No it is just not good enough to be kept in the dark.
Communication is vital.
Are you receiving whatās in your contract? Or are Pacifica falling short.
They have not explained exactly what is in the contract,
I am unable to understand contract Frenchā¦not good at learning.
However the whole process is so verbose and exhausting.
With lots of tel numbers to call which never get answered.
how about showing your contract to a helpful neighbour???
We are asking our neighbour to help he will let us know how he gets on in the morning.
We were travelling back from the Charente, and since it is rather a long way from home we stopped overnight at an isolated B&B down a series of farm tracks well outside Limoges. All very lovely, with our evening picnic bought in La Rochelle. Us and a few sheep.
Next morning, dead car. Not a squeak out of it. However we had signed up to Skoda Assist, who were wonderful. Although breakdown van couldnāt get up farm track so farmer had to go fetch the repairman and his tools. From our perspective the manufacturerās breakdown seems miles better than any insurance company.
Broke down in Granada a few years ago on the way back to France. MAIF were very good, organised a tow truck to take our van to a local garage, organised the repair and, in the meantime (it took several weeks), got us home with a hire car to Gerona, a night in a hotel there, then a taxi to Montpellier to get another hire car to get home. When the van was finally repaired, the MAIF paid for me to fly back to Granada via Paris and Madrid, and then a taxi to the garage to pick up the van so I could drive back home again. A bit epic, but fair play to the MAIF.
More recently, had a prang on New Yearās Eve in Ashford, UK, coming out of the hotel the day before I was due to head back to France. The car was totalled (literally undrivable), except neither AXA UK, nor AXA France, wanted to admit it until it had been seen by an expert on both sides of the channel. Had to haggle with the assistance to get back to France, with consequential baggage (the car was chock) which was of course impossible on New Yearās Day, and ended up having to stay 4 extra days at the hotel without a vehicle, before the assistance could get a flight from Gatwick to Lyon, then a hire car from Lyon to home, whilst attempting to make me fork out for the taxi to the airport (which I refused, and they then agreed to pay). I initially tried to get the insurance to agree to get a taxi to the ferry, and a hire car from Calais, which would have been much cheaper, but this was an absolute no go.
Meanwhile, the dead car sat in the UK in Gillingham for a month waiting to be expertly assessed, for me to learn in the end that it was a write off, but the French Axa was having none of it and forced me to organise repatriation to France to have it seen over here, which required me to go through the Paris office, as my local Axa office said that they didnāt handle international breakdowns and washed their hands of it. Two and a half months later, the French assessor came back with his report that the car was totalled ! In the meantime, I had to rent a replacement on my own dime. I was none too happy with the experience, as this was my business vehicle, and the local Axa was useless, despite them being the ones who had organised the contract in the first place, with me being particularly insistent on the fact that I drive my vehicles abroad quite a lot . This was well before Brexit, too.
When my new business vehicle came through, I changed to a different insurer, weāll see how well they fare if ever I need them.
TL:DR - MAIF very good, AXA very poor.
Sorry to keep labouring the point butā¦
another good reason for using @fabien for your insurance needs. All the policy conditions are laid out for you in English (although the actual policy will naturally be in French) and you are encouraged to challenge those bits you donāt understand.
That is the function and the difference between a broker ordinaire and a good broker
you pays your money and you takes your choiceā¦ As I said earlier, itās the difference between price and cost; the price may be low but the eventual cost may be high 
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Iām with Graham on this - and with @fabien as a consequence. I was surprised to find the recovery service auto-bundled with the ins policy but it is and it works.
One Sunday morning it trickled to a halt, stone dead in all depts, only 5kms from home
Despite being Sunday, the tow truck appeared in about 20 mins. And being Sunday, the car had to go back to the tow truck depot, the garages being all shut. The tow truck guy told me where he was going to drop the car, come Monday - just happened to be a garage recommended by my neighbour. A taxi took me home.
It was made mobile again by the replacement of a sensor - no fault with the engine, simply a duff sensor telling porkies but it went dead on me again - another Sunday, this time at 20:00 45 kms from home on the way back from Mt St Michel with my very first visitor.
This time, being way out in the countryside, it took about 1 hr for the truck to arrive. Again, being Sunday, it was dropped at the tow truck depot. We sat in it, waiting for a taxi. And waiting ā¦
The problem was that the two tow truck drivers were also the taxi service and they were out on calls all evening. Finally one of the tow trucks came in and the driver swapped to a car and took us home. We got in at 02:00.
It all worked perfectly well. None of it cost me anything and by replacing the other 3 sensors, the engine warning light problem has gone away and stayed away.
Usually these belts just come apart without warning and you lose your engine on account of all the valves doing their own thing, bouncing off the piston heads and generally causing max mayhem. Yours came up with a warning? Was that based on mileage since last belt replaced or something mechanical?
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Not entirely sure but I donāt think it was based on mileage. The error on the dashboard was very explicit - āstop immediately!ā - which made me think it was something mechanical.
Itās a Peugeot 3008, if that makes any difference 
Yes I am sure that Fabien is great but when you can have your bank and insurance co as a package it works well especially when there is a way of communicating in English when you are English. It is not just a language matter it is all about how different each step and move in life varies. Sometimes it seems that you are going through a maize. Getting out of the maize depends on how much energy you have.
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People only tend to post reviews when they have had an issue, happy people dont generally go on line to vent their spleen, so you get an unbalanced view of any service.
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As I have suggestedā¦ many (perhaps most) folk do not think about (or investigate) how the Breakdown Cover will actually work should they need to use itā¦
Itās clear that there are different levels of breakdown-service/activity offered to the Driverā¦ but when one is stuck with a broken-carā¦that is not (perhaps) the right time to find out just how limited the level of Service one has chosenā¦ actually is.
(OH has been gently asked to check our own policies, which are tucked at the back of the filing cabinetā¦)
Iād advise folk to check out their own vehicle policies and (if necessary) contact @fabien to discuss a quote or an upgrade etc etc if they so wish
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The word āPeugeotā makes the world of difference to many of us, me inc. The timing belt cannot have failed. When they do, thereās the unmistakable noise of an engine in self-destruct. Thereās no grace period - Bang! Belt gone. Boom! Rattle ! Crash! Engine gone.
My experience with the engine warning light in my 307HDi is that duff sensors sending out porkies are as likely to be the cause as something genuinely wrong with the engine and systems.
The list of possible faults when the engine warning light comes on is about 20 different items. The warning on the screen reported āanti-pollution system faultyā. After a new particle filter and other work on the system, this proved to be a false reading and replacement of the sensor cured it.
I didnāt vent my spleen or any other organ but my comment was entirely favourable. The service I received from the recovery service bundled with my ins was excellent.
I like to think this is because Fabien, as broker, looks out policies and companies that really do perform when required. Chapeau!
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Iām rubbish at most things car-related but I believe that there are 2 separate belts: the timing belt and the accessory belt. When the timing belt goes then youāre right, itās almost immediately āgame overā for the engine. Whereas the accessory belt snapping affects the aircon compressor, power steering pump, water pump, etcā¦ If that happens then the engine will be damaged eventually but not as immediately as the cam belt.
However, as I say, Iām not great at car mechanics so happy to be corrected if my understanding is wrong
This is a good point. We used a broker too. Not Fabien, but purely as I wasnāt aware of him at the timeā¦ I trust the broker to find the best deal on our behalf. Iāve not got the time to investigate or the knowledge to know whatās the best policy but our broker does.
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Well our kind French friend next door has been amazing.
We have untangled the problem together.
The hired car can be returned to Begerac not 3 hrs away for a sum of 100 euros extraā¦great.
All garages in the breakdown area have a months waiting time before they can look at the car so we
are having the car towed back to a garage here where it will be fixed or put to sleep.
By the way we had the go serviced just before we set of on our week end awayā¦
Perfectly correct. If the belt driving the water pump is not is not also the cam belt you do get a period of grace before the temp rockets into the red and your cylinder head warps.
If that ever happens to you try to void getting the car dropped at a Peugeot dealership. They will try to max out on the expense, specifying a complete new top half of the engine. Pass by on the other side to your honest and reasonable indy garage [make finding one a matter of modest urgency] who will tell you they will have the head skimmed, reset the timing and you are good to go again.
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Iāve driven more bangers than anything but luckily the time I did have a timing belt go on me it waa a company car.
It was a BMW 320 and on the A23 to Brighton suddenly without warning here was a rat-a-tat noise like a belt of bullets going through a machine gun. Red lights up all over the dashboard and everything stopped. Ohā¦so thatās what a timing belt going sounds like 
. Bye bye engine presumably.
It turned out to be a known fault on this engine type and apparently every 42,000 mile service automatically replaced it. It was a Saturday and ithad 41,500 miles on it, and it had already been already booked in for the 42,000 mile service on the following Tuesday when it would still have been a couple of hundred miles short of the 42,000.
Car Fleet Manager at work loved me cos if Iād gone over the 42,000 without it being serviced, as a lot of company car drivers didnāt get them done, the company would probably have been liable. I always got good cars from the Fleet Manager after thatā¦! Thank heavens it wasnāt my own car.
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When I first came over here to live I had breakdown cover via ADACā¦when I switched my car insurance to my regional bank then breakdown cover was includedā¦
The first time I had to call breakdown was a few weeks ago when I was picking my partner up from Rennes airportā¦I had an old fading phone that could no longer be updated (he was bringing me a new secondhand one from uk)
I was almost at the airportā¦the road was darkā¦when I went over something in the road and there was an almighty bang and my dashboard lit up with ācrevaisonāā¦
I hobbled into the airport and parked as soon as I was able blocking airport buses and other cars and it was awfulā¦
My partners flight was delayed so eventually the airport parking cleared and I tried to change the wheel myself but couldnāt even move the nutsā¦
So I tried to phone my bankās breakdown serviceā¦.couldnāt hear the optionsā¦ran out of creditā¦
My poor partner who had been travelling all day from Gatwick eventually managed to change the tyre and we arrived home at some ungodly hourā¦
(As most breakdowns in my area end up at my local garagiste who is wonderful and provides an impeccable service then I wish I could arrange my breakdown cover with him 
)