The call handler opened another ticket and assured me the matter would be escalated and I should expect a call. No call was forthcoming after 10 days. I called again, went through the situation .... again and was assured it would be escalated. I got the following reply ...
Dear Mr ********,
Thank you for contacting us about your concerns. I've now completed a full review of your complaint, and this letter sets out our final response.
Summary of your complaint
You told us about your experience following a breakdown while towing a caravan, which involved a wait for assistance, multiple recovery relays, and concerns regarding a taxi service arranged for your wife and pets. In particular, you explained that this situation caused distress, disruption, and inconvenience.
My findings and the outcome
Having carefully considered all of the information, I've decided to partially uphold your complaint.
When you called for assistance, our Patrol arrived in around 2 hours. While we normally reach most of our members within an hour, we can't guarantee attendance times as there are often circumstances outside of our control, such as traffic and emergencies, which cause delays. I'm sorry that we didn't get to you sooner. Due to the recovery distance, the recovery couldn't be completed by a single driver, so we had to arrange multiple linked recoveries. You were also towing a caravan, had a roofbox, and 3 small dogs. We managed this as best as we could, though I recognise that the journey took longer than expected.
Regarding the taxi arranged for your wife and pets, you mentioned that you were worried about the driver's behaviour. RAC doesn't have direct control over third-party taxi drivers, so I'm unable to uphold this part of your complaint.
As a result of our findings, we sent you a cheque in the amount of £100 as a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience.
Our service fell short of the standards we pride ourselves on. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the RAC.
We appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with us. We take all feedback seriously and will use your experience to improve our service.
Kind regards,
Vijay
RAC Customer Care
And my reply .....
Dear Customer Care,
I have previously rejected your offer of £100 as settlement and returned the cheque to you the day I received it, along with a further letter from me, both of which you seem to have misplaced.
It is my belief The RAC failed to uphold their end of the contract in so much that it took 24 hours to get me home from the Midlands, a journey of a mere 160 miles. In addition, your communication with me during the entire recovery saga was extremely poor, requiring me to call you on numerous occasions simply to get an update on when our next relay pick up would be. On each of these calls, little or zero information was given to reassure us that help was on the way.
Myself, my wife and our three dogs spent hours on end in dark motorway service station carparks, dropped off after only a few miles on more than one relay. That is totally unacceptable and quite frankly, disgraceful and in my opinion, a breach of contract. The RAC as an organisation, should be ashamed of the poor level of service provided, the lack of empathy to my wife and myself and the dreadful communication during this episode.
You can be sure that my experience of your service will be shared widely amongst numerous groups I belong to, not least the 10,000 members of a motorcycle organisation, many of whom ride bikes, own cars and motorhomes and frequently travel abroad.
As for the £100 (that I no longer have), please feel free to donate this to charity.
After decades of loyal membership, we will not be renewing in the future and hopefully, many others will take into account my experience, when choosing a breakdown company.
Regards, *********.
The upshot is ..... The RAC are truly awful with not only providing the basic service they are contracted to provide, based on any reasonable expectation, they are appalling at communicating during the active breakdown and equally as bad when dealing with a genuine complaint.
Finally, I hope this serves as a useful warning to anyone considering taking out a new policy with them or, renewing and existing policy, for a car, a motorcycle or a motorhome, in the UK or abroad.
Similar experience but with BMW Motorrad Rescue. Left by the side of the road for 15 hours. Rescued in the end by Lexus/AA. However...BMW paid me £300 which covered a new rear rubber/coffee/food. Lesson learned. Breaking down Sunday pm is going to be bad news. Puncture repair kit is useless for anything bigger than 6mm.
Shit happens.
Shit happens.
I agree, shit does happen but when you plan for it to happen and put in place contingency, with an organisation I have always held in high regard and they let you down badly ...... What would have happened if I wasn't there and it was Anne who had to take care of setting up the caravan every time we were loaded and offloaded, had to take the three dogs for short exercise breaks, in several dark motorway service car parks?
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