by Centaur » 15 Jun 2015, 10:03
I had a fortnight in mid-France a few years back, towing my boat behind my (then) VW Touareg, which was still under warranty and had full European recovery cover. However, before I went, I contacted VW to check that the boat and trailer would be covered and was assured that they too would be recovered / repatriated in the event of a breakdown.
We got there okay and launched the boat but shortly after the car went into 'limp mode'. This is a fail-safe mode for when the car has a problem or gets conflicting signals from its various sensors, causing it to only run very slowly and with minimal power - certainly not enough to tow a boat. I called the VW helpline and the car was towed away the next day and we were provided with a rental vehicle - an MPV that would not have been suitable for towing the boat even if it had a towbar....
It took the dealer a week to diagnose a failed sensor and determine that the part was on 'back order' and would not be available for a couple of months..... It was then that I was told that the boat / trailer combination was either too long, too wide or too heavy (not sure which) to be recovered under the warranty, despite having checked all this with them prior to the trip! The options were to wait in France for a couple of months awaiting the repair of my vehicle (yes, right...) or taking the rental vehicle to the coast and getting a foot-passenger ferry crossing back to the UK and collecting another rental car in the UK for our onward trip home (only home, mind you, I could not keep it whilst waiting for the repair). Subsequently, I would be able to reverse this process and return to France to collect my car and, if it had not been stolen / pillaged / torched etc, my boat and trailer.
No mention was made anywhere in the warranty paperwork that foreign rental vehicles could not be taken into the UK or that my Eurotunnel tickets would be useless as we would not be allowed to travel as foot passengers but that was what I was told. The prospect of transporting all our luggage by hand was pretty far-fetched but there was simply no way that we would have been able to take all the boating kit too - that would all have to stowed on the boat to be pillaged in the months that we would be away.
Fortunately, all this did not come to pass. I spoke to my local VW dealer in the UK, who confirmed that the part was indeed on back order but that they had one in group stock. We got this couriered to the French dealer who was able to fit the part and get the car mobile again on the day before our planned homeward journey. Whilst the part was fitted under warranty, the part itself and the courier costs were not covered as the warranty, apparently, wouldn't cover sourcing parts from other EU states.
The moral of this sorry tale is very clear - be very careful to read all the small print in any UK or European recovery warranty, especially if you are planning to tow a trailer. If the warranty is not specific about maximum dimensions / weight limits for trailers etc, then get that in writing before you leave. Also, ask what happens if you break down en-route - will they take your trailer onwards to your destination (and home again after, if they can't fix your car) or will they just take it somewhere off the motorway. If it's the latter, you are going to be deprived of your boat for the duration and likely to find that it is kept in a less-than-secure compound or, worse, simply moved to the nearest motorway 'rest area'. Picture what happens to cars that are abandoned for any lenght of time and you can imagine what your boat will look like after being left on the side of a motorway - and I doubt that your boat insurance will cover losses due to such 'neglect' either...