thomas Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Yesterday we had someone call in who broke down on a pretty dangerous area of the highway in downtown. He car's front wheel came off, which usually means a broken ball joint. So she calls us to go tow her car, which is a 92 cougar which is rear wheel drive. Now it is missing a front wheel so it can't but pulled up on a flatbed and since it is rear wheel drive it can't be towed from the front without fucking up the transmittion. So we send someone to look at it it just incase, nothing they could do. We call all our garage to see if anyone is willing to use dollies or have the member sign a damage waiver to tow it and no one is. We call the lady back and say we can't do it and that'd see would need to cal her own company and we'd reimburse her. She gets all apeshit and starts cussing us out saying she pays good money for AAA and that we have to tow her car. So I offer to call the cops and have them send a truck and she gets gets all defense and tells me not to. I call them anyway because I am trying to help her get off the highway, and if I didn't call her car would have probably been impounded. So the cops do their thing and like an hour later she calls back saying we were "falsifying" information to the cops and her car was impounded for some reason (probably had bad tags). I have a feeling I'm going my boss is going to talk to me later, but oh well. I just don't understand why people expect so much out of AAA. I mean they pay $50 for a year when it costs that much for one tow from a company. We are not miracle workers, there is stuff we don't want to touch for liability reasons but people expect us to do everything then threaten to get me fired or sure us if we don't. It's like when there is 2 feet of snow outside and the roads are horrible and cars are sliding off all the time, people want there cars towed like 200 miles. We refuse to do it since we are trying to help as many people as fast as possible so we offer to tow them to safety but that is not good enough for them I guess. It is more important for them to get towed 200 miles and us lose a truck for a few hours that could have helped like 30 people get unstuck when he was gone. People just blow my mind. Sorry for the rant, I'm just sick of talking to dumb people all the time at work. It's been awful the last 2 weeks since it's been so cold and snowing almost everyday and people can't seem to drive if there is any snow on the roads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hickey Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I'm a AAA member (a Gold member actually). I paid my money and if I need a tow I should get one. My car is all-wheel drive and I get flats all the time because of the low profile tires and shitty road conditions in eastern Massachusetts. Everytime I call AAA they give me shit about not having a spare -- sorry, but there isn't one, never has been, never will. A spare wouldn't fit in the trunk anyway. Anyway, they get pissy with me. I fulfilled my end of the bargain, AAA should uphold theirs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomas Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Well something like that is not a problem for us, we'll just flatbed your car to a tire shop. Normal stuff like that is fine, but it's when people modify their cars or have some sort of damage that requires special equipment that they think everyone should have. All our companies used to run dollies, then we bought a truck with them so they all got pissed and stopped using them for us. Now the truck sits in our parking lot doing nothing, and when it did run the guy did not know how to use the dollies, but none of the companies will run them again. A lot of new cars actually don't come with spares anymore, just a bottle of fix a flat, which is pretty damn dumb. I know most newer Caddies and BMW's don't come with spares. In theory we could have towed the ladies car by turning it on and putting it in neutral and towing it from the front, since it is no different then driving it, but why risk doing $2k worth of transmittion damage to a car that is probably not worth half that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hickey Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Well something like that is not a problem for us, we'll just flatbed your car to a tire shop. Normal stuff like that is fine, but it's when people modify their cars or have some sort of damage that requires special equipment that they think everyone should have. All our companies used to run dollies, then we bought a truck with them so they all got pissed and stopped using them for us. Now the truck sits in our parking lot doing nothing, and when it did run the guy did not know how to use the dollies, but none of the companies will run them again.A lot of new cars actually don't come with spares anymore, just a bottle of fix a flat, which is pretty damn dumb. I know most newer Caddies and BMW's don't come with spares. In theory we could have towed the ladies car by turning it on and putting it in neutral and towing it from the front, since it is no different then driving it, but why risk doing $2k worth of transmittion damage to a car that is probably not worth half that? I agree that risking damage is silly and the woman should understand that...obviously she had a bigger issue (like expired tags or something). And, yes, fix-a-flat is useless...if anything, it ruins a tire that could be salvagable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motorbike Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 probably cuz she pays for it? i dont know man, i work for a shop and all we do for the most part is warranty work and we tow buses in from 300 miles away with minor, and i do mean MINOR problems because the customer paid for the warranty. not trying to be an ass but if my front tire came off on the express way, in the cold, in a bad part of town and i had AAA and they told me they couldnt do anything id probably raise hell too. just sayin... and trust me, i deal with some the dumbest ghetto people at City of Atlanta schools but you just gotta deal with it cuz they pay for those kicks on your feet. i underdstand though, it sucks, haha. i have seriously thought about standing up in my office, paging everyone of the people in my shop over the intercom to tell them they are useless, mongoloids and rip my slow ass computer from the wall to go outside and throw it as high as i possibly can. if it ever does, ill get pics somehow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomas Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 I mean, I understood her frustration and we tried every garage we have but no one was willing to do it. I even called two police garages and told them to bill us but they didn't want to. So it's on the garages, not me, I got her help and told her we'd reimburse her. The spot she was at was just dangerous because 3 highways meet there and there is a ton of traffic so she couldn't just sit there. I think the major problem with the AAA I work at is our garages all suck, but one. The one garage that is good runs 3/4 the county and she was the one who sent a truck to look at the car, but she won't touch a car if there is a chance of damage. Myself and another employee told our boss we'd drive our truck but I guess they'd rather have a $85,000 truck sit and do nothing then pay us to drive it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stranaspank Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I end up using all my free AAA services to unlock my car doors when I leave the keys in the ignition. They've been uncannily fast the last few times, like 10 minutes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcm1610 Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 I had AAA for 4 or 5 years and used it once when my car died under the 690 in Syracuse trying to go to the mall. Then I cancelled it because I have a spare and am not completely useless. I have no idea how people lock their keys in the car so often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtw88 Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 I've had AAA for 3 years, and the only time I've had to use it was when I locked my friend's keys in her car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicker Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 every post in this thread is too long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomas Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 every post in this thread is too long. Truth. I should quit my job right now, phone is rining non-stop since I got here, etas are about 3 hours right now. Good old cold and snow making people dumb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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