Advice

Best breakdown service in 2026? Major breakdown providers reviewed and rated

Modern cars are pretty reliable, but a breakdown can be a costly nuisance if your luck runs out. Here’s how the leading recovery services stack up

Best breakdown service warning triangle

‘Failure to proceed’ is a very polite way of describing when your car breaks down, but when it happens, refined language might not be your natural inclination. Thankfully, getting stranded at the roadside (or at home) when your car lets you down is a fairly rare occurrence these days.

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Data on breakdown company callouts from the latest What Car? Reliability Survey, conducted in association with MotorEasy, show that 16% of the UK’s cars needed to be recovered in 2025, up from 10.9% the previous year. That means British drivers experienced 5,536,000 breakdowns in 2025 alone – a leap of 1,764,600 over the previous year.

One reason for the increase in car failures is the condition of the UK’s roads. Damage caused by potholes – such as broken suspension springs, buckled wheels and damaged shock absorbers – accounted for 26,048 RAC call-outs in 2025, a 15% rise on the 22,703 cases in 2024.

Claire Evans

Updated: 23 December 2025

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While most new cars come with several years’ breakdown cover (typically for the duration of their new car warranty), drivers are being urged to check their level of cover to ensure they’re not left stranded. But which breakdown provider should you choose? Our guide to the best breakdown services reveals all.

Where to buy breakdown cover

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The policies you'll read about on this page can be purchased online or are provided on behalf of your car's manufacturer.

You can also buy breakdown cover via My What Car?, a new, free service aimed at helping you organise your motoring life. By registering with My What Car? you can access a wide range of products and services, as well as set up reminders so you don't miss any important motoring dates. Registration is quick and simple.

Which breakdown service is the fastest?

When it comes to reaching stranded vehicles the quickest, AutoAid comes out on top. According to our survey data, it reached 24% of stranded cars in less than half an hour, and it reached another 54% in between 30 minutes and an hour. Just 7% of its customers had to wait more than two hours for assistance.

Unlike the other brands in our round-up, AutoAid offers cover for the individual rather than for the car they own or are travelling in. AutoAid is part of the same company as Autonational, which offers vehicle and personal policies, but we didn’t have enough data to include this company in our rankings.

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Autoaid used to differ from other providers in that the customer had to pay the local recovery operator up front and then claim the money back from the insurer. However, this arrangement was scrapped some years ago (2017), so no up-front payment is now required.

Best breakdown service car at roadside

AXA, which previously offered only a white- label breakdown service and launched its third-party offering in 2024, wasn’t far behind. Its operatives arrived at 30% of breakdowns in less than 30 minutes. A greater percentage of its customers (42%) had to wait for between 30 minutes and an hour, but – with only 7% of drivers having to wait more than two hours – its overall response rate is the second best here.

At the other end of the scale, 34% of RAC patrols took more than two hours to arrive at the scene, and only 13% arrived in less than 30 minutes. The brand’s overall rate for arriving within an hour was 43%, the lowest among the nine companies in our survey.

Allianz didn’t fare much better; in fact, its 30-minute response rate of just 11% is the slowest here. However, it reached 37% of customers in 30 minutes to an hour, and that means it places slightly higher than the RAC.

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Provider

Up to 30 min

30min-1hr

1-2 hrs

2hrs+

AXA

30.3%

42.1%

21.1%

6.6%

AutoAid

23.5%

54.4%

14.7%

7.4%

20.1%

40.2%

23.8%

15.9%

Green Flag

17.6%

48.6%

21.5%

12.0%

RAC

12.9%

30.5%

22.7%

33.9%

Start Rescue

15.8%

50.9%

17.5%

15.8%

Britannia Rescue

14.7%

48.5%

23.5%

13.2%

Emergency Assist

20.0%

28.9%

26.7%

24.4%

Allianz/AWP

11.2%

36.8%

33.6%

18.4%

Which breakdown service is best at fixing cars?

According to our data, AXA’s fleet of local and national independent patrols is doing a great job. They permanently fixed 46% of customers’ cars when called out, and they performed temporary fixes on a further 36%. Only 4% of vehicles attended to were neither fixed nor towed for further attention.

While the AA didn’t permanently repair as many cars (36%) as AXA, its patrols were able to temporarily repair 29% of cars, meaning the service enabled 66% of its customers to carry on with their journeys.

At the other end of the scale, Allianz’s patrols made permanent fixes on only 14% of its customers’ vehicles, and temporary repairs on 27% (total repaired 42%). It towed 48% of cars to a garage or other location, but more than 10% of vehicles were left without a tow or a repair.

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Britannia Rescue’s patrols were able to permanently repair 28% of cars, but the proportion of vehicles patched up temporarily was just 12%, giving the organisation the lowest overall fix rate: 40%. Recovery rates were better, though; 57% of cars were towed for repair, and only 3% of customers were left with no fix or tow, placing Britannia Rescue just above AXA in this regard.

Provider

Perm fix

Temp fix

Towed

Not towed

AXA

46.1%

35.5%

14.5%

3.9%

AutoAid

26.5%

33.8%

35.3%

4.4%

36.4%

29.2%

26.0%

8.3%

Green Flag

32.5%

23.3%

39.2%

4.6%

RAC

34.3%

27.1%

25.5%

13.0%

Start Rescue

26.3%

28.1%

38.6%

7.0%

Britannia Rescue

27.9%

11.8%

57.4%

2.9%

Emergency Assist

40.0%

13.3%

37.8%

8.9%

Allianz/AWP

14.4%

27.2%

48.0%

10.4%

Which is the best breakdown service overall?

With the best score for repairing cars at the roadside and four stars for speed of arrival, AXA comes out on top overall. Its recovery operators performed permanent or temporary fixes on 82% of the cars they attended, and operatives reached 72% of stranded customers in less than an hour.

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AutoAid claims second place; it reached more customers in an hour or less (78%) than any other firm in our survey. However, its technicians were able to perform roadside repairs on only 60% of the cars they attended.

That’s still miles better than Allianz managed, though; its operatives made only 42% of cars mobile again, and they took longer than an hour to arrive at 52% of breakdowns.

Faring only slightly better is Emergency Assist, which got only 53% of cars back on the move and made 51% of stranded motorists wait more than an hour for assistance.

Provider

Time score

Quality score

Overall score

AXA

AutoAid

Green Flag

RAC

Start Rescue

Britannia Rescue

Emergency Assist

Allianz/AWP

What’s the best-value breakdown cover?

To compare the providers of breakdown cover in terms of value for money, we compared the costs of policies from 14 suppliers. We opted for the cheapest local and national cover that each provider offered, as well as their most affordable policies that include home start.

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Cover my Breakdown is the cheapest company across all the different levels of cover, closely followed by Rescuemycar.

There are a lot of anomalies with the scope of breakdown cover, including those concerning the age of the car covered, the maximum number of passengers that can be transported, the mileage limit of the local policy and the cost of certain common problems, such as lost keys or misfuelling.

Best breakdown service roadside recovery

We checked these and found that both of the cheapest providers offer cover for cars up to 21 years old, and neither charges for assistance if you put the wrong fuel in your car and haven’t started the engine.

Rescuemycar’s local policy covers breakdowns that happen only between one and 10 miles from your home, while Cover my Breakdown will attend callouts up to 25 miles away. Cover my Breakdown will transport only the driver and up to four passengers, while other policies cover up to six passengers.

AutoAid’s policy is fairly restrictive on vehicle age, covering cars only up to 15 years old and charging an additional callout fee of £25 for vehicles more than 10 years old, while Autonational and Rescuemycar charge £12 and £20 respectively for key cover. Our top-rated provider, AXA, offers cheap cover that’s reasonably comprehensive. Its policies cover misfuelling and its local cover provides assistance for breakdowns that occur up to 20 miles from the policyholder’s home.

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While the prices levied by the big names – such as the AA and RAC – are higher than those of lesser-known companies, they offer the peace of mind of in-house-trained patrols, who will attend breakdowns in liveried vehicles.

However, our research showed that the AA, Green Flag and the RAC alter their prices for vehicle cover, depending on the age and location of the person taking out the policy. With that in mind, if you are a younger car owner and/or live in a city centre, we’d recommend trying a few different ages and postcodes in the online quote system to check that you’re not paying over the odds.

Provider

Cheapest local cover

Cheapest national cover

Cheapest cover with home start

National and home start

National, accom and onward travel

£81

£116

131*

£167

£175

AutoAid**

n/a

£66

Autonational

£20

£27

£36

AXA

£29

£34

35*

£41

Cover my breakdown

£12

£16

£15

£12

Emergency Assist

£42

£50

£98

GEM Motoring Assist

n/a

£93

Green Flag

£52

£75

£73*

£77

Britannia

£33

£73

£66*

£102

Motoring Assistance

£45

£55

£50*

£60

£65

Qdos

£28

£35

£36*

£50

RAC

51***

£92

£111

£163

Rescuemycar

£28

£24

£39

£22

Start Rescue

£39

£47

£57

n/a

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* local cover
** cover for the person not the car
*** 5 callouts a year
Quotes are for a 40-year-old man, living in Bromley, Greater London, driving a 2020 Tesla Model 3 Long Range with 55,000 miles, unless otherwise stated

Which type of breakdown cover is best for you?

There are two main levels of breakdown cover: local and national. If you’re after the most affordable option, and you don’t frequently travel too far from home, local cover will be your best bet. Note, though, that it usually provides cover for only up to a 10-mile radius from your home, although some of the policies we examined will cover up to 25 miles. Local cover also doesn’t cover the car if you’re at home; some providers let you add home start, but others require you to change to often pricier national cover to get it.

Best breakdown service home start

As the name suggests, national cover means your car will be recovered to a location of your choice from almost anywhere in the UK if it can’t be fixed at the roadside. On top of this, you can get national coverage with onward travel, which will also provide things like overnight accommodation and a hire car if necessary.

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Breakdown policies can be bought for a specific car or for an individual. For households with only one car, it’s generally cheaper to buy car cover, but if you’re a two or three-car household, it might be more economical to buy cover for the main driver, because this will cover them in all your family’s vehicles, even if they’re not the registered owner.

How to choose the best breakdown cover – and how we rate them

When choosing between third-party breakdown policies, there’s a lot of variation in the standard of service, cost and level of cover provided, so you need to choose wisely. After all, if you pick a provider with a poor track record for reaching stranded vehicles (or a low rate of fixing them), a breakdown could seriously affect your plans.

Our survey data tells us that the speediest breakdown service provider reached nearly a third of callouts in 30 minutes or less, whereas the slowest took more than two hours to get to 34% of drivers.

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It’s a similar story with repairing cars at the roadside. The most proficient service performed a permanent fix on 46% of cars, enabling their drivers to carry on with their journeys. Contrastingly, the least helpful outfits not only left more than one in 10 cars immobile, but also failed to tow them anywhere for repair.

When it comes to pricing, policies range from as little as £12 a year for local cover to £175 for national cover with provision for a hire car and overnight accommodation if needed. As ever, the cheapest options might have limitations that don’t suit your needs, so it’s always worth checking the small print before you buy.

Best breakdown service car towed away

To work out which company provides the best breakdown cover, we assessed the responses of all our survey participants who told us their cars had broken down at least once. We asked them how long they had to wait for help to arrive and how good the service they received was, then we rated the companies based on these two factors. This enabled us to rank nine different recovery services, including well- known firms such as the AA and RAC.

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Many car brands have partnerships with breakdown service providers. Cover for Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, Skoda, Toyota and Volkswagen is provided by the AA, while Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan owners are served by the RAC, and BMW, Mazda, Renault and Volvo are looked after by Allianz. Where survey respondents couldn’t specify who provided their car’s complimentary cover, we allotted their responses to the relevant firm.

Allianz supplies cover only via car brands; consumers can’t buy cover from it directly. We’ve grouped responses for Allianz with those for third-party provider AWP, which is part of the Allianz Group.

Can I get my car serviced by my breakdown company?

According to research by the RAC, 27% of drivers think arranging maintenance for their car is a hassle. And the main bugbear of 68% of these drivers is the time it takes to get to and from the garage.

The research states that around 2.4 million drivers travel more than 20 miles to get their cars serviced, and many of them rely on someone giving them a lift to the garage or have to use public transport or a taxi to collect their car when it’s ready.

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There is another way, though. Two of the UK’s major breakdown service providers – the AA and RAC – introduced mobile servicing in 2023; this can be used whether you have a policy with them or not.

This means you can book one of their technicians to come and work on your car when and where it’s convenient for you.

Best breakdown service car bonnet up

Our survey data shows that both companies are in the top three for fixing faults on broken-down vehicles. And, with the technicians being trained in-house and employed directly by the respective firms rather than on a contracted basis, the quality of the work carried out and the expertise of the staff should be high.

Other benefits of these services are that the mobile mechanics can often offer next- day availability instead of the long lead times that drivers tell us can be an issue with franchised and independent garages.

The RAC claims its team of 300 technicians is the largest multi-skilled mobile mechanic workforce in the country. It completed 181,000 jobs in 2025 and deals with more than 4000 different types of complex repairs on location. These can include almost anything that doesn’t require a ramp, including work on brakes, batteries, alternators, starter motors and diesel particulate filters.

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The AA, meanwhile, has more than 200 mobile mechanics working across the UK. As well as routine servicing, its technicians offer a 30-minute diagnostic fault finder service to identify problems and recommend the most appropriate repairs.