This happened this evening. I was a passenger in a car insured with Kwikfit where the driver was also paying them for breakdown insurance. She maintains the car well. On the A1, there was a sort of clunk, and immediately the engine stopped and all the lights (ignition, oil warning, etc) came on.

As she had paid Kwikfit for breakdown insurance, she phoned them and had to spend 15 minutes repeating the location of breakdown 4 or 5 times. Then finally the Kwikfit person refused assistance without her paying another £100+ by credit card immediately "in case we were to find that you hadn't put oil in the car".

She pointed out that there was no oil warning light until the clunk when all the lights - ignition, oil, etc. - came on. She also pointed out that if she hadn't put oil in, the oil warning light would have come on earlier. No joy. Without an instant further payment, Kwikfit refused to help even though her insurance and breakdown premiums had been paid. She had no cards with her and could not make a payment even if she wanted to.

That left us stuck by Kwikfit on the A1 in the rain and dark at 11.30pm.

I then remembered that I have AA Breakdown cover I could claim on as a passenger in that car. I rang the AA. What a difference! They identified our whereabouts within seconds and sent a man out immediately without asking for any payment.

Their patrolman took one look and identified the breakdown cause as a broken cambelt and said that tallied exactly with what had happened. He said that he could see no reason, from the symptoms we had suffered, how it could have been said to have been the driver's fault. He had never heard of a reputable breakdown company trying to extort further money from customers in such circumstances.

My friend had car insurance, house insurance and breakdown insurance with Kwikfit, all of which are now going to be cancelled at the earliest opportunity. They will be sent a copy of the AA report and a refund of the year's breakdown premium requested as not fit for purpose.

My advice is not to touch Kwikfit with a bargepole.