A GRANDMOTHER who agreed to have her car towed by the AA after it broke down on the A12 has been left mystified by its disappearance.Ipswich receptionist Sue Smith is furious with the company after it admitted it had no idea where her beloved Peugeot 205 is.

A GRANDMOTHER who agreed to have her car towed by the AA after it broke down on the A12 has been left mystified by its disappearance.

Ipswich receptionist Sue Smith is furious with the company after it admitted it had no idea where her beloved Peugeot 205 is.

Nearly three weeks after the car disappeared it is still missing and Mrs Smith, who should be celebrating her retirement this week, has instead been left navigating an endless maze of phone calls in the hope of tracking down her car.

The 60-year-old had been travelling to Gatwick airport on her way to a summer break in Turkey when the car began making a strange noise.

She pulled over at the side of the A12 near Battlesbridge in Essex and called the AA for help.

Despite waiting more than two hours for assistance she was full of praise for the company after a helpful mechanic delivered her, her daughter and her youngest granddaughter to Gatwick in time for their flight.

But the good service turned to a nightmare when Mrs Smith got a call while on holiday in Turkey to say the car had not been towed to her home in Fairfield Road as the AA had promised.

And things turned worse when she called the company and it admitted it had no idea where the car had gone.

She said: “I don't know what's happened to it.

“I really can't believe it. I've made eight or nine phone calls explaining the situation to the AA. They just say nothing. They just say they are investigating it.”

Mrs Smith has now had to report the car to the police as missing and she faces the reality that the car could have been stolen.

The AA paid for Mrs Smith to have a hire car while it hunted down her own car but now the company has extended that offer after deciding it must have been stolen from the side of the road before its recovery crew arrived.

Mrs Smith said: “You would have thought from July 23, the day it first went missing, to today they would have found it.”

A spokesman for the AA said: “We are now liaising with the insurance company in relation to this.

“The police are investigating the theft of the vehicle.”

'YOU'VE got a friend' is the AA's well-known motto but that was just what Sue Smith couldn't find at the company as she tried to locate her car.

She made a series of phone calls trying to get an answer to the question “Where is my car?” but the employees she spoke to either failed to call her back or failed to get to the bottom of the problem.

Finally Mrs Smith resorted to calling The Evening Star and quickly it became evident the most likely event was that the car had been nabbed by thieves from the side of the A12 before an AA recovery crew got there.

The AA has now agreed to pay for a hire car for Mrs Smith until her insurance company deals with her claim.

A spokesman for the AA said: “As a courtesy to Mrs Smith we have arranged for her car hire to be extended until the matter is sorted.”

Weblink: www.theaa.com