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I suppose the difference between warranties and say breakdown cover, is the first covers the parts, often covers any work done within a garage, where the UK’s breakdown cover, is purely a service to get you going from the road, or transport your car to a place of your choice depending on the level of protection you have.

Of course even in the UK, new cars are covered by warranties, but it is rarely combined with a recovery service and the work normally has to be done by the correct dealer who has the contract with the manufacturer. Things seem to be more flexible in the States. You can buy warranties, even if your car is over a certain age, and they are prepared to use third party garages to repair the problems.

Warranties can be for a selection of areas on your vehicle of for everything. The example we have below is from a company called Automotive Protection, which focuses on the mechanical side only. So for instance suppose your stitching on your seat were to come away, this would not be covered, where on a new car warranty it would be.

USA does have breakdown cover services as well, or should we say roadside assistance, with triple A being the best known. But the warranty side is much bigger than here in the UK and it is surprising that the big 3 breakdown cover providers, namely the AA, RAC and green Flag have not entered that market in a large way.

Someone has put a few photos together and made in into a sort of slide show. It does not represent what the UK breakdown cover organisation do, as they would get in these heavy cranes from a third party, if at all. Anyway watch and enjoy. Or by the way w love the Irish and have no control of the writing or music added.

We have said this before, that the Americans do not use the term breakdown cover and tend to describe it in a different way. It looks like the term Roadside Assistance is the most popular, but I suppose what is surprising is the lack of internet rankings for national companies looking for this service.

He most popular or top of Google is the GM Motor Club which at first glance gives the impression it is a roadside assistance club for the owners of General Motors cars. A bit more reading and you realise that the service is open to anyone and in fact competes directly with the other national roadside assistance companies.

Another interesting point is that you are covered for driving in to Canada, which in the UK you would have to increase to European breakdown cover to move from country to country.

For example have you ever heard of a breakdown cover organisation offering flights ? It seemed strange at first until you remember that even the UK, has a recommended hotel section, which came from the motorists wanting to go on driving holidays. So the holiday theme works, but the point of flying rather than driving doesn’t so much.

They call their emergency services in Australia as roadside assistance, which is what we do for the cheapest service out, and every thing else seems pretty much the same, except there are some pretty remote areas in the outback, so we would have to assume the RAC Australia would have to use a lot of garage agents on in the wilds, to ensure a fast call out time.

According to the site they have been around as long as the UK RAC, so there certainly is some history and we have mentioned their Free To Go service for young drivers in an earlier blog, without realising it was the RAC that delivered it.

The cover is presented as Ultimate, Classic and Standard, 3 different levels of breakdown cover just like here in the UK.

For such a small place, it is hard to drive around. Get one street wrong, and you are on a detour with no where to turn around. It is here you realise how many cars there are on this small rock of an island.

As far as breakdown cover is concerned, you have got to think that any car failure would just bring this place to standstill and you could probably push the car home if it weren’t for the steep banks.

So no small national breakdown cover organisation here then, but don’t underestimate just how many cars seem to navigate this small area not including the scooters and mopeds. I just can’t understand the BMW’s and the four by fours who with a G number plate clearly live there, but would never get out 3rd gear.

Even the breakdown cover van would probably only do 2000 miles a year, even working overtime. In short, if you are panning to go. Leave your car on The Spanish side and get the bus in. I wish I had!

Of course in America where GMC tends to be known by its corporate name rather than Vauxhall here in the UK and Opel in Europe, breakdown cover is called other names such as emergency roadside repair. GMC owns a whole range of USA branded companies, one wonders why? Just call them selves GMC.

After compiling the manufacturers that when you condense all the makes down to one, there are less makes on sale in the USA than here in the UK not counting all the joint ventures of course.

So I would imagine that when the breakdown cover man goes out, he will have to carry less different types of car parts than here in the UK