I've been meaning to ask this for awhile. Knock on wood...no car breakdowns yet.... Ok...so here in California, I have AAA car service, but there is also the provided Jaguar breakdown service that even has fancy buttons on the overhead console. Which is better? So lets say I'm driving along a few hours from home, and the car quits, or I shred a tire on some debris. Who ya gonna call? I'd like to have an idea of what my best options would be before the fit hits the shan...so to speak :-) Any suggestions?
thanks in advance
CRS

 

Press all the buttons and see who gets to you first ;-)

With AAA depending on your membership level there may be a distance limit on the tow, not sure if the Jaguar Assistance has the same or they will tow you to the nearest franchise dealer regardless. In which case, it's easy to figure out....

Oh and we should probably use reassuring airline speak "in the unlikely event of a fault with your Jaguar...."

 

Probably turn out to be the same bloke. There aren't special Jaguar tow shops.

 

Probably true. I don't know what the policy is for the Jag service providers, but AAA is quite adamant about their towing companies appearing with flat tows. I have a 200 mile range with my membership, so I would revert to the Jag service offering if I'm outside that range from a dealership or tire company (depending on need).

 

Makes sense that Jaguar would farm out the tow service. I also have a huge tow limit with AAA, and the couple times i've been towed with other cars, it's alway been a flatbed...of course..with the Jag, it's flatbed or nothing.
CRS

 

I just had mine flatbedded due to electrical gremlins (appears to be a loose ground wire) and I called Jaguar service as directed by my dealer service person. You can use the button in your car, but I was given a number by my dealer as I was not on the side of the road. I think they try to locate the nearest tow company that either is preapproved or will take the call. The jag service gave me response time (1 hour in my case). I wanted it picked up from my house, in this case at a certain time. She (the Jag service person) took my info, gave me a case number and told me to call an hour ahead as this was an emergency service. Flat bed showed within the hour. If you're on the side of the road an hour may seem like a long time, but realistically I expect it's not. Time obviously could vary depending on where you are and how busy tow companies are. She mentioned they would tow to it to nearest Jag dealer-which is my dealer in this case.

 

Years ago when I had an S-Type, I had to call Jaguar Service and an AAA flatbed showed up. Most tow trucks around here are AAA approved.
In the greater LA area, I suspect most tows are AAA

 

Called Jaguar breakdown service a few weeks ago to have the car towed in. Flat bed arrived in less than 30 minutes. The woman on the phone with Jaguar couldn't have been nicer. Painless process, though I don't have AAA to compare against.

 

I needed a tow a couple of weeks ago and they used AAA. I baked in the sun for almost 5 hours waiting for the correct tow truck to show up. I'd call AAA to check on the progress and they'd tell me to call Jaguar, back and forth for hours. Wasn't fun.

 

Where were you that it took 5 hours to get to you?

 

It's not that I was far away, they kept sending the wrong truck. First they sent a young kid in a pickup to try to jump start me. After trying that for almost an hour then they sent a regular flat bed which showed up another hour later, but since my car was in park they wouldn't couldn't just drag it onto the truck. Then they COMPLETELY ignored me for an hour because they had no idea how to deal with it. I would call them, they would tell me to call Jaguar back and forth for another hour or so.

FINALLY, they sent a "wrecker with dollies" see below

 

AJF what was the problem ? When I had to get a tow for our LR3 where the parking brake had locked on and wouldn't manually release I told the towing company they needed to send a dolly truck as there was no way they were going to be able to pull it onto a flatbed ;-)

For most cases there is usually some kind of manual over ride hidden to allow you to release the transmission to neutral or the park brake. Doesn't help if the shoes have welded themselves on though ;-)

 

I only had the car a few weeks and at first it seemed like a dead battery but wasn't and I've never had a situation where I couldn't get my carny car, into neutral to be towed I thought the tow guy would have run into this enough times to know how to do it. It was a Sunday and the dealership was closed so I could even ask them for help

In the end it wound up being a loose starter wire!

 

I think newer manuals have the procedure for manually disengaging 'P' on the automatic transmission. Mine was missing it, so I've printed it and added to the manual. The procedure can be found in the sticky thread with How-to guides, etc.

 

Copied it Thanks DJS!

 

Yes if you expect the average tow truck guy to know how to unlock the brakes and or transmission when your battery is dead, you're going to have a bad time....

 

My 2016 MT convertible has a parking brake release in the trunk on the driver's side. There is no mention of it in the manual but it is marked EPB. It is behind a panel.