Witham driver's 20-hour wait for the RAC on the M25 Published duration 13 March 2018

image copyright Andrew Warner image caption Andrew Warner's car was finally collected by a recovery vehicle on Sunday

A man waited more than 20 hours for his car to be recovered by the RAC after it broke down on the M25.

Andrew Warner's vehicle broke down at the Clacket Lane services near Sevenoaks, about 50 miles from his Essex home, at 18:00 GMT on Saturday.

He said he contacted the RAC but it was 14:30 the following day when a recovery vehicle finally arrived.

The RAC apologised and said a "series of errors" led to the "unacceptable" waiting time.

Mr Warner, from Witham, whose Porsche 911 had a leak in its radiator, said the call was logged with the RAC at 18:00 on Saturday.

He said it was 20:30 when they first rang him back and said they would let him know when they were on their way.

When he rang back at 02:00 on Sunday, the RAC said they would not be able to send anyone out to him until 08:00.

He said he was told to check into a hotel and he would be reimbursed.

image copyright Andrew Warner image caption Andrew Warner posted traffic updates on social media to keep himself entertained during the ordeal

Mr Warner said he waited by the car at 08:00 but got phone call saying the RAC would be there at 10:00.

"I was quite stressed, I thought if I didn't do something silly then I would shout at someone so I started to do traffic updates on Facebook and left Facebook messages with the RAC every hour," he added.

He said when a recovery vehicle finally arrived at 14:30, they moved him to a different services 20 miles away to wait for another vehicle.

"It was 23 hours all in all by the time I got home. Mother's Day was ruined."

The RAC said it could have done "much more to improve our communication with him" and understands "how frustrating this must have been".

It said Mr Warner's experience was "not indicative of its usual high standard of service".