Which Roadside Assistance Should You Opt For?

Roadside Incidents are considered as hindrances to your enjoyment during a travel, making a holiday away from home town. This is also a big problem for people whose schedules are hectic. Road incidents can waste your time whether or not you agree with it. Even if you can’t do something to stop roadside incidents from happening, still you can prepare for it.

When car just stopped running, or when the car fails to start is considered as breakdown. Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do with it especially when you don’t have practical knowledge when it comes to car repairs. However, there are also common car breakdown that you can take care or prevent from happening, and they are the following:

Flat Tire:

To experience a flat tire on your travel is hassle enough to ruin your day, especially when heading to a business meeting. Even though changing a tire is easy, this is time consuming and sometimes a dirty work. There are three common reasons why tires go flat:

Tire explosion is one of the main reason why tires go flat and there are also two main reason why tires explode, namely “high tire temperature, and too much air pressure”.  The tire explodes when there is too much air pressure, which can also be triggered with high temperature. What causes tire to heat up is high speed driving, weather, and increased friction. When tires heat up, the air in it expands increasing the air pressure and most of the time, it goes beyond the tire’s capacity that’s why a tire blowout happens.

Tires also go flat, when a sharp object gets lodged into the tire, puncturing the tire, making the air escape. While this does not happen too often, still we can’t avoid it from happening because we can’t know when there’s a sharp object that we are about to run over, unless it’s very obvious like a road spike. Sometimes, this causes tires to blow.

Valve Stem Leak

Valve stem leaks is also something that causes flat tire, but this is probably the most unnoticeable problem. This is common to old tires, because of wear and tear. To check whether valve stem is leaking, use a water with soap and try to cover the valve with it, when it produces bubbles the valve has leak.

Empty Gas Tanks

You might experience this during a long distance travel, when you underestimate the distance. This becomes a problem when you don’t bring extra gas with you, or there’s no gas station nearby. You are also going to experience this one if you forgot to refill, or when you are traveling, you are taking it for granted the chance of refilling your gas tanks when you passed by a gasoline station.

Overheat

Engines go overheat for many reasons. Your engine overheats when the coolant level is low, this is due to coolant evaporation during hot weather, or you forgot to refill the coolant system after a repair, or maintenance. Bad thermostat is also a problem when it fails to open to cool the radiator. Also check if the radiator fan is working, if not, this can cause the engine to overheat. Here are some common causes of engine overheat.

Bad Thermostat: when the engine’s thermostat fails to open this will cause the engine to overheat. If your radiator fan is working properly, no cooling system leaks, and the water pump is working properly, then you have nothing to blame but the thermostat. Usually this is the main problem that can cause you too much trouble when you take this for granted.

Radiator Fan is not working: radiator fan helps to cool the radiator, without this your engine will easily go overheat. Also remember to fill the radiator with water before you drive. Always check the system if everything is working properly, this can help you avoid roadside incidents.

Leaked Cooling System: Cooling system is one if not the most important part of the vehicle to keep the engine from overheating. Your engine’s radiator and radiator hoses will tear after years of using it, be mindful of them, change them from time to time, don’t wait for your engine to overheat before replacing them. When hoses become weak because of pressure, and because it is old, air the coolant will leak and cause it to go under pressure, thus making your engine more prone to overheat.

These roadside accidents can happen any time, to you and when this happens, most of the time nobody will offer their help, especially when you are stranded in a remote area where there’s no passerby. You can prepare by subscribing to a roadside assistance plan. Roadside assistance providers are always there to help you when you need their help.

Where to Subscribe for a Roadside Assistance Plan:

When you want to secure your holiday, heading out of town, then you need to subscribe for a plan. This can help you ease your mind while you are traveling, and also keep you from getting stranded for a very long period of time. Choosing the right service takes more than just the benefits, of course, price and availability are also factors to consider before going for a service.

In United Sates, there are two roadside assistance service providers that stand out from their competitions, AAA and AutoVantage.

AAA is one of the best service provider in America and has been serving its customers for over a hundred years. However, with this kind of reputation, their service will cost a lot more than you expected.

AutoVantage, however is still young in providing the best services of roadside assistance. Speaking of age, they are now in their 25^th year of serving happy customers, their need of roadside assistance.

Now, if you would assess which is better than which, then you can really say that AAA is better because they are around 100 years of service. Yes, they are better, if we consider age as most important. But let us look deeper to their differences, and let’s try if you can still say that age matters.

Differences of AAA and AutoVantage:

AAA Automotive:

Price: $139

Coverage: 100 miles

GPS Accuracy: Limited to certain carriers

Family: Pay additional amount per member

Lockout Assistance: car

AutoVantage Roadside Assistance Services:

Price: $69.99/year

Coverage: 150 miles

GPS Accuracy: LocateMe Technology. Leverages largest cellular carriers in America.

Family: Entire family covered

Lockout Assistance: car, and house or apartment.

source: autovantage.com

One big difference is their price, and the coverage of car towing. The other covers only 100 miles and you will pay additional cost at exceeding mileage while the other covers 150 miles, with no extra charges. With just $69.99 your entire family is covered while the other service cost more, and you will pay additional charges when adding a family member. If you will just look at the benefits, you can be certain which company you would get services from, and that is AutoVantage.

In AutoVantage, you will surely get the price advantage, plus the advantage of service. That is from the price, to the services, you are surely having the advantage.

Benefits of AutoVantage to Consider:

If you are aiming for a kind of service that would save you a lot of money, plus more dependable than other services, then AutoVantage is for you. Now, you know why company age, does not matter when it comes to services, of course they have served more customers than the new ones, but it is still unsure if old service providers can offer you the biggest advantage. If you want to learn more about AutoVantage, or if you want to get their roadside assistance plan, just click here.