Insurance - recommendations for towing

[SAM83]

Was wondering what Shelby owners who drive their cars in 100-mile radius or more from their homes do about towing insurance.

Have been intending to post this experience so other could avoid what I went through, although this might be on the extreme side. 

My '68 Shelby is covered by one of the major classic car insurance companies but due to my lack of reading the details of the towing portion was put in a bad situation. Car has had a recent rotisserie restoration and should have been more diligent about understanding the coverage. Is only once at most a year that I will take it out 100 miles from home so was in a way gambling.

Coming back from a car show in SF Bay area (90 miles away) and car takes a crap and barely get off freeway in time to break down in the parking lot of a furniture store. Can't troubleshoot problem although many come by to offer help but to no avail. Call insurance company who tells me they cover a 5-mile radius for towing and that only option is a Pep Boys who can take a look at the car in 4 days. That information leads me to pursue girlfriend's AAA coverage.

AAA tells me it will be a couple of hours before they can make it and will be $1100 towing charge 90 miles to home (obviously didn't have the premium coverage). In the meantime, a car pulls up next to mine (they have dozens of other parking options and have to park next to me) and as I'm watching, the rear passenger door is wildly kicked open by an elderly woman and hear the impact 20 yards away.  Was elderly parents and their adult kids. To my amazement there was no apparent damage as by luck their car door hit my passenger door handle and did not touch the paint. Was assuming there would be at least $10k in damage. I won't go into details about what happened next, but their stance was that it was an old beater and why was I so upset?  This unfortunately is the world we live in. Yes, CA is a "special" case.

5 hours goes by and no tow truck. Sun is going down, low riders (they seemed okay and had no problems) have their floor jacks out and are working on their cars at the service station 100 feet away in preparation for Saturday night cruise. Homeless people are coming out of the bushes with shopping carts. An old homeless guy comes by in a wheelchair and feel so bad for him that we push him over to the convenience store to buy him his favorite 6-pack of beer.
Concern for overall safety was increasing and decided to call a local towing service.  They were there in 15 minutes, pretty much so dark by this time, was $300 cheaper than AAA. Kicking myself for not calling them at the beginning thus avoiding being strung along by AAA.

Broke down at 3PM and finally arrived home at 11:30PM.

Do classic car insurance companies offer extended towing and if so, which ones are the most reasonable and quickest to respond? Or do you just go into it knowing that you will absorb the towing expense of $1k+ out of pocket if something bad happens and will be at the mercy of when they decide to show up?  Am assuming most are not comfortable with having their cars towed to nearest auto repair place.

[98SVT - was 06GT]

You can join Auto Club without their insurance. Their Plus level ($88) gets you 100 miles - Premier 200 (once) then 100 mile.
Standard membership only gets you 7 miles. We've had Auto Club for years just for the DMV services and never used our towing.
Sometimes when you get towing with your insurance you have to pay then submit your bill for reimbursement.

[SAM83]

Thanks for the heads up on Auto Club! I will definitely check them out. Am assuming they enlist local towing services which is better than AAA.

[69 GT350 Vert]

Heacock classic charges me $25/vehicle for towing and emergency expense, but has a $200 limit.  It's important to make sure the towing company will send a flatbed. 

That sounds like a really stressful event. The homeless people and door opening into your car.  You must have tremendous patience because that would not have ended well for many other people, myself included.  I've had people park near my Shelby and if they look questionable I have stood next to their car door before they open it to prevent a door ding.  It's ok they thought I was crazy. I have also taken everything out of my trunk to reserve space near my Shelby when I had car trouble once in a shopping center lot. 

[sd427]

Thanks for the heads up on Auto Club! I will definitely check them out. Am assuming they enlist local towing services which is better than AAA.

"Auto Club" and "AAA" normally refer to the same company.

[ChicagoChris]

When I lived in the People's Republic of Chicago I had AAA Premuim coverage and they were great. My CSX Cobra broke down twice and they towed it home once and to the shop the next time no questions. I now live in America (Indiana) and have Hagerty Driver's Club which has 100 mile towing for less than $100 a year. Thank goodness I haven't needed towing so can't comment on their responsiveness.
Regarding door dings, I've shown my cars at a some higher end events and always stand between me and the people with dogs, strollers, coffee, big watches and cigars. One stroller welding, coffee holding, dog on a leash lady got her shirt all wadded up under her arms as I follwed her around my Aston Martin. Her comment of 'I'm not going to hurt your fancy car' was met with "I know your not."  I call car show damage "avoidable accidents" and don't mind if I offend folks who don't respect other people's property.   


Emergency roadside services
Hagerty Membership includes emergency roadside assistance for all your household classic and collector cars.

24/7 towing service with soft nylon straps

Unlimited service requests for things like lock-outs, jump-starts and fuel delivery

Up to 100 miles of towing included each time you need emergency roadside service

$100 toward emergency roadside services per occurrence

[69 GT350 Vert]

Hagerty's Drivers Club looks like you still have to pay up to $350 for a tow on top of the annual cost. 

[98SVT - was 06GT]

..... comment of 'I'm not going to hurt your fancy car' was met with "I know your not."  I call car show damage "avoidable accidents" and don't mind if I offend folks who don't respect other people's property.

COCOA was invited to do an inside carshow at Montclair Plaza. Jim and Cheryl Wallace brought their 1 of 12 Ferrari RHD 275 GTC LeMans car. He looked over and a guy had come inside the ropes and was watching his his kid play vroom vroom in the drivers seat. I was impressed the guy didn't leave by ambulances. Jim walked up to him and complimented him on the car. He said "oh it's not mine". Which was the perfect opening line for the tirade on respecting peoples property that followed. I'm certain the kid learned a lesson that his parent's hadn't taught him.

https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/mo21/monterey/lots/r0177-1966-ferrari-275-gtb-competizione-by-scaglietti/1133313

[KR Convertible]

I am self insured for towing.  I have 2 sons that are driving age and 2 trailers, one open, one enclosed.  If I call, one of them better come running!

I only had to have the Shelby towed once, before my boys were old enough to drive.  It was when I first got it, and didn't know it had a repro fuel sending unit.  Found out the hard way it will run out at 1/4 tank.  Yup, has a NOS sending unit now.

When the flatbed arrived, the driver pulled out his big metal hooks and chains.  I had to stop him and explain that every part under the car was finished correctly and would be scratched.  He was cooperative and used straps, so I tipped him $100 when he got it home just before the thunderstorm we were trying to outrun.

[SAM83]

It looks like Auto Club is AAA.  Am wondering why with a fleet of tow trucks typically in major areas it took so long?  They assign a truck to you and a tracking map so you know where they are.  The truck was over 100 miles away.  We call the guy after 3 hours and he says he's an hour out but he's going to stop for dinner even though we can see on the map he's still over 100 miles away in Turlock.

I have Heacock and ran into the $200 mile thing.  That gets chewed up apparently in 5 miles. The frustrating thing was that I'd just received a letter from them stating if I needed towing to call the number provided in the letter. Had the letter with me, called number and there was no answer.  Had to call the claims department where I was able to talk to an agent.  Their towing is only good if you break down 5 miles from a trusted shop or your home.

With the experience we had I'd say what I wanted the most was to get the car on a flatbed ASAP. If I can do that and also have it be affordable would have been a dream.

The Ferrari and Aston Martin stories tell you all you need to know about people even though you'd think at a car show there would be a little more respect.  I live one stop sign and a stop light away from miles of open northern CA foothill roads, so taking car on the freeway to get into a congested area is almost too nerve wracking. There is one restaurant with outdoor seating in a very small gold rush town near home where I'll park my car far out in the parking lot away from all cars and I can see the entire time.

I don't think the family thought I was being patient as it took me time to walk the distance to discover that they had lucked out by contacting the door handle instead of the paint.  I hadn't run out of choice words and could have kept on going. Even if it was a 2000 Toyota Corolla, the lack of respect for someone else's property is amazing.

[Side-Oilers]

"...the lack of respect for someone else's property is amazing."

SAM83, you summed up today's world perfectly.  I'd like to think that the elderly parents in the Corolla would've had more common sense and courtesy than they did, but then I remind myself it's 2024, not 1964 or '74 or even '84 or '94, and my head shakes "oh yeah." 

We've probably all had the situation where we park out in the BF Egypt region of a giant parking lot, only to return to find one or more not just regular cars, but big bro-dozer trucks, parked right next to us.

I truly don't understand that mentality. It's a 100-yard walk away from the store's front doors, and there are a hundred open spaces much closer than where I'm parked, but it still happens more often than not. 

Are these people spacially/dimensionally-challenged and can't estimate distances, or do they do it on purpose to piss-off us nice-car owners?

Or, do they just think their vehicle is safer when it's parked next to me?  (It undoubtedly is, but please leave me at least a half-space clearance on all sides, guys.)

As for car insurance, I've had AAA since 1974 (50 years...yikes!) and Hagerty for about 25-30 years.  Never had to make a claim at Hagerty, and only once with AAA (my bitchin car stereo and Recaro seats were stolen. They paid off, no problem.)

As for towing, I've never used Hagerty.  I was a member there for couple years, then figured that it kinda duplicated my AAA towing (with my Premiere level AAA membership.) The AAA towing (always a flatbed, no exceptions, I'll wait the extra time to send one) has 90% been a pretty good experience, with only a couple a-hole drivers over the years.

What I do now, is to not only emphasize over the phone to the AAA person how expensive and rare and perfect my car is, then I repeat that to the driver when I call him en route (always ask the dispatcher for the tow driver's name and cell number.)  Once he shows up, I do a walk-around with him and chat him up to hopefully get him interested in the car and will treat it nice. Then, I'll pull out a $50 or $100 (depending on the car, the urgency, danger of the situation, etc. ) and ask him to please take great care of my baby. That seems to be the charm. Cash still works!

[SAM83]

Thanks Side-Oilers!  All great suggestions.

I will find extended towing coverage and start taking some large bills with me to ensure safe delivery of vehicle if this ever happens again.

Another thing that might help would be to caravan to the event.  My brother has a '67 Shelby and is too afraid to drive it.  I tell him what's the point of owning the car if you're not going to drive it? especially at this point in life.  It's not like it's going to accompany you to whatever might be ahead of you once your ashes are scattered to the wind.

Have registered for the same event again this year and am looking forward to it. 

[KR Convertible]

Did you figure out why it let you sit?

[SAM83]

Great question. I'll post the sequence of events as I'm still unsure because of the plausibility of what may have happened.

Decided to top off gas tank just prior to entering event as I'd run it down to half a tank on trip there.

BTW it was running great up to this point.

5-6 miles into return trip home I accelerated to pass another car on freeway and it started sputtering and running rough. Within less than a mile I was searching for an off ramp.  The car died on frontage road just off of the freeway exit.  Managed to start it by pushing gas pedal to the floor to get another 100 yards into the parking lot where it would no longer start. Blew the fuel filter out but didn't appear to be clogged.

Parked in back garage when we got it home and didn't want to look at it for a couple of months while recovering from PTSD due to the event.

First thought was maybe the carb power valve went bad and was passing gas and flooding. So replaced that and the carb needle and seat even though the fuel levels in primary and secondary bowls were good and no gas was coming out of the overflow tube.

Mechanic friend came by and he suggested that the fuel that had been put in the car just before going into car show might be bad so we drained the tank, flushed the fuel lines and replaced with fresh premium fuel.  He determined that the tank had been contaminated with diesel and suggested that the service station had put diesel in the premium storage tank.

Plugs were fouled so replaced and also changed oil out as I still wasn't sure if excessive gas was passing into cylinders.

Car started but was still missing a little and backfiring in tail pipe under load.  Figured one of the cylinders wasn't igniting and in addition to main problem I'd developed another during the troubleshooting process.  Replaced the distributor cap, rotor, and plug wires and now car runs great.

Between replacing the power valve and draining the gas tank it fixed the problem.  I'm leaning towards the power valve but mechanic friend insists on there being diesel in the fuel tank.  Was a shot gun approach. 

A bonus from this exercise is that now I have 12 gallons of gas to use on my burn piles I use to dispose of vegetation. 
 

[KR Convertible]

Wow!  That sucks.  Too bad it was so long ago.  Maybe you could get them to pay the bill if you found others that had the same problem.

Is the car new to you?  Mine was nothing but trouble when I bought it.  It was concours restored, but never dialed in to be driven.  I pulled my hair out for the first couple of years.  I didn't trust the car at all.  I finally broke down and went through the motor myself and was amazed at all the major issues I found.  Now, I finally trust the car.  I still get nervous sitting in traffic, but that's about it.