Need Advice - Quite Urgently - Insurance / Breakdown, etc

[Gazz]

As some of you will know I broke down recently in the Czech Republic while on a tour of Europe (see Touring forum).

I called my Breakdown Cover and they got someone to come and uplift the bike and take it to a garage.

Then over the course of 3 days they managed to get me and my pillion home, via 3 plane journeys and 7 taxis.

The breakdown cover now want me to pay £200 for a Czech mechanic to have a look at the bike and diagnose a problem with it and then make me pay for the cost to sort it and send me back to collect the bike and ride it home.

They are refusing to send the bike home broken because they say it will cost more than sending me back for it once it has been repaired.

However, so far, they have spent money on:

A taxi journey to hotel.
A 3* Star Hotel For the night.
A taxi to Airport.
A taxi to another Hotel.
Another hotel for the night.
Another taxi journey (2 hours) back to Airport.
Flight from Ostrava - Vienna
Flight from Vienna - Brussels
Flight from Brussels - Edinburgh
Taxi from Edinburgh - Home (1 hour).

They also fucked up our flights the first time they sent us to the airport. (The route was supposed to be Ostrava-Prague-Amsterdam-Glasgow).

Due to something going wrong we didn't get the first flight from Ostrava - Prague and subsequently missed the connecting flights. This small flight from 1 side of the Czech Republic to the other side of the country would have cost £500 !!! - Money wasted.

Personally I think it will be something major wrong with the bike (possibly needing a new engine), and will cost a fair amount to repair.

The bike is only worth £2000 max, and to be honest I dont want to spend anymore money on it. What if I couldn't afford to pay the cost of getting the bike repaired ? What would happen then ?

I have just spend £500 getting an oil and water leak repaired before we went away.

Is there anyway around this problem ?

How much do you think it would cost to send the bike back ?

Would it be feasible to hire a van and go back and pick it up ?

What would happen if I just left the bike there ?

Need some advice guys, and quick as well - this is starting to depress me a wee bit.


Cheers in advance.

[JP7]

I'll play devil's advocate and suggest that your breakdown company has worked quite hard for you, by the sounds of it.

I would probably recommend you get the bike back to England somehow, there will inevitably be a language barrier when the Czech mechanic tells you that the "thingummybob" is broken... hiring a van to fetch it back sounds like the best option. Perhaps the breakdown company will pay for that instead of flying you back? I think you're opening yourself up to some major costs if you leave it there, or if you get it couriered back.

Good luck getting it sorted, mate.

[Hazylogic]

Surely the point of breakdown cover is so you don't have to pay for all this bollocks? I'd wager that from the x amount that have breakdown cover, only a small amount have ever used it. My point being: they are raking it in and so they should be paying the czech mechanic to fix it.

[Pedantic mode on] Gazz would need it sending to Scotland, not England. [/Pendantic mode off]

[iooi]

Dig out the T/C of the cover you took out.

So far you have done very well out of the premium you paid. So they messed up on a flight... Could you have done any better ? They got you home in 3 days

I'm surprised that they did not get the bike looked at before they brought you home in case it was fixable and you could have then ridden it back.

Might be worth while talking to them and coming to a agreement to go and get the bike.
Just remember its not that easy to hire a van to go in europe, as it is to stay in the UK.
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