Roadside assistance???

From the warranty and maintenance book:

Towing

When your vehicle is inoperable due to failure of a warranted part, towing service to the nearest authorized Toyota dealership is covered.
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The tires have warranties per the tire card in the glovebox, but the warranty is by the tire manufacturer, not Toyota.

What was the nature of the flat tire - slow leak due to debris through the tread or shredded from a blowout?

 

I personally cant justify keeping a spare tire in my plugin vehicles that do not accommodate a conventional spare tire.

I find an acceptable solution is to have a full size spare wheel/ tire available at my house.

On New years Eve I blew the sidewall out on the front tire of my Ford C-max on some road debris.
AAA picked up my car within 30 minutes took me home and I had the new tire/wheel installed before the tow truck even left my driveway.
Total down time was just over an hour.

 

Honest question, what did you expect to happen?

To me it sounds like you got a reasonable result. You called for road side assistance, they sent out a tow truck and took your car to a dealer where the issue can be fixed.

There's only 3 possible results I can think of here: fix the flat, change the tire, or haul it to the dealer. I've never heard of a tow truck fixing a flat on the side of the road (for a normal vehicle, on semis or other large trucks that are hard to tow they may fix it in place). Without a spare you can rule out changing it. For everyone involved (you, tow truck driver, dealer) it's faster and safer to take the car someplace dedicated to handling this, the dealership.

 

Sorry to hear the trouble you had to endure. May I ask you a question? Did you not know that PRIME is not equipped with a spare tire but is equipped with a goo type emergency tire repair kit? The repair kit dose not work on all type of the flat, and even if it works it may cause additional cost on cleaning the tire/wheel and maybe needing to replace TPMS, but it is there for an emergency need. Towing is a reasonable solution for many, but I would suggest you look into getting AAA membership or towing service through your car insurance company. Toyota roadside assistance will take your car only to a nearest Toyota dealer, not the most convenient place to have simple flat repair or tire installation.

I carry conventional plug type flat repair kit AND a full size tire on my PRIME AND have both AAA and car insurance towing service.

 

+1

i'm very sorry this happened. There's never a good time for this to happen. For quite a few years now, many car makers have stopped including spare tires to help reduce weight to meet mandated mpg standards. It's all good until you have a flat. Even though the car has roadside assistance, it's not the result you usually want.

My wife and I have maintained and used a Plus level AAA membership for several decades. The plus level gives you free towing up to 100 miles. You can also specify where you want to be towed to like a tire shop, dealer, etc. We've used it many times and it's always been a great experience. I even used it when driving my Dad's vehicle. It's cheap insurance and I know my wife is taken care of if I can't get there.

Like Salamander_King, I also carry my own flat repair plug kit and compressor which I've used many times over the years.

It's sort of like wearing a belt AND suspenders. I love to drive places that I have to rely on myself to get back home. IE, the corner store.

 

It may not have been the experience you wanted or expected, but it sure looks like the one you paid for.

AAA's contract with tow operators obliges them to provide more, and more types of services than the typical automaker's roadside assistance deal.

Multi-hour waiting time for service is common with all of these services, especially outside of business hours. Depending on your personal schedule it is sometimes better just to get the car off the road, leave a note and take a cab/uber/bus etc. Then go back and have it dealt with later when your schedule opens up.

 

spare is always on the floor of my hatch. i have enough things i can't control

 

I think AAA is a bad company because here in Oregon they filed a lawsuit to prevent EV owners from getting a rebate for buying an EV because they claim all vehicle tax revenue should be used for road repair. I encourage everyone to boycott AAA for that reason.

 

I like AAA and will continue to use them.

 

+1

Never had an issue with AAA. They've gone above and beyond many times for me personally and my family members for decades. I'll reconsider when that track record degrades.

 

AAA has saved me on numerous occasions. As a woman who often travels long distances alone, I wouldn't be without it.

 

i like triple a in most respects, but they do have some negatives, and @alfmeister presented one of them.

triple a is not interested in the environment from a policy standpoint, or public transportation for that matter.
but they are not charged with those tasks, so i use them for what they are charged with.

 

My insurance offers roadside assistance for $1 per month per car. It's probably not as comprehensive as AAA, but it's less restrictive than Toyota since the car can be taken somewhere besides the dealer, who will charge double what I could pay elsewhere for the same kind of repair (at least for basic things like tires).

I need to remember to keep one of my snow tires in the car as a spare on longer trips.

 

who do you call, and who do they send, when you're in never never land?

 

I just received a rejoin promotion from 3A a few days ago. An ex GFs brother worked for 3A and when I had them many years ago I mostly used their trip planning service (back in the days of paper maps) and I had one lock out that saved me from having to walk 6 miles home to get my spare set of keys.
I've also been solicited by Allstate Motor Club, but have never been a member.
I know 3A offers an excellent service, but now that I read above about a law suit regarding incentives for hybrid and EV you can bet I'll be checking that out before I ever sign up with them again. Not saying I wouldn't sign-up, just saying I'll be double checking the lawsuit before I do to see if I'm still want to.
Thanks
@barbaram I don't know how I missed this thread in July, but I got a flat at 10pm in the boonies while on vacation and had forgotten about the Toyota Roadside Assistance while trying to find where the car jack was and how the tire goop thing worked, which I didn't want to use and still don't. All I can say is "wait I'd better not say it here, either" ......

 

I have been a long standing AAA member, but this year I decided not to renew my membership for purely economical reason. I may regret it, but we'll see how it goes. We now have newer cars that is much more reliable than our previous older cars, and kids are all on their own. While our kids were still in college with our old beater, it was worth paying for expensive fees. If we used the service once a year, I got what I paid or more. However, we have not used their towing services for years now, and annual cost of ~$150 is just not economical. I switched to a road side service plan through my car insurance company. It now cost us only $10/year per car, and it still provides towing to the nearest service station no matter how far they are, which can be even better than AAA Premier's 200 miles towing privilege.

 

When I had 3A I always new I had it when I needed it. Our insurance also includes roadside too. but finding the contact info while in a jam might not be as easy as remembering 3A. That is if I remember the insurance coverage at all. I do so much of the household chores most Americans contract out, I tend to miss out on some opportunities. But after reading the OP, I'm glad I missed out on the Toyota Roadside when I had the flat in the boonies. LOL !!!!

 

Yeah, AAA is always very responsive at least to the initial call and dispatching. Waiting for the actual tow truck to arrive is entirely different story though. I also found our insurance company GEICO is very responsive to a call as well. My son had an accident, and he had to call both AAA to tow and GEICO to report the accident from the site of accident, both responded very quickly. I just don't know how extensive GEICO's roadside assistance network is. I am hoping it is as good as AAA, but I don't know.