A young family have been left "disgusted" after being stranded in the remote countryside 100 miles from home for 24 hours in a fiasco with the AA.
The Leach-Le Planche family had enjoyed a holiday near Llanidloes when they decided to head home on Sunday at around 6.30pm.
Their Ford C Max suffered an engine malfunction, leaving them stuck in the Welsh countryside in searing heat.
Ford Assistance contacted the AA and they were told they would be waiting three hours for a recovery truck.
But it wouldn't be until 10.30pm the following day that mum Charlotte, dad Dale, 14-month-old Florence and dogs Molly, Sprocket and Milo would get home to Alrewas, Staffordshire Live reports.
After waiting 24 hours for a solution, Charlotte's parents had to rescue her family from the roadside.
The admin assistant said: "We were left vulnerable, stranded and without basic necessities.
"Without the generosity of the people who ran the cabins we'd been staying at, we'd have starved and had to spend the night sleeping in our car in the middle of nowhere with our three dogs and baby.
"It seems like all the departments just didn't talk to each other. Something's not right here. This situation simply shouldn't have happened.
"How do they think this is acceptable? This is disgusting - there's a huge safeguarding issue, a lack of human decency and ultra-rubbish communication between departments; they need calling out immediately. We need to stop this happening again."
A mechanic arrived at 9.40pm and said the problem could not be fixed there and then, but a recovery truck could not get there until the following morning.
As it began to get dark and Florence become hungry, the family had to ask the bosses of the cabins they had been staying in to take them in for another night.
They had no food and were running out of nappies, but were told the AA would call with an update at 10pm or 8am on the next day.
When no phone call came, farmer Dale had to call his boss at short notice to say he was not coming in.
Charlotte rang the AA at 9am and was told a breakdown truck could not reach them for four hours.
The 26-year-old said: "By now we couldn't stay in the accommodation, so we're still by the roadside.
"They said they may have a hire car if we drove an hour and 40 minutes' drive away - how were we meant to do that?
"We were eating cold soup out the tin as our only food at this point.
"The recovery driver turned up at 1.30pm, but said if he recovered the car, we'd be abandoned.
"There wasn't room in the truck for us because they'd registered the car was accompanied by a single female (me) - it's absolutely ridiculous.
"The recovery man, who was brilliant, ordered a different recovery to include us all and said it'd arrive in six hours - around 6pm at night - but it never arrived.
"They then offered us a taxi, but we couldn't guarantee it would take the dogs and our belongings.
"They said our car would be collected within 72 hours and we had to leave our keys on top.
"Did they expect me to leave my dogs and all my stuff in the car on its own with the keys just left on top of the car?"
The debacle continued when, at 4.30pm, the family were told a hire car was available, but was way over the allowed budget and would need approval from Ford Assist, whose offices closed at 5pm.
The approval was not given in time.
Charlotte said: "We'd have to wait until Tuesday morning to sort it.
"They couldn't understand why that wasn't okay and got very grumpy when we said we weren't about to do that."
At this point, Charlotte's parent said they had no choice but to pick she and her family up.
She said: "It was starting to get darker and the AA were telling us they couldn't do anything to help us tonight.
"A woman called Karen from the AA called - she was so understanding.
"She said they'd give us £150 in a cheque. She was apologising and we were crying over the phone."
The Leach-Le Planches have made a formal complaint against both the AA and Ford Assist.
They said they were left "disgusted" by how they were treated.
The car has since been recovered to the dealership and AA has now apologised.
An AA spokeswoman said: "We have investigated the incident and are deeply sorry to find that the customer experienced an unacceptable delay for service and onward travel, with poor communication, which fell below our usual high standards.
"We have found there were communication failings with the customer in our own teams, as well as with the external company we liaised with to arrange the hire car.
"Unfortunately, issues with the hire car were exacerbated by the remote location of the breakdown.
"We have been in contact with the customer to apologise and provide compensation for the inconvenience caused. We will also ensure they are reimbursed for the costs incurred from their overnight stay.
"We would like to extend our apologies once more to the customer and we will be reviewing our internal processes to ensure it does not happen again."
