I ran a project, previous life, on how to improve motorcycle recovery experience. 6 months later and only outcome was specialist recovery vans. You simply can't make them pay back on a national level Flat bed with a pierced dolly it is then
I had a bike go wrong just south of Grenoble , hired a van a brought it home myself. There's a bit more to this storey but I can't be arsed to tell today . Always this option ,motto if you want done properly do it yourself
Buy one of these and tow it round with you, then the next time it breaks down you can simply put the bike inside ready for the AA to tow you home, or just have a kip in it till it stops raining.
I ended up listening to all you guys and had Ducati assistance pick the bike up on Saturday morning at 10.00am they had a specialist trailer that had an adapter for bikes. The only problem was that it was a struggle to find tie down points on the panigale and the trained AA guy just couldn't believe how all the usual tie down points are enclosed. He ended up getting it done in a fashion but advised that he was only doing part of the journey as he has a 100mile radius . The second AA truck was meeting him at a service station . I received a call on Saturday at 5.30pm telling me that they had missed the window to deliver the bike and would be delivered Monday. The bike would be dropped of at some storage depot!! Wonderful !!
Hope you had photos before they took it. AA don't have storage yards, they use agent depots. Get the dealer to give a very close inspection when it arrives and tell them not to sign as accepted until they have!
This reminds me of when my 748S had to go back to the main dealer after the engine dropped a valve destroying half of it. The bike was only a few months old and had only done 500 miles. Id only ever riden it in the dry. Rang up Ducati to make the warranty claim and they said "no problem, we will send one of our specialist recovery people out to transport it to your local main dealer". No problem I thought. Sat there watching the rain outside, waiting for what I was expecting to be AA / RAC or even a transit van specialist bike transporter.... and suddenly some ancient rusty old Discovery with knackered suspension starts reversing some car trailer down my drive. I assumed it was some local farmer who had got lost, but no, turns out its the "ducati specialist recovery" person! They just out-sourced it to whoever was local & available. After watching him ratcheting the bike down on the trailer in the rain and him not being sure of how to get the bike on the trailer in the first place, I was a bit wary of letting my nearly new bike out of my sight let alone trust it to someone who looked like they would be more placed collecting scrap metal. In the end I persuaded the guy to let me come with him to drop it off just in case anything happened. Turned out the Discovery was so knackered he couldnt do more than about 35mph and it took us hours to get to the main dealer. Bike arrived soaked in the rain, but at least it was in one piece.
Rabbitstew, what was the name of the contractor that picked you up? Normally the larger clubs, AA, RAC, Green Flag etc expect their agents to be certified to particular standards, ISO 9001:2008 (quality) PAS43 2015 (recovery) . One of the requirements is making sure vehicles are fit for their intended use, but the problem is with some of these agents is they just want to get out there and do there work and dont give a monkey's about standards meaning they will use any old vehicle sometimes to pick your vehicle up.
Transpired it was some ram shackle local garage one-man-band from what I could gather. From what he was saying, you put your name down as a local breakdown in the area and if they need someone they give you a call.
