Roadside Assistance for Class B

[avanti]

I was driving down I-40 just west of Nashville, when my TPMS started screaming. I immediately pulled over, and saw that my right-rear-inner dually showed 0 PSI. This was before I had gotten around to adding metal valve stems to my Sprinter, so I was pretty sure that I had lost a stem. I called Coach-Net and explained the situation, including my valve-stem theory. The incredibly nice lady said "Well, let's hope so, but just in case I am going to locate a tire for you and have it on the truck for you. We'll be there in about an hour. 45 minutes later, the same woman called back to apologize: They had trouble locating the correct tire--it is going to take a bit longer." Half an hour later, she called back to say that she called the local police and requested that they check on us to make sure we were in a safe location. Shortly after that, a very friendly officer stopped by, confirmed that we were ok, and wished us a good day. After a little less than two hours, the tire guy showed up with a fully-equipped truck and the correct tire. He pulled the tire, confirmed that it was just the stem. Replaced it in 10 minutes, and went on his way, taking the unneeded tire with him. He warned me that Coach-Net might send us a bill for the valve stem. They never did.

I could also tell you more than one story about my experience with AAA. Sadly, they would all be similar to lmittell's.

 

[Boxster1971]

AVANTI - had same tire go flat on same road years ago before I got TPMS. I had checked the tires before leaving in morning and again several hours later at a rest stop where I found the flat. Inner RH dual was destroyed from running flat so some unknown distance. If I had TPMS the tire would have been saved. I also used CoachNet at the time. They just mounted the spare for me and made no offer to bring me a new tire.

 

[avanti]

AVANTI - had same tire go flat on same road years ago before I got TPMS. I had checked the tires before leaving in morning and again several hours later at a rest stop where I found the flat. Inner RH dual was destroyed from running flat so some unknown distance. If I had TPMS the tire would have been saved. I also used CoachNet at the time. They just mounted the spare for me and made no offer to bring me a new tire.

I should have mentioned: They asked me if I had a spare. I said "no", so they responded accordingly. I think their intent is to do what it takes, but no more (they ARE a business, after all). I suspect if I had had a spare, they would have just come out and mounted it. They will go the extra mile, but only if it is needed, I guess.

Yes, as your experience shows, TPMS is pretty much a necessity with duallies.

 

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

I had a sudden, premature battery failure while I was at our condo in Jackson, WY last month. I hasten to add that it wasn't a total failure, as the dash would still light up.

To get by temporarily, I stopped at the local NAPA store to get their highest capacity lithium booster battery. In retrospect, I should have bought a chassis battery while I was at it, but having bought batteries at reasonable prices from AAA's mobile battery service in Southern California for years, I thought I'd do it again.

Anyway, a AAA mechanic showed up at the condo and proceeded to jump-start the rig, which was completely unnecessary, as I'd been doing that all day, and I'd told him so.

I asked him to go ahead with battery replacement. He didn't have one, nor did his shop, but they could order one from out of town and it MIGHT arrive the following day. The cost would be $450 for the battery and another $100 for installation.

Instead, I went back to NAPA the next day and bought their whizbang top-of the-line battery for $280. That's about $40 more than shown on their website for some reason, but I needed a battery NOW, so I didn't quibble.

My bad back making discretion the better part of valor, I went across the street to a quicky lube shop, where they installed the thing for $20.

Summing it all up, my AAA premium membership entitled me to spend $250 extra for something that might or might not happen in a day or so. Did I need AAA for this situation? I think not.

To be fair, I've been a satisfied customer of AAA's battery service in Southern California for years. I've had good service and have paid competitive prices.

Here's the takeaway--AAA is no doubt quite good in most large metropolitan areas, but you very well may take your lumps in the hinterlands.

Larry
2017 Pleasure Way Lexor

PS-- That booster battery is the bee's knees. It's found a permanent home in my rig.

Not taking sides??

". It is not that Coach-Net is uniquely good. It is just that AAA is uniquely bad."

What an "anti-sales" presentation..

What you said about CAA...is totally consistent with my experience being a member of the AAA..

Here's the thing....no company is around for 115 years without credibility..... period.

AAA has never failed me... I've been a member for 38 years and my parents were members for 40 years ... that's over 80 years combined.

Does AAA cover RV towing?
AAA Premier RV covers AAA Members for one tow up to 200 miles of towing and up to 100 miles on any remaining service calls. ... Plus/Premier RV Memberships expand AAA Member's towing coverage from 5 miles to up to 200 miles and provides free fuel delivery to enable their RV to the nearest service station.

You can specify where you want your vehicle to go....

I don't know where some people concluded that it's only 100 RV miles???

You can spin this anyway you want.... I've said everything I want to say about the AAA. Premier RV service....

 

[lmittell]

I have a Garmin In Reach Explorer for emergencies....

As I understand it (please set me straight if I'm wrong), the In Reach device enables you to send and receive text; nothing else. If I'm sitting in my disabled rig somewhere around Goldfield NV, where there's zero cell service, to whom do I send a plea for assistance?

I guess one strategy would be to contact a friend or relative and have them call for help, but does one of the roadside service providers monitor email minute-by-minute, so you don't have to do that?

Edit-- As a little heartburn seems to have arisen in this thread, I want to make it clear that I'm not being critical of the Garmin In Reach. I'm just interested in it and want to know how it's used to get roadside service.

Larry
2017 Pleasure Way Lexor

 

[lmittell]

Not taking sides??

". It is not that Coach-Net is uniquely good. It is just that AAA is uniquely bad."

What an "anti-sales" presentation..

What you said about CAA...is totally consistent with my experience being a member of the AAA..

For the record, I didn't say any of that. All I did was describe a less-than-good experience with AAA's battery replacement service. I think you must have included my post in the quote box by accident.

Larry
2017 Pleasure Way Lexor

 

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Sorry..... my apologies

For the record, I didn't say any of that. All I did was describe a less-than-good experience with AAA's battery replacement service. I think you must have included my post in the quote box by accident.

Larry
2017 Pleasure Way Lexor

Larry, I'm glad that your experience with AAA has been great , mostly.

Yes, you're right, wrong person for my statements.

 

[avanti]

[/B]

I don't know where some people concluded that it's only 100 RV miles???

Well, there is this:

http://www.aaa.com/aaa/001/Benefits_files/28138AAA.pdf

AAA PLUS RV and AAA PREMIER RV ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE BENEFITS
With AAA Plus RV or AAA Premier RV, in addition to receiving all the benefits of AAA Plus or AAA Premier, respectively, your towing, extrication/winching and tire change benefits are extended to Recreational Vehicles (RVs), including motorcycles, as defined in the “ELIGIBLE VEHICLES” section below. The towing, extrication/winching and tire change services are otherwise excluded for RVs for Classic, AAA Plus and AAA Premier members. The 200 driving mile tow for Premier members does not apply to RVs.

And there is this:

https://www.eastcentral.aaa.com/membership/why-join-aaa.html#compare

RV/Motorcycle Roadside Assistance
Optional benefit for an additional $35 annual fee

Service calls may be used to tow RVs, motorcycles, and recreational trailers up to 100 miles

The first of these quotes is from the AAA national website. The second is a typical regional website.

As I have said, AAA coverage of all kinds (and costs as well) vary from region to region. It is possible that there are regions that do not exclude RVs from the once-a-year 200 mile tow benefit. But many do. (This kind of inconsistent coverage is one of the many annoyances with dealing with AAA.) In any event, we are talking about one tow/year @200 miles and 3 more @100 miles compared to unlimited distance and unlimited numbers. And, if you use up your one tow on your car, you don't get another on your RV.

It appears to be an objective fact that AAA service is far less cost-effective that any of the others. These are not matters of opinion.

 

[lmittell]

Larry, I'm glad that your experience with AAA has been great , mostly.

Yes, you're right, wrong person for my statements.

Except for the battery fiasco, 100% of my experience with AAA has been in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. They're top-drawer here, but my Wyoming experience leads me to fear that the same level of service may not always be available in less populous areas.

There's a sequel to the battery service story. I was pretty sure my battery separator had failed in the closed position (house and chassis batteries permanently connected), so I called FMCA (I'd recently signed up for their roadside assistance) to get an RV tech to do a diagnosis. They could get me a tow, which I didn't want, but utterly failed to find a tech.

Parenthetically, the separator had indeed failed and I wound up replacing it myself. I don't know if that failure had something to do with the battery problem or if occurrence of the two failures was a coincidence. It's odd that the failure didn't allow me to start on the house batteries. I even ran a husky jump cable from the house batteries to the chassis battery and couldn't crank the engine.

(Edit: A possible reason for no-start on the coach batteries just popped into my head. In both cases, I was relying on the house battery ground connection, which may not be able to handle starter current.)

Anyway, I'm cancelling FMCA. I spend a lot of time in Wyoming; if they can't help me there, they're semi-useless to me.

Larry
2017 PW Lexor

 

[Johnnyfry]

How do I get Coachnet roadside service? I went to the website and they referred me to; “A Coachnet dealer near you” which turned out to be an RV dealer 100 miles away from me. Do they sell the service through RV dealers? It sounds great but if I cant deal direct I am not interested.

 

[bwolfsohn]

on their website:

https://member.coach-net.com/Secured/Membership.aspx

 

[avanti]

on their website:

https://member.coach-net.com/Secured/Membership.aspx

Yes, but call them and tell them you you don't want to pay $249. As I said, I just renewed by Premier Coach subscription $159.00 (which included a $10 "coupon"). They do sell a lot of their initial subscriptions through dealers, so they show a high "list" price on the website so the dealer price leaves room for a big discount.

You may not be able to get the $159 price as a new subscriber, but I am quite sure you can negotiate the list price down pretty easily. Just mumble something about "Good Sam".

P.S. -I just logged in and confirmed that my renewal price is shown as $169 -- you can only see that in the "members only" area. And they will give you a $10 discount at the drop of a hat.

 

[mobilelists]

Does the MB Warranty offered with the Sprinter cover roadside issues and towing?

 

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

My apologies....

Yes, but call them and tell them you you don't want to pay $249. As I said, I just renewed by Premier Coach subscription $159.00 (which included a $10 "coupon"). They do sell a lot of their initial subscriptions through dealers, so they show a high "list" price on the website so the dealer price leaves room for a big discount.

You may not be able to get the $159 price as a new subscriber, but I am quite sure you can negotiate the list price down pretty easily. Just mumble something about "Good Sam".

P.S. -I just logged in and confirmed that my renewal price is shown as $169 -- you can only see that in the "members only" area. And they will give you a $10 discount at the drop of a hat.

Avanti, I looked into the information you provided me with on the RV towing for the AAA...it is 100 miles to any location you select.....

I have been a AAA member for a very long time.. they have never disappointed me... but, what you said is correct about the mileage limitation....

I actually looked up Coach Net... couldn't find anything local to me...I'm thinking of calling them just to get more information over the phone... maybe next week...

I wasn't that familiar with Coach Net... know about Good Sam and FMCA...

I dropped my membership to FMCA... Bunch of Class A snobs... they told me on the forum that they didn't consider a van conversion to be a real RV... Ridiculed me for wanting decent fuel economy and told me I was in the "wrong hobby".... Can't respect that.....

Again, thanks for sharing the details of Coach Net... that's who you use?? If so, you like their service??
You have their top service??

 

[bwolfsohn]

I've been dropping in a some other forums... lots of horror stories and good outcomes for all the different vendors. including coach-net, AAA, good sam and others...

Is there anyone who carries multiple roadside-assistance policies ? has it helped in a specific instance ?

 

[BillsPaseo]

We have towing coverage and roadside assistance coverage via our auto insurance policy. Covers all of our vehicles, including our motorcycles. Never had to use it though. Insurance company is Safeco. The coverage is pretty cheap, I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't much added on to liability/comp/colision...

 

[cruising7388]

We have towing coverage and roadside assistance coverage via our auto insurance policy. Covers all of our vehicles, including our motorcycles. Never had to use it though. Insurance company is Safeco. The coverage is pretty cheap, I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't much added on to liability/comp/colision...

I have no idea regarding the accuracy of this but it's been alleged that using towing service that's provided as an addendum to your auto policy runs the risk of increasing your auto premiums.

 

[Boxster1971]

Does the MB Warranty offered with the Sprinter cover roadside issues and towing?

Yes - for the basic three year warranty period. I’ve used it when mine was about a year old.

 

[avanti]

Yes - for the basic three year warranty period. I’ve used it when mine was about a year old.

Actually, the MB towing coverage applies while your vehicle is under any Mercedes warranty, including an OEM extended warranty. So, you can extend it past the 3 years by purchasing an extended warranty. I do not recommend the MB extended warranty, though. It is inclusionary and not very good.

I don't know if coverage continues if all you have is the federally-mandated emissions warranty.

 

[avanti]

Avanti, I looked into the information you provided me with on the RV towing for the AAA...it is 100 miles to any location you select.....

I have been a AAA member for a very long time.. they have never disappointed me... but, what you said is correct about the mileage limitation....

I actually looked up Coach Net... couldn't find anything local to me...I'm thinking of calling them just to get more information over the phone... maybe next week...

I wasn't that familiar with Coach Net... know about Good Sam and FMCA...

I dropped my membership to FMCA... Bunch of Class A snobs... they told me on the forum that they didn't consider a van conversion to be a real RV... Ridiculed me for wanting decent fuel economy and told me I was in the "wrong hobby".... Can't respect that.....

Again, thanks for sharing the details of Coach Net... that's who you use?? If so, you like their service??
You have their top service??

Thanks for posting this. There is plenty of room for varying opinions, but the first step is (or should be) to get the facts straight.

Yes, I have used Coach-net happily for a number of years now. I have not had a reason to switch. The blown-tire incident I described was VERY impressive. And, I really do have serious political problems with AAA, but I realize that not everybody cares.