European recovery

[MJH2454]

Hi guys,

Reading on the 10 countries thread about a problem with repatriation in regards to the costs exceeding the vehicle value. What do the recovery firms use as a basis for the vehicle value? 

Does a club valuation certificate trump there own values?

Any recommendations for who to use for European recovery?

 

[sparky_spit]

Don't take this as gospel, but I think that a figure of £3500 is the maximum figure that can be spent on a repatriation, regardless of the worth of the vehicle.  If it is going to cost more than that, then the vehicle is "disposed of in country" and anything left over after the costs so far accrued is taken account is given back to you.

So you can see why people are quite keen to do everything possible to get the car back within a £3500 budget. In practice, quite a lot can be achieved with discussions with the recovery agent, insurer, and the garage where your is being stored or repaired, I found out during my breakdown in a previous 10CR, and Sam has with his recent one

Please correct me if i am wrong on any of that, anybody.

[Clive]

48 minutes ago, sparky_spit said:

Don't take this as gospel, but I think that a figure of £3500 is the maximum figure that can be spent on a repatriation, regardless of the worth of the vehicle.  If it is going to cost more than that, then the vehicle is "disposed of in country" and anything left over after the costs so far accrued is taken account is given back to you.

So you can see why people are quite keen to do everything possible to get the car back within a £3500 budget. In practice, quite a lot can be achieved with discussions with the recovery agent, insurer, and the garage where your is being stored or repaired, I found out during my breakdown in a previous 10CR, and Sam has with his recent one

Please correct me if i am wrong on any of that, anybody.

Sounds about right to me.

However, with my peter james cover I couldn't find any upper limit. Maybe I need a bigger magnifying glass?

Alternatively, my "free" european recovery courtesy of my Nationwide account doesn't appear to have an upper limit.

The problems seem to occur when somebody has taken matters into their own hands assuming the insurance company would just foot the bill. But in reality recovery via transporter is not ridiculously expensive. Car hire can add up quickly, but it takes a lot to get to 3.5K

[sparky_spit]

Actually, with Peter James, I think it is now £3000, not £3,500.  See page 13 of the PDJ book, item 6.

I'm sure It was £3,500 When I was recovered and repatriated from the Alps some years ago.

[yorkshire_spam]

From my recent correspondence with PJ:

Quote

such a lengthy repatriation time is due to the fact that the claim limit is £3000.00

After I got my car back I breathed a big sigh of relief. To be honest my biggest issue was a lack of trust resulting from the outright lies we were told on the day of the breakdown and the recovery service (which seems to be outsourced to the AA) simply not caring. After a day of lies and excuses and having to repatriate ourselves, followed by a complete failure to process my claim for repatriation expenses within the promised 10 to 15 days (now over a month and ignoring my emails) any actual claim by them that my car was coming home was treated with deep skepticism. Especially after I was told "we've instructed the transport company, but we get no updates from them or tracking, so we don't know where the car is and it will probably by 6 to 8 weeks before it gets back to you"

When it arrived the transport driver was excellent, but he called at 11am wanting to drop the car at around 6pm that evening - not a lot of warning to say it wasn't due for a few more weeks.

I'm likely to change insurer as a result of the "don't care" attitude all round. (Even though quotes are coming in significantly more)

 

[MJH2454]

Seems like a bit of a nightmare

 

[yorkshire_spam]

1 hour ago, MJH2454 said:

Seems like a bit of a nightmare

 

I think there's an extent to which breaking down in a foreign country will always be a nightmare in some form or other, what I object to is a rescue/recovery policy that makes it worse not better. In our case the local recovery co. that finally turned out got to us in under an hour, it just took the AA over 4 hours to contact them.... despite telling us repeatedly "we'll be with you in 90 mins" etc etc. Local help and actual service providers (recovery, taxi, hotel, transport) were all excellent. The people I had to deal with on the phone... dreadful. 

[Sienna PI]

I know the feeling - when we broke down in Bavaria (10CR 2011) it was quite an effort for me to get everything organised via many phone calls for three of us to get home; the three of us plus car were taken to a garage adjacent a vehicle rental firm which after lots of phone conversations with the breakdown cover people agreed we could use, informing us to go to Stuttgart airport which was about an hour away with the flight time being only a short while after this. After a fairly hectic drive, giving the car back to the hire firm at the airport and getting to the departures terminal we were informed that the airline organised for us didn't operate from Stuttgart, the nearest one being at Munich airport!  Being tired, fed up and concerned for my co-drivers you can imagine how unimpressed I was!

I must admit though that the car appeared on my driveway very quickly.

 

 

[DVD3500]

If you are not a polyglot use google to see if there is a car club of the same or similar persuasion near where you will be.

I would argue short of a catastrophic failure of a gearbox or motor most clubs have members who can fix you up in a matter of hours if not minutes. 

Heck, even a blown gearbox is an ordeal of only a few hours for the savvy...

Recently the driveshaft slipped out of the diff coupling of a friend and through a friend of a friend a farmer was found that was able to machine the pin that had sheered and also offered to weld the darn thing on!

It was down to a club member`s recommendation....

Just a thought...