To ask if anyone has broken down abroad

[Daisypod]

Sorry probably the wrong place for this but desperate for the traffic. We have just finished a holiday at Disneyland Paris, started to drive home and the car has broken down. We have RAC cover through our Eurotunnel booking and they are coming put in a bit. It's very windy and raining here, storm properly due in a couple of hours. We also have 4 kids.
Has this happened to anyone before? Just sitting here waiting and driving myself mad going through possible scenarios. What might happen?

Hiya. Sorry to hear that, really stressful 😣. We did years ago. It was towards the start of our camping holiday (France) and it was quite a serious issue with the engine. I can't remember if it was our car insurance or breakdown but we were able to claim for a stay in a B&B for the night and a hire car. We carried on with our holiday in the hire car and got our car back later in the week from the garage. Probably not what you want to hear when you're at the end of your holiday. I remember most of our costs were covered but my phone bill was extortionate! I hope you get sorted soon 🙏

That’s rubbish but at least it was at the end of the holiday and hopefully you had a lovely time

Happened twice when I was a child. In both cases, we booked ourselves into a hotel and the next day the adult who spoke the local language spent the day at the mechanics while the car got fixed or in the one case: while they figured out they didn't have the necessary parts. Meanwhile, the rest of us had a vacation day somewhere we hadn't planned. It was fine. When we came home the insurance company reimbursed us for most of the costs.

In one case we drove the car home the nexgt day, in the other case we and the car returned home on different trains and we had to wait a couple of weeks for the car to get fixed but my parents got a loaner car.

Yes, a couple of years back, just outside Le Mans, on the way south. We had better weather than you, but the timing was bad in that it was a Saturday in August, and garages etc were shut or shutting, and we had a big car full of luggage, food and drink for a self-catering gite that was still a good seven hours drive away we had managed to limp to an aire, but then had to wait for the motorway pick up people to tow us to an approved garage. After about five hours in the garage forecourt with a lively small child, a tiny taxi arrived, into which we had to cram all our stuff, and we were driven to a car rental place in Le Mans, and were given what was being claimed was the last available hire car in the region which was also tiny. And manual, whereas DH hadn't driven manual for about 10 years. We got to our remote house about 2 am, shell-shocked, after a lengthy trek, and wouldn't ever have found it if it weren't for the friends we'd booked it with driving to the nearest village. Then there was an issue with getting replacement tyres for our own car --apparently these weren't standard in France, and it took over a week, and as we didn't want to drive hundreds of miles back to Le Mans mid-holiday, we had to pay to retain our hire car.

It was a bit of a faff.

Best wishes -- at least you're closer to home!

Yes, in 2020. We were travelling from one place to another and broke down on the motorway. Our cover was with AA and our car was not repairable in France as the oil uptake pipe had failed and the engine had seized.
We were towed to a garage and had to wait as it was lunchtime, whilst waiting we spoke to the AA and they set the claim in motion. We hung around all afternoon whilst the car was looked at and then it was arranged that we could collect a hire car the next day from the nearest city and so arranged a taxi to the city and a night in a hotel.

We changed hire cars in Calais and then enterprise collected it from our house the day after we arrived home. We had to dash down there the following day because we'd forgotten to pay for the dartford crossing and we couldn't remember the reg number.

We put in a claim for the taxi on the first day and the hotel the first 2 nights as we had other accommodation booked and paid for. AA arranged the hire cars and the taxi to collect us and all our luggage from the hotel to go to the hire place. They also arranged for our car to be shipped back to the UK and Kia did replace the bottom end of the engine under the warranty. It was a stressful time between all of the various parts but once Kia agreed to cover the costs then a wave of peace washed over me.

I hope the RAC get you sorted out quickly and easily.

Yep - a Sunday in August, on the Paris peripherique. Obviously.

However, the system clicked into working almost immediately. We'd had a front tyre blowout on the campervan (biggish motorhome), and the front underrider had also been damaged. My BIL had done an amazing job of keeping control of the vehicle, and getting us onto the hard shoulder. A wee man came along with a van, and cones, etc., whilst we were doing our bit with the warning triangle and the high-vis jackets. He spoke no English, but luckily, my French was good enough.

Our AA cover was also for the EU, so we managed to get someone to come out, and put us up on the back of a truck (as it was too heavy to jack up at the side of the road), and they took the 4 of us to a garage. It then transpired it wouldn't be able to be sorted until the next day, and as it was also our accommodation, we booked two rooms in a B&B nearby for the night - the garage owners wife sorted it for us, and was super helpful. I can't remember if we paid for the B&B (it was about 5 or 6 years ago), but the van was sorted the next day, and we were able to continue on our journey on the Tuesday. It was all managed well - and luckily we had maybe 3 or 4 days until our ferry home, so didn't need to re-organise our crossing.

Hope that it all works out for you OP. At least you've got the cover in place, and it's all sortable. No-one is injured, and you will all get home safely soon.

Broke down in Nigeria, that was um interesting!

Yes - we broke down in France the day after we arrived for a week's holiday in summer 2019. A local garage (contacted by our insurance company) came and assessed the car at the roadside. The guy plugged in his little computer thing to see if he could diagnose and fix it by the road. Unfortunately, he couldn't and said it was the spark plugs. The car got put on the tow truck and taken to his garage and we got a taxi back to our accommodation. We were asked how long we were in France and stupidly said another six days, so we then weren't an urgent case and didn't get our car back for five days, leaving us stranded without a vehicle in a rural French village for most of our holiday. As you're on your way home hopefully they'll either be able to fix it by the side of the road or asap. Be aware though that they may have to order the parts in. My car is German and they didn't have the spark plugs or the new coil that needed to be fitted, so they had to be ordered in before they could be fitted. Do you speak French? That will help, if so. If not, use Google Translate, as I had no idea what spark plugs and coil were in French the tow truck driver unsurprisingly didn't speak English. Good luck!

I used to work in an accident and breakdown call centre and had to liaise with families and car garages when this happened to people. Generally they were put up in a local hotel until repairs could be made. Or recovered home.

My husband reversed one wheel into a ditch in France. Pre-mobile phone so he had a long walk to find a phone and called RAC. they came and towed us out. Luckily the car was ok and we could carry on.

Yes
We didn't have international breakdown cover, or any money, or a working phone, and we had a baby
Mine was worse

Yes. In France.
Eventually got given a hire car. Quote for a minor repair was extortion so I refused. Insurance company sent a recovery truck to the south of France to get the car and flew everyone home. Luckily, all covered by insurance. Added a shit tonne of stress though.

Sorry I didn't come back to this yesterday, very good to have all your replies to read but I realised my phone battery was getting low and needed to conserve power.
RAC sent the breakdown truck which arrived after about an hour. When he got there he said we'd need to get them to get us a taxi as we couldn't fit in his cab, waited 40 mins for that. I really needed the loo so in the end the breakdown guy put our car on his truck with us in it and took us to his garage so I could go to the loo and we got the taxi to meet us there. During all the waiting we were trying to work out the best way to get home. Car wasn't going to be looked at until Monday and then possibly another few days before fixed so we couldn't just get a hotel to wait for it. RAC did nothing to help with this and we had to organise ourselves, there were no flights so had to get Eurostar which was £330 each but apparently they will only reimburse £150 each for train travel. This has really annoyed me as it says on the paperwork they will get you home. Anyway the taxi got us but we had to leave majority of our luggage with the car, taxi took us to Roissy train station at Charles De Gaulle airport where we got a train to Lille the got Eurostar to London. There were lots of delays due to the storm intermixed with rushing about trying to not miss trains. All of this using Google translate as our French is appalling. When we got to London all trains were cancelled and home is in Leicester so rather than get a hotel and train the next day which would have been £100+ each we just got a taxi home and got back just gone midnight. Hugely stressful and now have to deal with rac to claim back what money we can.

We knew a family many years ago who managed to write their car off in Spain, a total wreck. To add insult to injury, once everything was sorted out through the insurance and they were home they got a huge bill from the Spanish government for the importation of the car!

We broke down in France with RAC cover and no French. They were bloody marvellous! I promise it will all be fine and a week from today you’ll laugh about it. Chin up.