Yesterday morning M’hijito’s battery died. So I had to drive up to his place and chauffeur him to work, and then pick him up after work and lend him the Dog Chariot so he could chase down a battery. My friend La Maya asked why we don’t have a AAA (American Automobile Association) membership, since they allegedly will come and replace the battery for you, wherever you are.
Welp. There’s a reason we don’t. We’ve both had some pretty negative experiences with AAA, which is not cheap—membership in the Arizona branch ranges from $55 to $165 a year.
After M’hijito graduated from college, he was working in San Francisco and driving a junker that was second-hand when he’d gotten it in high school and that had barely survived the usual first-driver’s-license crash. I was concerned about him driving that thing back and forth across Death Valley and waypoints, and so I bought him a AAA membership. We sustained the membership for several years, and he still had it when the dot-com bust left him unemployed and forced him to return to Arizona.
It was a very unhappy and very harassed young man who loaded up his gear and set off across the inland valleys and deserts in 110-degree heat. Naturally, his car crapped out in the middle of nowhere…across the Arizona line. He called AAA for help, and they refused to help him!
Why? Because he was a member of the California AAA, and it didn’t apply if he was out of the state.
Uhm. Well. That was a new one on me. Boy, was I pissed when he got home with that story!
It took the kid forever to get himself rescued from somewhere in the desert outside of Blythe and to get his car operable enough to limp the rest of the way into Phoenix.
Strike 1.
Then there was the time SDXB bought the RV. On our maiden voyage, we were cruising back from Flagstaff and hit the Valley at mid-day in 115-degree heat. As we were tooling down the I-17, a tire blew and knocked a hole in the truck’s side.
SDXB, being a manly man, would never think of calling for help. He pulled out the jack the previous owner had left and…voilà! It wasn’t a truck jack! It didn’t fit the vehicle’s Dodge chassis.
It’s hard to describe how hot an asphalt pavement is on a 115-degree day. SDXB gets down on the ground and starts to wrestle with this thing, trying to figure a way to jack the truck up enough that he can get the spare on.
Finally, I walk off the freeway (this is pre-cell days) and hike through the unholy heat to a bar up the road. By the time I get there I’m close to fainting. The hostess asks if she should call 911. I say no, I just need a glass of water, but we may need 911 for my boyfriend up the road. She lets me use their pay phone to call AAA.
And once again, they will not come!
Why? Because contrary to what SDXB was told by their sales rep, AAA does not cover RVs!
I called the Highway Patrol’s roadside assistance. They never showed up. Several cops passed us; they ignored us. I hiked back to the bar a second time and called for help again. No one ever came to help us.
Finally a big, scary biker type in a gas-guzzling junker pulled over. He had a truck jack with him. He jumped out of his car, whipped out the jack, and changed the damn tire for SDXB, who by then was about to expire.
Strike 2.
And then there was the time I took my German shepherd, Anna, hiking in the Dreamy Draw desert preserve. Again, it was a very hot day. Though we’d started at dawn, by the time we got back to the trailhead it was coming on to 9:00 a.m. and temps were fast rising toward 100 degrees. None of the water fountains in the parking lot worked, and we had run out of water.
Dog jumps in the car. I turn the ignition: nothing. Battery’s dead.
I didn’t have a cell, but talked a fellow hiker into letting me use his to call AAA.
Half an hour later, a AAA truck shows up. The large, unfriendly driver little-womans me and says he’ll jump-start the battery (no offer was made to provide a new battery). Anna dislikes this guy at first sight, and I can tell from her body language that she’s calculating how best to remove his lower leg. So I put her in the back seat and then I say OK, but let me turn on the ignition. And I say, in no uncertain terms, Please let me start the ignition. Do not try to get in my car! The dog will bite you if you do!
I was not kidding, but apparently because the little woman said it, he figured it was OK to ignore this advice. He hooked up the jumper cables and then, before I could stop him, he grabbed the door and hopped into the driver’s seat.
Of course, the German shepherd just went bat-shit! He dodged out of the car a fraction of an instant before she could nail him.
He was so pissed off, and my saying “that’s why I asked you to let me start the car” didn’t help his mood. He stalked off and roared out of the parking lot.
The instant I sat down in the front seat, the car died again. His truck was not out of sight.
I borrowed another cell phone, called AAA, and told them the car had died before the guy had got a half-a-block down the road. The despatcher said he would turn around and come back.
An hour and a half later, which the dog and I passed in 100-degree heat with no shade and no water, another truck came along.
Strike 3.
I canceled my AAA then and have never re-upped. Considering the number of years I had belonged to AAA—most of my adult life—and the very, very few times I’d called for help, I would say no, AAA is absolutely, positively not worth the cost. When I’ve needed them most, they’ve let me down.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
When I had an ATT cell phone plan, which was up until last month, I paid $2.99 a month for roadside assistance. That $2.99 covered ANY vehicle I was driving. When I needed service, the service was fantastic. ATT saved me countless times, always within 30 minutes. Service was friendly and fast and losing roadside assistance was the one thing I thought about before I cancelled phone service. Not sure what is offered in Arizona as I am in California but that $2.99 was absolutely a life saver for me. If you have a cell plan, you might want to see what is offered. By the sounds of it, it CAN’T be any worse than what you’ve already experienced with AAA!!
I’ve had a AAA membership for most of the past 44+ years and have never experienced anything like this! Sorry to hear you have had such problems. For Christmas I actually bought my adult son his own membership and added my adult daughter to ours (she lives with us) as most of our recent calls to AAA involved their vehicles. We live in a very rural area – so when we call we usually know the fellow who shows up!
The really funny thing about this post is that there was an add for AAA at the very end, as seen in my Google Reader. Ha, ha!!
Sorry about your experiences. I’ve paid several years for mine and it came in very handy recently. Car wouldn’t start in the morning (not the battery). Got it towed to a shop. Guy showed up in about 20 minutes after I called, and was very helpful in pushing my car out into the street, getting it loaded on the tow truck, and taking it to the shop. My car’s 17 years old so this just happens. Had my battery go out recently too but I was actually at a Costco gas station. The attendant helped me push it out of the way and I just walked over to the actual Costco, bought a battery, replaced it, and moved on. But if I hadn’t been so lucky as to have my car die in a place that sold batteries! Family/friends are still probably your best choice, but if you need more than a jump or a new battery to fix your car, a “cheap” tow has been such a lifesaver for me.
@ FrauTech: In the past, I’ve had experiences similar to yours. So I was very disappointed when the incidents above occurred. More than disappointed: frightened and infuriated. In a place where daytime temperatures exceed 110 degrees every day all summer long, an incident like these puts the driver’s life at risk.
Consider how much you’ve spent over the years on AAA premiums. Now consider that most of us carry smartphones that will allow us to find the nearest towing company. While calling your mechanic to come rescue you or calling a tow truck to haul your car to a repair shop will certainly cost more than a “free” jump-start or tow from AAA, that service is far from free. It actually costs you several years’ worth of premiums.
My car is now 12 years old. I’ve needed “rescue” help three times during its lifetime. Assuming I get the cheapest service, I would have paid about $720 (including tax) for AAA.
An outfit called Phoenix Towing Services (http://www.phoenixtowingservice.com/towing-rates-and-services.html) would tow my car 5 miles for $70. Assuming I needed to get the car towed for all three of these incidents (I didn’t — they all resulted from dead batteries), I would have paid $210 for the tows. To jump-start the dead batteries or get back into the car if I locked the keys inside, Px Towing would have charged me $65 per incident, or a total of $195.
That’s a far cry from $720.
Even further cry: I managed to get help for free, all three times the car crapped out.
I’m also seeing an AAA ad attached to this. Guess computers aren’t so brilliant after all!
My mom’s tactic way back in the day was to just stand by the side of the broken-down or flat-tired car & ‘look frail & helpless’ – which wasn’t too hard with up to 5 of us kids with her. And, yeah, many of the people who would stop to help were some of the scarier looking ones – goes to show you can’t judge a book….
@ valleycat1: Yes. When I was a young and pretty thing (back in the day, I did have a bod!), all I’d have to do is stand by the side of the road and people would stop. It was a little spooky…you never know who or what will stop. But in fact all my good Samaritans turned out to be middle-aged couples.
LOL! How funny about the AAA ads.
We’ve been paying for AAA for 20 years and used it maybe 4 times so we have soaked a lot of money into that plan. Service has been great when we needed it.
Tow truck drivers have this priority:
1: Accidents
2:AAA members or other club members
3:Some slob that might not be able to pay
Back in the day I did have generally reasonable service from AAA, but as time went on the overall quality declined. Clearly some stations/tow services were/are better than others, whether connected to AAA or not. And, I think plan details may vary from state to state. Certainly here in our rural area the mileage restrictions AAA imposes mean that if you don’t breakdown in your own driveway, the additional charges are going to be prohibitive for towing. A larger problem for us is that, not only does AAA not cover RVs under their basic service, they do not cover motorcycles at all (in most states) and for folks who do a lot of travel by m/c this is not workable. We now have an excellent roadside service plan through a m/c association that covers both of us on the bikes or in our trucks anywhere in the country for a whole $35 a year. On a side note, we used to swear by AAA maps and guides, but in the last 2 years that we had AAA every single order we placed was filled incorrectly and they stopped making some of their best products. In addition to AAA’s declining service and limited coverage, my husband had insurance experiences with them that guarantee we will never consider them for insurance again.