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[RC] AAA - k s swigart

Wendy Mancini said:


Now that's what I wanted to hear,  real saves by US Rider.  I'll junk

AAA.

While I doubt that I would keep two separate emergency tow services
(though I might if they had different "coverage areas.")

However, my experience with AAA is quite different (but then, I am a
member of the Automobile Club of Southern California and it states quite
clearly that their RV membership covers horse trailers).  They are even
willing to come up my "driveway" (a 2 mile dirt road with a 800' climb
and three hairpin turns.

Additionally, when I was on my way to the Outlaw Trail and started to
have trouble outside of St. George.  I limped into Cedar City and called
AAA and asked them if they knew of a service station that was open on
Sunday (after having asked a few other people at the gas station....who
said no, they didn't).  They put me through to their local
representative.  Who told me, "No there isn't anybody open on Sunday (we
are, after all, talking about Utah here), but I can call a mechanic I
know and get him out to you, or can you make it over to my place?"  I
could, so I drove over to his house, parked my truck and trailer in his
front driveway, he called a mechanic who said I needed a new fuel pump
and to rebuild the carburetor (or buy a new one). So the AAA guy called
around to find an owner of an auto parts store who wasn't in church that
would open his shop to sell the parts.

During the ~ five hours that this took, he let me take my horse out of
the trailer an graze on his front lawn (and, incidentally, give pony
rides to all the kids in the neighborhood, and receive carrots from just
about everybody's refrigerator).

When it was all over, I was back on the road with a new fuel pump, a
rebuilt carburetor (which, incidentally, 9 years later are both STILL in
the truck), and a readjusted timing. The extent of my bill was to pay
for the parts.  I have no idea if AAA got billed for anything.

But I have no complaints about AAA.

This is, of course, an extreme example.  And yes, when the axle of my
horse trailer (that I had loaned to a fried) over heated (as in fried)
and he had to pull over on I-10.  He called me, and I called AAA. They
did tell me we had to take the horse out of the trailer, but that is
because the only safe way to tow it was to winch it up onto a flatbed,
and only an idiot would winch their horse trailer up onto a flatbed tow
truck with any horses still inside.

I have never, once, had a tow truck operator tell me "No, I can't help
you." Unless that statement was literally true (i.e. he didn't have the
proper equipment to help me safely), and then, by and large, they are
willing to hunt down somebody who DOES have the proper equipment to help
me.

However, my dad was with me on the trip to the Outlaw Trail (he came
along to drive for me), and he is convinced that if it had been him and
not me who was trying to get his truck fixed on Sunday in Utah, not only
would he not have gotten the labor for free, but that HE would have had
to wait until Monday. :)

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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