Exciting stuff eh?!

We’ve been with ASDA European Breakdown for two years now.

On Saturday, driving home from Northern Germany and heading for the overnight ferry from Hook of Holland, the alternator went on our T4 just before the Dutch border & just after all the garages had shut up for the weekend. With two children under 4 in the party I called ASDA Breakdown and they provided the following service:

  • Towed us to a local ADAC garage.
  • Repair at the ADAC garage.
  • Taxi to a very nice hotel with family room.
  • Taxi to the airport.
  • BA flight to the UK.
  • Hire car from airport to home.
  • Regular updates via phone & text.
  • Regular calls to check that taxis/hire cars/flights were as planned and that we were OK.

Of course, the van was still in Germany when we got home. In a convenient twist of fate we know someone who works at a car import/export company which had a truck on its way to Hook of Holland and has offered to ship the van back to the UK for us. This does make life much easier but if we hadn’t have had that option ASDA would have:

  • Flown me back over to Germany.
  • Taxi to the garage.
  • And then I’d have driven the van home.

(And should our shipping option not work out the offer for this is till there.)

I really can’t speak highly enough of them. There was a slight moment of anxiety over the flight on Sunday evening (I hadn’t mentioned the car seats & bag for the hold so the original Ryanair flight fell through quite late on) and I did spend a lot of time on my mobile getting/checking info. but I always felt like we were being looked after and…well worried about really. The people I dealt with on the phone seemed to care that we were OK and that everything was being sorted. I know it’s just their job but when you’re stuck in Germany with no way to get home that perception is a nice one to have.

What could have been a nightmare end to a great holiday actually turned into something approaching an exciting adventure, and although we’ve got bags of clothes in the back on the car we can’t get to yet (plus the pressies for people!) we were, in the end, only a few hours later getting home than we would have been had we got the ferry as originally planned. And the hotel was nicer that the ferry! It was stressful at times, but my stress was due to us having broken down in the first place, not the support we subsequently received.

So there we are. I’m sure some people will have had less positive experiences but that’s modern life I guess. We however are very happy customers and I wanted to share this with you.