Roadside assistance – my dreadful Enterprise and AA experience

What is the longest you have been forced to wait by the roadside for vehicle recovery assistance – can you beat 13 hours?

This weekend I hired a vehicle with car rental firm “Enterprise”. Shortly after departing my house in the vehicle the engine light came on with engine judders. I was left with no choice but to pull over and wait for roadside assistance. When contacting “Enterprise” I found out that they use the “AA” for roadside assistance and was transferred to them. Location wise I was 21 miles from home.

It was just after 3pm on a Friday afternoon when I was originally advised that I had a couple of hours wait. This was the only time I would speak to “Enterprise” as unbelievably once the branch we used have no out of hours contact to assist directly unless you’re in an accident. Not ideal as the “AA” is only a partner for roadside assistance and plenty of reasons existed why I still needed to be able to speak to “Enterprise” directly.

The “AA” and “Enterprise” left me with quite the problem and predicament. And no doubt will now continue to cause issues as this gets resolved.

Everything appeared to get off to a good start and you receive texts and links to the status of you roadside assistance. After a couple of texts and broken promises, everything quickly went down hill. The website link that provided updates was still reporting at 11pm at night that the pick up would be at 8pm.

Throughout the night I made numerous calls to the “AA”. While most advisors were polite, they did not appear to gain any resolution for me despite promises. They just apologised and when I had already been waiting 8 hours advised that they had delays up to 6 hours at this time.

Predicament wise, I have an “Enterprise” car, I can’t speak to them and I am responsible for their car. All the conditions of hire stacked in the favour of the car hire company with no help to deal with real life predicaments. I can’t leave the car without their or the AA agreements and arrangements left. If I act alone, it could leave me liable and then potentially still having to go back to the car to get it sorted.

To wait such long periods is excessive, waiting 13 hours in a cold car and not being kept fully updated is not fun. You get let down that many times you just stop believing anything that anyone tells you. You try to keep warm and keep your phone as charged as possible. Thankfully some public toilets and food was nearby.

As someone with a history of serious illness I had to use that situation to try and get things moving. Not ideal for me to be outside for so long in the cold car but had to start mentioning that at 11pm at night but it did not appear to make any difference.

While the “AA” eventually sorted the situation, the handling of the issue was generally poor up to resolution. They advise that they will call and never do or ring for a fraction of a second.

Eventually I was advised some 13 hours later at 3.30am in the morning that roadside will not be able to attend still. They are too busy. The arrangement in the end was I had to agree to is to leave a hire car I am supposedly responsible for and leave the keys with a third party to release the keys when pick up is arranging. Thankfully I was in the carpark of a 24 hour restaurant and they agreed to keep the keys in their safe for pick up. Not ideal but at nearly 4am in the morning, I didn’t have any choice. If only “Enterprise” had out of hours support.

Thankfully the AA paid for the taxi but I now know this situation is going to cause numerous headaches.

I got home by taxi, 13.5 hours after reporting the issue and finally at 5am in the morning I was able to attempt to gain sleep.

We have since had a conversation with Enterprise. It will be interesting how they resolve this situation and I will keep you posted.

Have you experienced issues like this or have any advice? Please comment.