The AA - Stockport

Shezza

If I could give 0 stars I would. All they try and do is get more money out of you! 0 help I’m left with a car broke down and AA trying to squeeze more money out of people. Membership cancelled

technical department - Steve rude and not helpful over the phone.

K D.

Shoddy repairs, won't take responsibility to rectify even though accident wasn't my fault! Worst experience I've ever had. Hiding behind 'engineers' that haven't ever seen my vehicle. Please avoid them at all costs, choose a different insurance company

Aaron S.

Disgusting service! Broken down on the motorway. 5 degrees, night time and raining, 5 month old baby with us. To be told we are on the priority list for a recovery! And someone would be there within the hour. We were then told to get out of the car and wait the other side of the barriers. 2hrs 20 mins later the outsourced driver only just rings us to say he’s on his way…. 2hrs 20 minutes later with a baby in 5 degrees, dark and raining. Disgusting, how they think this is acceptable!!! For anyone to have to go through this. And to pay a membership fee. I would ask anyone with the ability to avoid the AA. Should do!!

David B.

I was driving in Somerset in the early evening of 24/11/24. I drove through standing water which dislodged part of the flooring of the engine compartment. I was able to reach my destination - a hotel in Sherborne. Using the App I contacted the AA, explained the situation and was given the name of a breakdown company and an eta. This was subsequently changed. When they failed to arrive I contacted the AA to be told "We don't come out to flood damage." I was told to hold and someone would give me a quote for recovery to Manchester. Nothing happened. After 2 hours someone called to inform me that no quotes were available because " the AA was too busy."
Fortunately, I am also a member of Green Flag. (I get AA membership through my NatWest credit card.)
I called Green Flag and an engineer was sent from one of the companies originally named by the AA He fixed the car in 20 minutes!
I complained to the AA. My complaint was dismissed. The AA's Terms and Conditions (page 17) state: "Matters outside the AA's reasonable control. The AA shall not be liable for service failures where the AA is faced with circumstances outside its reasonable control which include...snow,fog and FLOOD or other bad weather conditions. I asked the AA how a car damaged by standing water but parked in a hotel car park was in a situation outside the AA's reasonable control.
The AA's written reply was that "the wording on page 17 (which I felt was unclear) with regard to this flood water issue has always been our business policy."
They awarded me £50 compensation towards "the inconvenience caused by the 2 hour delay before I was informed there would be no recovery quote." In effect, I was left stranded.
Green Flag's Terms and Conditions state that "We won't be able to help you at all if your vehicle is in a place where we can't get to you. No mention of flood damage.
My conclusion- Green Flag 10/10 - the AA 0/10.

Sally

Dear AA - Your online quotation system has succeeded in really, really annoying me. It's very frustrating to enter all the necessary information TWICE, but not have anything to show for it. Please consider changing the website so that it is clear for prospective customers whether they are wasting their time trying to get a quote off you.

Reehan 8.

Absolutely rubbish service especially from the staff on the phone. They told me my home start cover was available to use but then when I called them out they wanted to charge me £150 surcharge.
They said they would listen to the recorded call and call me back but a week later no call back. So I joined the rac instead and they came out the same day to my house instead of having to wait 24 hours after purchase.

Ramblin M.

The AA has two jobs:
(1) Collect insurance premiums
(2) Pay out costs when the unfortunate happens.
The AA is really good at (1). They accept many payment methods, you can pay by phone or online, it's all very easy. Unfortunately, they are not so good at (2), which is really why you join in the first place. Without (2) they're just kind of taking your money.
I've been with the AA for nearly 40 years, and I've paid premiums for those 40 years. I've probably used it 3-5 times, mostly for dead batteries. In those cases they did a good job. Someone came out and replaced the battery. Yes, I had to pay for the battery, but they had the cost of the mechanic driving to my location and replacing the battery. But this year was the first time that I needed the service. I was moving to Spain, and the car broke down en route in France. I remembered that I had European coverage, so I gave them a call. They said, no sorry you don't have European coverage, but they put me through to AA Europe. They confirmed, no you don't have European coverage. And they gave me a number to call. They didn't tell me what the number was, but I assumed it was a local mechanic, or local roadside assistance company. Nope. It was the number that you call in France to call a towing company that is legally obliged to remove your car from the road. It cost us £300 to pay for that obliged service. Later on (days later - this ended up being an ordeal from hell), a local taxi driver told us - oh no, you never call that number. It's basically a scam. If you have any option you never call that number. You get your car off the motorway at the next exit or get a mechanic friend to come and try to fix the issue in a service station. That number is the absolute last resort. Of course, the AA didn't inform me of this. So now the car was in a storage lock up in the middle of nowhere in France and would be so over the weekend because everything was closed over the weekend and they wouldn't release it, while charging me per day for "storage".
I texted my family to check my AA documentation and indeed it does say on the documentation that I DO have European coverage. So I called them again. THIS time they tell me - OH... yes, but in the small print you need to call us before you leave to "activate" the insurance. Oh..... of course. Do I have to do a special dance as well to activate it? Sacrifice a lamb under a full moon perhaps? It's a blatant scam. They also have a loophole where if you haven't paid your car tax they don't provide coverage. For a company founded to warn motorists of speed traps and help them "avoid punitive government penalties", it's strange they care about what you have or haven't paid to the government. I was stuck in France for over a week, spent close to £10,000, and contracted pneumonia as a consequence of the stress of the experience. This is not all AA's Ïresponsibility, but if they had tried to help me in the original call things could have been very different. It was a complete horror show that would take too long to describe.
What this is, is the financialization of everything. The AA is a good business model, but there are only so many motorists. So there is some maximium profit this business can produce. But they have people sitting in rooms trying to figure out how can we screw more out of customers? They have two mechanisms: (i) increase (1) or (ii) reduce costs on (2). Indeed, while it is difficult to get precise numbers for membership costs, I have found a 2011 annual price of £113.50. With inflation that is £161 in 2024 prices. But the actual cost I was charged was close to £500 this year. Basically a 300% increase. On the other hand they start cutting back on (2) by reducing services or introducing "get out" clauses so they don't have to pay out.
Definitely would not recommend, as you never know when they will actually help you, or when they will pull one of their get out clauses. They will also continuously inflate their prices, individually adjusting them in inverse proportion to your price complaints, squeezing as much as they can

Cerys P.

Absolutely scandalous company.
My boyfriends car broke down last night at 6pm, we called the AA and agreed to sign up for a membership in order to get assistance immediately.
We spoke to a woman on the phone that ensured us that if we paid £168 we would get a membership and an AA road side assistance team would be with us within the hour to try and fix the car. They also said they could tow us home if this failed to work and couldn’t be fixed, 3 hours later at 9pm a contractor recovery company arrived and told us he could only take us 2 minutes down the road to the nearest service station and he wasn’t trained nor equipped to have a look or fix our car.
We then rang AA back and they told us we had only paid for basic coverage on the membership and we’d have to upgrade to get towed home and it would be another 5 hours. After already paying £168 and being left waiting to then nobody even coming out to attempt to fix the car it is clear it is a money making scam to try and con people into upgrading the membership.
Disgusting I recommend an Independent company instead.