Roadside unassistance

So when I got my new (used) car, I also got a 5 year warranty from American Auto Guardian, Inc. I purchased the "Ultimate" plan, which pretty much covers everything under the sun, and includes roadside assistance. Fantastic, I thought, now I will not need AAA, so I canceled my membership. This was a gigantic mistake, as AAA is vastly superior to any other roadside assistance program, plus they give you all kinds of other benefits, for an incredibly cheap price. In addition, they are helpful, knowledgeable and pleasant, and best of all their policies are not ridiculous and they are not idiots.

This last factor is key.

A couple days ago my car died outside a nearby residence hall when Aviva and I were picking up a used easy chair from a couple moving back to Italy. We tried jumping the car with Aviva's Prius, but it didn't work, so I called my American Auto Guardian roadside assistance program. They got all my information and then they asked me where I wanted the car taken. I said I didn't know, that they could just take it to their default garage in the area. They didn't have one and suggested I find one. I mentioned, again, that I was not at home, I did not have the internet and did not know of a particular garage. I said any garage they know of would be fine. They said that until I could come up with a location, they could not send help.

Now how is this logical. If I were stuck somewhere I was not familiar with, how would I ever get help. I mean, if you only send help when the caller knows where to go, how could you ever get assistance if you don't know where to go. Not the best idea for roadside assistance. I actually could not get them to send a truck, so I pretended to be Aviva and used her AAA card. A truck came out within 20 minutes and jumped the car. No muss, no fuss.

It gets better. After I moved the car and parked it, I checked it 2 days later and the car was dead again. About time I changed the battery. So I called American Auto Guardian and asked about getting an assist. They said if would be no problem until I mentioned that I might need a jump or might need a tow. At this point I was told that my roadside assistance could only provide one service every 7 days, so if the truck came out and tried to jump the car and it didn't work, they would not tow me.

What?!!? Once every 7 days. So if you get towed, get repairs and then have problems within the next week, you are out of luck. I mean, of course you can only have car trouble once a week ...

Now I've got AAA.