When we bought a new HSV upgraded Holden Stateman in 1995, the purchase included 5 years of roadside assistance, which in regional Qld was contracted out to the RACQ.
On one occasion when we were travelling home to Cairns from Brisbane, we ran out of fuel on the southside of Rockhampton and just managed to roll past the very large roundabout and off the highway.
I called the roadside assistance number, and then rang a further 2 times to ask what was happening.
I ended giving up in disgust after well over half an hour, and I called a taxi to take me to the nearest servo to get a jerry can of fuel and returned to our vehicle, emptied the jerry can into the tank, and drove to the servo to fill up.
The RACQ had still not turned up when we got underway again.
It has been pretty much par for the course for our experiences with the RACQ, even when we were members and wasting hundreds of dollars in membership fees.
As our 5-year roadside assistance for our current Honda CRV expires this September, I was wondering what we should do, but we will now add roadside assistance to our Suncorp Car Insurance.
We would not even consider the RACQ based on our past less-than-satisfactory experiences, let alone with our personal experiences with the person they have for their Cairns agent.
On an aside, on our way to Rockhampton, the display was showing that we could travel well over 100 km on the remaining fuel and the distance to Rockhampton was well under 100 km.
This situation continually changed until the display showed the distance we could travel was well under the remaining distance.
We have never owned a vehicle with an accurate fuel gauge and/or which accurately displayed the distance we could travel on the remaining fuel, including our current Honda CRV, but at least when we had our fully restored and upgraded XW Falcon GT with its 36 gallon (160 litre) Bathurst fuel tank, we would never run out.
We would leave Cairns early in the morning with our 3 children in the back seat, who would go back to sleep as we drove non-stop to Mackay, and we would still have a quarter of a tank of fuel left.
When I filled up with around 120 litres of Super, the look on the console attendant’s face had to be seen to be appreciated. It was one of utter disbelief as he wondered if their system had gone haywire.
