Please Re-Register To Access All Our Forums New Features on RV-Living Forum
Post all your RV questions or comments on RV Forum
Saferide Motor Club provides roadside assitance to both Escapees and FMCA. At the Escapades in Tucson I attended the presentation by Saferide regarding their offering of the Escapees Roadside Assitance policy. I attended because I had been hearing users were having problems getting resolution with roadside problems. During the presentation I was dismayed at the lack of empathy I precieved by their representative toward the audience. Because of his presentation I declined to buy the policy.
My Good Sam policy is now coming up for renewal and I am wondering if there are still problems with how Saferide is responding to Escapees in need on the road. I know people have had issues with Good Sam, but since I have not yet needed to use it I am wondering if I should keep Good Sam, or if I should switch to the Escapees policy because of the price differential.
Bottome line: what are some of the experiences people have had with using the Escapees Roadside Assitance policy?
OK as I understand it all of these ERS services work exactly the same. They contract out to local tow services. Selecting enough to get complete national service coverage. In their opinion. I'm fairly sure they put it out to bid and select the low bidder in each service area. How else could they do it, it's obviously cost prohibitive to send out an army of tow truck evaluators to cover the whole country.
The only way I can see that one service can distinguish itself from the pack is to shrink the service areas and contract out to more locals. And maybe they could be ready to pull the plug on a local with complaints, quicker than the other ERS operators. But otherwise how can one be different than others.
Of course they can offer different levels of service, longer tow distances, cover all the families vehicles or not. But in the basic service they are all the same. Good local the ERS gets praise, bad local the ERS gets the blame.
I saw this after I bought a fiver from GS, they gave me a year of GS ERS but I had a year of Coachnet already so we were double covered. Out on an interstate in Arkansas that summer we got a flat. I called GS ERS, realty irritaing trying to tell the phone operator that we were X number of miles from Y exit. She just could not deal with a rural location, and that is one problem we always have with those people.
Wait 90 minutes no help after several calls they tell use sorry we do NOT HAVE a tow truck operator near there!! Called Coachnet some guy in a pickup with a generator and air pump in back shows up and changes the tire within 30 minutes.
GS went with thin coverage, Coachnet did not. I got back and complained bitterly on RV.NET and I have to give that to GS, they have people monitoring that site and I got a private reply giving me Another unwanted year of GS ERS. And a public apology form some GS Veep. I wish I could stick with Coachnet but they vanished from availability.
Bottome line: what are some of the experiences people have had with using the Escapees Roadside Assitance policy?
Since you haven't really had any answers to your question, I'll report what I know. I have had both Good Sam ERS and Coach Net in the past for more than 10 years each. In those years I did have a fuel delivery once & a jump start once from GS and then after changing to Coach Net had 1 winch-out and 1 tow to a shop from Coach Net. I also used the Coach Net technical advice by phone 1 time. I changed to Escapees/Safe Ride about a year ago, mostly due to the cost. Since Escapees linked with Safe Ride, I recall one report on the forums of some service not paid for (I can't remember the details) which was resolved after Escapee management got involved that was reported nearly a year before we changed to Escapee road service and following that (also before we changed) there was another thread on the subject where several reports were posted of satisfactory or better service. It was only then that I made the change but to date I have had no need to use the service at all. With the association having now existed for something over 2 years, one would think that there should be a few reports, but there doesn't seem to be, at least on these forums.
When I analyze my road service experience, it could easily be that I may never actually use it so the lack of replies probably doesn't mean nobody here has gone to it, but only that they have not yet had to use it.
GS does not have their own ERS organization. They currently contract with the Allstate Motor Club for their rebranded plan. That contract expires this year though, and I haven't seen anything about a renewal or extension so far.
I wish I could stick with Coachnet but they vanished from availability.
Could you explain, please? I've heard nothing about CoachNet going out of business.
I don't know where Coach-Net might have disappeared from, but they're still alive and well on the net and currently pushing for my renewal... 
I wish I could stick with Coachnet but they vanished from availability.
If you mean that they are no longer on the Escapees endorsed products list, then you are correct. If you mean to say that Coach Net is no longer in business, then you are mistaken. The reason that I changed from Coach Net to Escapees Safe when renewal oBy f my Coach Net was increased from $120/year to $249/year. By changing to Escapees/Safe Ride I am paying $99/year.
Could you explain, please? I've heard nothing about CoachNet going out of business.
Last time I looked you could not buy Coachnet independently you had to join some club, was it FMCA? That was five years ago or so. Maybe they reverted but I haven't seen one of their tables at RV shows like you could before the change.
FMCA is associated with Safe Ride, the same service as Escapees. Coach Net was an endorsed company by Escapees but you were never able to buy their policy through Escapees, like we do with Safe Ride. I have been a Coach Net customer for about 10 years until 2011 when we dropped it because we were off of the road for health reasons for 2+ years. I picked it back up in 2014 and was a customer of Coach net until last March when I changed to Escapees/Saferide.
If you follow the link in my previous post you will find that they are still in business today and available online.
Edited October 19 by Kirk W
Last time I looked you could not buy Coachnet independently you had to join some club, was it FMCA? That was five years ago or so. Maybe they reverted but I haven't seen one of their tables at RV shows like you could before the change.
We buy our Coachnet directly without being members of any club. We've had multiple excellent experiences with Coachnet and my perspective is that, as in most things, "you get what you pay for."
Well as I said that was awhile ago, and I haven't checked since. We had CN and it was about to expire and we had no renewal requests from them. I went on the net and the only place I could find it was in the FMCA and I 'assumed' you had to join FMCA which I had no plans on doing. At the time I think they were still coach only and we were towables.
But if that's changed I'll certainly look when my GS policy runs out in late spring 2020. I renewed GS as the path of least resistance this year since they offered a very low price. But I prefer CN or maybe Escapee.
I have FMCA ERS through SafeRide. I sat down tonight to self-educate myself of details of the plan, and found this pdf document, which has some troublesome reading on the last page about some things I thought were fully-covered by the plan. "Be sure to ask if there are additional charges for:• Simply coming out to your RV•Mileage costs, and if so, where do they begin and end•Disconnecting the driveshaft or removing the half shafts•Hourly charges for services rendered on site".
Edited November 1 by Ray,IN
I get a 404 error trying to access the document.
I get a 404 error trying to access the document.
RE: the pdf doc Ray submitted.
I forgot, an FMCA member must be signed in to view documents. Here is the last part of the document, which is hard to locate on their website. If you do sign-in, here is that pdf web address: https://www.fmca.com/pdfs/roadside/roadside_checklist.pdf
"Know Your Equipment, Depending on the type of RV you have, there may be mechanical items that need to be accessed, disconnected, or removed before the RV can be serviced.• If your RV is equipped with air brakes, make sure you can show the tow truck operator where the access point to your air system is located• Know the make & model of your transmission, whether it’s an automatic or manual, and whether the vehicle is equipped with a driveshaft or half shafts Know the Cost, You’ve already had enough surprises for one day, don’t let your final bill be a surprise either. Be sure to ask if there are additional charges for:• Simply coming out to your RV•Mileage costs, and if so, where do they begin and end•Disconnecting the driveshaft or removing the half shafts•Hourly charges for services rendered on site".
Leave a reply
