5 days ago
I broke down on the Nullarbor and learnt a lesson about tow trucks and insurance
It happened. My worst nightmare. Our car broke down in the middle of nowhere on a sweltering 45-degree day en route across the Nullarbor. Our panting dog relegated to the back seat, the roadside gravel too hot for her paws.
In the company of 40,000 flies for the first few hours, two passers-by stopped to offer help. Two tattooed, shaved-head men with hands like hammers emerged from their ute and could have passed as extras in 'Prison Break'. I was terrified we'd end up being a statistic, while my husband's accent become more ocker as he chatted engine troubles.
A bushy-bearded truckie was next, telling me that he did a u-turn further up the highway in his road train to come back to see if we needed water. We didn't. Our car and car fridge were fully stocked. We'd only left Perth about four hours earlier, embarking on our first road trip across Australia to see my parents who live 4,400 kilometres away on the Coffs Coast.
The ground was too hot for my dog's feet. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
In somewhat of a blessing, I had two bars of mobile coverage, so I called RAC, grateful that we'd taken out the top Ultimate Plus roadside insurance. While waiting for the RAC assessor, the prison-break guys, who turned out to be diesel mechanics, plugged a computer into our Ford Ranger and confirmed that no faults were showing, but also that no fuel was reaching the engine.
When I relayed this information to RAC - 'it's a fuel pump issue, we need a tow truck, not an assessor' - that I learnt my first lesson of what you need to do when you break down.
RAC agreed to send a tow truck, but what RAC didn't tell me earlier, during business hours, was that we were responsible for finding a place to tow our car to for repairs. Also, we were responsible for finding our own accommodation. With country businesses well and truly closed and the sky getting darker, I was lucky to catch the manager of what I call the Murder Scene Motel who said that keys would be left in the key box for a dog-friendly room, ready whenever we arrived. Relief, we had a place to stay, assuming we could get there.
We eventually learned we had a fuel injector problem. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
It gets worse. While waiting, a thunderstorm struck, freaking out the dog and soaking us as we tried to get the tight canopy back over the jam-packed ute tray.
Then, when the tow truck finally arrived, he wouldn't let our scared little westie sit in his cabin, so she had to stay in our ute on the tilt tray, on her own, during a storm, for the hour-long trip to the Murder Scene Motel.
The next important lesson is to know the difference in kinds of tows. The stay-and-repair tow is when your car is towed to a mechanic and insurance covers the cost of the tow and accommodation on a day-by-day basis up to the value of $180 per night, capped at $1,260. Which is fine if your car can actually be repaired. Ours could not. Despite waiting for parts and repairs for a new fuel pump, we were stranded in a wheatbelt town for five long, hot days immediately before Christmas, without a car.
Little did we know, after getting picked up our problems were just beginning. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
If we'd chosen a recovery tow, our car could have been towed back home, or to our onward destination up to the value of $7,000 which must also cover the tow-truck's return leg. Where would that get us? Frustratingly, RAC could not answer that, but they confirmed it wouldn't cover 4,000 kilometres to the Coffs Coast.
After much arguing and guilt-tripping pleas of 'It's Christmas!' RAC agreed to change our tow from a stay-and-repair to a recovery tow and transport our car back to Perth with two conditions; we paid for our accommodation, and we organised an accredited tow truck driver because, two days before Christmas, the only tow truck in town had already knocked off for the year.
See also: 13 dumb mistakes Aussie caravanners make
AAA Towing came to the rescue, sending a quote to RAC straight away for approval and deploying a tow truck from Perth within the hour. AAC Towing explained that tow trucks generally charge $5 per kilometre for a recovery tow, so $7,000 of coverage is 1,400-kilometre return trip.
The final problem? A $20 fuse that the mechanic didn't replace when fitting the new fuel pump.
Originally published as My Nullarbor nightmare: I broke down on a 45 degree day in the desert
