Poor maintenance and age, the causes of breakdowns in 2017 according to RACE

During 2017, RACE assistance services attended to no fewer than 1,488,277 incidents, of which more than 900,000 were roadside assistance calls, an 18% increase over the interventions carried out in 2016. These interventions allowed 49.7 percent of the vehicles attended to continue their journey with full normality once the RACE technician had solved the problem: punctures, breaks in hoses and pipes, windscreens,… were repaired on the spot.

According to the data provided by the Breakdown Barometer that RACE compiles from the information gathered by its technicians during their call-outs, the significant increase in roadside assistance carried out by the Royal Automobile Club during 2017 has as its main cause poor maintenance that users carry out on their vehicles, and the fact that in many cases the necessary tuning-up is also not performed before setting off on a long journey by road.

And alongside negligence in maintenance, the other major cause of breakdowns identified by RACE lies in the constant increase in the age of the Spanish car fleet. The rise in the average age of vehicles, which currently exceeds 12 years, has a notable impact on the breakdowns recorded on the road, especially considering that this circumstance is combined with the repeated lack of investment in infrastructure by the various administrations since the start of the crisis, which has left many Spanish roads in rather poor condition, a situation that has a notable effect on the occurrence of breakdowns, in addition to considerably shortening the useful life of many of the mechanical components of cars.

According to RACE data, the most common breakdowns detected in its call-outs during 2017 were the following: