We’re hauling with a 15-year-old pick-up. Although it is always dealer-maintained to the manufacturer’s specification, you never know what might give out when your vehicle is this old.
Do any of you have stories good or bad about breaking down while trailering with AAA membership coverage? I’m wondering if this is something we should buy.
Suggest calling AAA. We have it and have been extremely satisfied --but never used it when hooked to a trailer. I believe they will not deal with a vehicle hooked to a non-living quarter trailer. But call them. Then get what they say in writing and put it in your glove box.
AAA will not deal with a trailer and I was also told they would not handle a diesel vehicle where I live. Since both my car and truck are diesel, that ruled AAA out. I have had US Rider for about 10 years and they have been great in dealing with either my car or truck. I have had very good service from them. Well worth every penny!
I don’t believe you can trust AAA to be there for you if you’re hooked to a horse trailer, even if you have RV coverage or they’ve assured you they will. I would also suggest US Rider. I’ve never had to call when hooked up, but the service has been excellent for both truck and car tows.
As said above Triple A won’t deal with the trailer, when this happened to me, triple a paid to tow the towing vehicle i was in, but I was billed by the tow company for towing the trailer.
I recommend is it US Rider? Seriously it was extremely stressful to end up in a mess and not have a company even familiar with my immediate needs.
Like tangledweb said … get USrider.org. They answer the call with “are you and your animals in a safe place?”
Says they expect to deal with animals and their priority is safety.
Also, trailers and duallys are covered. My experience says so.
But like ALL road services … actual service is done by contracted towing companies. time and location makes service quality a variable. Six times in 20 years the USrider service has been 100% great by me. Other people not so much.
AAA will not provide towing if your vehicle is hooked to a horse trailer, even if the trailer is empty. USRider is what you need.
Posting to add … USrider covers the person what ever the vehicle. Including a car, SUV, or minivan. No need to have redundant services.
This is not exactly true – it depends on your state and what level of AAA membership you have. We have AAA Premier (Colorado) which does cover horse trailers. Have proof of this as we once broke down on a highway off ramp with empty trailer in the middle of Nebraska – AAA took both truck and trailer to the shop. I’m not sure what they would have done if there were horses in it, I really should ask, but they absolutely did take care of the empty one.
https://www.wssfiles.com/006/images/…r_handbook.pdf
That said I totally agree that US Rider is a great way to go.
Get US Rider. They took 3 hours to get to us but trailered the horses home and towed the truck to the repair shop - both of which were ~20mi away from where we broke down. Even if AAA would have taken the truck, I wouldn’t have wanted to unhook the trailer without a tow vehicle waiting. US Rider will come to your aid even if you are not hooked to a trailer and even if you are in someone else’s vehicle. They were nice and checked up on us as we waited. It can REPLACE your AAA membership (I’ve kept both for a variety of reasons).
I have AAA and never had a problem (knock wood) I will say I don’t REALLY mention the trailer when calling but usually when the contracted help arrives they sort it.
That all said ive had my truck (dually) towed and had my friends move my trailer the last time I needed it so didn’t force the issue.
Most frequent reason for calling for help has been flat tires. Once blew two tires on passenger side of 4 horse head to head. We called AAA and US rider… the police were actually the best help that day! What a mess, no one wanted to come out at 10pm on rainy Sunday night… cop called a friend and he came with two tires and fixed us all up!
We had AAA (called CAA in Canada) with the Trailer Plus. We did break down towing our horses from Ontario ot MA for a show and called AAA for a tow. We knew that they wouldnt tow the trailer to the show, but luckily we were only 5 mins from the show grounds and we had another truck we could tow the horse trailer with.
The issue we had was AAA uses a local company (of course) to do the towing and they didnt have a big enough tow truck to tow our dually to a shop! So they couldnt do anything for us. Total waste of money. We had to call a local large truck company and they did the work to the truck on the side of the road and we paid cash for it (it was just the anti freeze hose line that blew, so fairly quick fix).
I’ve heard good things with US Rider. Use them. You will be much happier for it.
Have had multiple good experiences with them
Go with USRider (or there’s another one like it that I can’t remember off the top of my head). I know more than one person who thought they were okay with AAA and have been left stranded because they had a horse trailer with them. Every dealing I’ve had with USRider has been great including my friend’s daughter locking her keys in her truck in the middle of nowhere at a trailhead and them finding us and unlocking it in less than an hour
If this is true it must be area specific because AAA towed my one ton dually (that was diesel) many times for me.
please note USRider membership is for the Member – not for a particular vehicle or trailer.
and… USRider is the only motor plan that will service vehicles with dual wheels.
and I’m a trainer and haul horses for clients. Am I covered?
NO …commercial, or haul for hire, and is not currently covered under USRider
and… .USRider covers you in any non-commercial vehicle you are in, regardless of whether you are towing a horse trailer – or whether you are driving. Members only need to be present in the vehicle at the time of disablement for coverage to be applicable.
http://www.usrider.org/faq#faq21
And we know the last statement is true as my daughter who was covered under our membership was with a friend towing friend’s horse with friends truck and trailer when the their tow truck became disable… USRider took care of my daughter’s friend because my daughter was there with her… this was the only time we had ever needed to use the service
At the time it was the Pennsylvania/ Mid-Atlantic area. I was shocked when they told me they would not touch my diesel Volkswagen, even for running out of fuel.
I said this in the post above yours, but it must be an area specific thing because AAA towed my dually truck several times for me.
I had AAA for many years because I was specifically told it would cover hauling the trailer. I asked questions and was told oh yes, it covers RVs and horse trailers. I paid considerably extra for that coverage. Maybe it does in some locations based on prior responses, but not in Virginia.
We had the top of our Brenderup fall off (really) Luckily the problem happened on my trainer’s farm and no horses were involved. It was only after arguing that we had AAA come for the truck (which also broke down shortly after we parked the trailer for a separate reason). We unhitched the trailer. When the truck was fixed, we came back and hauled the trailer to the repair shop. I have never used AAA since. As far as I am concerned I was deceived by them and paid a premium price for no service.
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