Some of you may have seen my recent post about my old VW Passat keeling over. It stopped and my OBD reader reported cam sensor failure. A £20 ebay item and an afternoon’s work. I got the AA out for a recovery, but their guy attempted a fix. Long story short it started making some unpleasant noises before then refusing to crank, so he towed me home. I just thought, well, its time came and there it is. However, an examination has revealed a piece of Blueroll used by the AA man jammed in the timing belt assembly, which has stripped a load of teeth from the timing belt. My advice to you all-buy a recovery service pure and simple which will just get you home or to the garage of your choice. These roadside Technicians are an absolute liability. 
You should definitely raise a complaint with them. They ought to make some reparation for the mistake.
Done. I fully expect a bum covering load of horseshit mind… 
Indeed, but nothing ventured…
Indeed. In these sort of situations I always debate with myself whether the chances of success are worth the time and hassle involved. At the same time not wanting the b’stards to feel that they can get away with just anything.
The AA dropped a motorbike I was having recovered a few years back - the compensation paid for the repair! 
Before that I called Homestart when my kitcar wouldn’t go, and the guy was great, although he admitted that any of the younger guys wouldn’t have a clue - it had a Ford Cortina engine with points and distributor! 
Well, update. Me and my son got a timing belt only for £35, and popped it on. Still can’t get it to run, but it has fired and run for a second or two without any obvious noises or misfires. Good news then. OBD reader is still showing camshaft sensor error, so that explains that one. We’ll try hooking up a better scanner to see if we can check sensor operation in live data, easier than replacing it at this stage. 
And AA emailed this week to tell me my complaint has been forwarded to their claims unit, so nunca se sabe
STOP PRESS literally as I was typing this Zac shouted me outside and, in the words of Baron Frankenstein-it lives! On VWs you can slightly adjust the cams, need to set what’s known as the torsion value using something like VCDS, which he’s got 
So we’re looking like the dead have been raised, and we might still hit 300k with the old tank. 