We broke down on the M4 in a dangerous place where we were unable to get out of our car. On phoning the helpline I was informed there was a ' issue ' with my membership which may take some time to sort out, and the assistant suggested we phone the Police. The police got us off the motorway after about half an hour to a service station lorry area. The RAC rang me back after another couple of calls to them, and said that they were very busy but someone should be with us in 45 mins. One hour passed and we rang again to discover that they had assigned a recovery vehicle from another company they use ( on the M3 ) to transport us the 40 miles to a destination of our choice and he should be with us within the hour. That hour came and went, and eventually a very nice chap arrived, loaded us onto a transporter and took us home ( this was the only option by now at this time of evening with luggage and dogs onboard ) the following morning I phoned the RAC again to ask them to send an engineer to confirm the vehicle could not be fixed on site, as per my contract with them, as they had not sent us an mechanic the previous day and I wanted to make sure I did everything by the book. The mechanic confirmed that it was a fault he could not fix and ithe car would have to go to a garage. I asked said RAC mechanic if the garage I usually used was ok to take it to as it says in the terms and conditions that we had to get it fixed by an ' approved garage ', he said it was, and even knew some of the guys there who he had worked/trained with. I then confirmed with the garage that we would be taking the car to them and arranged for them to send a lowloader to collect it, which we now had to pay for because we had had our allocated ' 1 tow '. The car has been fixed and RAC has agreed to give us £40 towards the cost of the second transport as a goodwill gesture ! ......They are however, unwilling to pay anything for the garage costs, which we have paid cover for, because we did not take it to the local 'RAC' approved garage. I thought I had covered this with my conversation with the mechanic ! Apparently not ! After some more lengthy conversations with people at the RAC, I discover that the closest 'RAC' approved garage to me, does not have VAG approval and would therefore have damaged our Audi's record and value if it were worked on by them. They are also renowned in this area for being cowboys. As it has become apparent that the £83.99 paid for garage parts and labour are totally is totally useless to us. They are not willing to give any refund for this part of our policy despite the fact that we are not even 1/4 of the way through it. I wish I had never left the AA, which I had been with for over 25 years. Never again will I listen to the male members of my family who told me AA were charging too much. When we were waiting in that service station last week, we met a lady who was also waiting to be rescued. Her loader arrived ( from the same company contracted to do it as the one for us ) before ours, and she had only waited an hour in all...she was with the AA....need I say more !