American Automobile Association is a federation of motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a privately held not-for-profit national member association and service organization with over 60 million members in the United States and Canada. AAA provides services to its members, including roadside assistance and others. Its national headquarters are in Heathrow, Florida.
An extended warranty, sometimes called a service agreement, a service contract, or a maintenance agreement, is a prolonged warranty offered to consumers in addition to the standard warranty on new items. The extended warranty may be offered by the warranty administrator, the retailer or the manufacturer. Extended warranties cost extra and for a percentage of the item's retail price. Occasionally, some extended warranties that are purchased for multiple years state in writing that during the first year, the consumer must still deal with the manufacturer in the occurrence of malfunction. Thus, what is often promoted as a five-year extended guarantee, for example, is actually only a four-year guarantee.
RAC Limited is a British automotive services company headquartered in Walsall, West Midlands. Its principal services are roadside assistance and general insurance, and its subsidiaries include RAC Motoring Services Ltd, RAC Financial Services Ltd and RAC Insurance Limited. It was a private club owned by its members until sold in 1999, eventually acquired in 2014 and 2015 by GIC Private Limited and CVC Capital Partners.
The Royal Automobile Club is a British private social and athletic club. It has two clubhouses: one in London at 89 Pall Mall, and the other in the countryside at Woodcote Park, near Epsom in Surrey. Both provide accommodation and a range of dining and sporting facilities. The Royal Automobile Club has a wide range of members.
A tow truck is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recovering a vehicle damaged in an accident, returning one to a drivable surface in a mishap or inclement weather, or towing or transporting one via flatbed to a repair shop or other location.
A wrecking yard, scrapyard or junkyard is the location of a business in dismantling where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are brought, their usable parts are sold for use in operating vehicles, while the unusable metal parts, known as scrap metal parts, are sold to metal-recycling companies. Other terms include wreck yard, wrecker's yard, salvage yard, breaker's yard, dismantler and scrapheap. In the United Kingdom, car salvage yards are known as car breakers, while motorcycle salvage yards are known as bike breakers. In Australia, they are often referred to as 'Wreckers'.
The Canadian Automobile Association is a federation of eight regional not-for-profit automobile associations in Canada, founded in 1913. The constituent associations are responsible for providing roadside assistance, auto touring and leisure travel services, insurance services, and member discount programs within their service territories. The CAA National Office in Ottawa coordinates relations between the clubs, oversees joint initiatives, and lobbies the federal government. In 2020 and 2021, the Gustavson Brand Trust Index named CAA the most trusted brand in Canada.
The ADAC, officially the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club, is Europe's largest automobile association. The ADAC is the largest verein (club) in Germany, with around 21 million members. Its headquarters is located in Munich. Its original and most well-known service is roadside assistance.
An auto mechanic is a mechanic who services and repairs automobiles, sometimes specializing in one or more automobile brands or sometimes working with any brand. In fixing cars, their main role is to diagnose and repair the problem accurately and quickly. Seasoned auto repair shops start with a (Digital) Inspection to determine the vehicle conditions, independent of the customers concern. Based on the concern, the inspection results and preventative maintenance needs, the mechanic/technician returns the findings to the service advisor who then gets approval for any or all of the proposed work. The approved work will be assigned to the mechanic on a work order. Their work may involve the repair of a specific part or the replacement of one or more parts as assemblies. Basic vehicle maintenance is a fundamental part of a mechanic's work in modern industrialized countries, while in others they are only consulted when a vehicle is already showing signs of malfunction.
The Better World Club (BWC) provides services to motorists in the United States and supports organizations seeking to reduce the environmental damage done by automobiles. BWC, which describes itself as "the nation's only environmentally friendly auto club", offers a bicycle membership and caters to hybrid vehicle owners. Nationwide membership was just under 20,000 people as of June 2006. In comparison, the rival American Automobile Association has 53 million members nationwide.
The New Zealand Automobile Association is an incorporated society that offers various services to its members. These services include breakdown assistance, vehicle repairs, driver licensing, driver training, travel maps, accommodation guides and bookings, insurance, and finance.
An automobile repair shop is an establishment where automobiles are repaired by auto mechanics and technicians. The customer interface is typically a service advisor, traditionally called a service writer.
Roadside assistance, also known as breakdown coverage, is a service that assists motorists, motorcyclists, or bicyclists whose vehicles have suffered a mechanical failure that either cannot be resolved by the motorist, or has prevented them from reasonably or effectively transporting the vehicle to an automobile repair shop. Roadside assistance employees respond to calls for service to inspect the vehicle and attempt to render appropriate repairs. Roadside assistance may be provided by departments of transportation, automobile associations, vehicle insurance providers, or dedicated roadside assistance organizations.
Towing is coupling two or more objects together so that they may be pulled by a designated power source or sources. The towing source may be a motorized land vehicle, vessel, animal, or human, and the load being anything that can be pulled. These may be joined by a chain, rope, bar, hitch, three-point, fifth wheel, coupling, drawbar, integrated platform, or other means of keeping the objects together while in motion.
The Royal Automobile Association of South Australia (RAA) is a South Australian automobile club that provides a range of member services. Their services include 24-hour emergency breakdown, insurance, vehicle inspection, member advocacy, road safety, motoring road rules information service, technical advice, travel services, tour planning, and accommodation bookings.
Car longevity is of interest to many car owners and includes several things: maximum service life in either mileage or time (duration), relationship of components to this lifespan, identification of factors that might afford control in extending the lifespan. Barring an accidental end to the lifespan, a car would have a life constrained by the earliest part to fail.
A motor vehicle service or tune-up is a series of maintenance procedures carried out at a set time interval or after the vehicle has traveled a certain distance. The service intervals are specified by the vehicle manufacturer in a service schedule and some modern cars display the due date for the next service electronically on the instrument panel. A tune-up should not be confused with engine tuning, which is the modifying of an engine to perform better than the original specification, rather than using maintenance to keep the engine running as it should.
Vehicle recovery is the recovery of any vehicle to another place, generally speaking with a commercial vehicle known as a recovery vehicle, tow truck or spectacle lift.
The Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB, known simply as ANWB, is a travelers' association in the Netherlands, supporting all modes of travel. It provides test reports, travel services and roadside assistance and is comparable to the German Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (ADAC) and the British Automobile Association (AA).
Electronics right to repair is proposed legislation that would provide the practical means for electronics equipment owners to repair their devices. Repair is legal under copyright law and patent law. However, owners and independent technicians are often unable to make their own repairs because of manufacturer limitations on access to repair materials such as parts, tools, diagnostics, documentation and firmware.
