Breaking down at any time is a real nuisance and if we could avoid it many of us would be willing to pay a bit extra in order to do so.

There have been some amazing changes recently in the world of motoring and breakdown companies are now offering many customers a piece of kit that could potentially avoid a breakdown. The AA and Green Flag are two of the well-recognised breakdown companies that have their own devices which claim to do this. The prices for these boxes vary, but Green Flag are currently charging £35 per year for the subscription. The Green Flag device is called Alert me and the AA one is called Car Genie. They both claim that they can that can read important data from your car and advise you via an app or text message as to faults that are showing. With this information you may be able to be notified of faults as they start to happen allowing you to get straight to a garage or pull over and get recovery.

Both devices plug in to a diagnostic port on your vehicle that a car garage will use to read any fault codes that the car is showing. These codes are often linked to the engine management system or the battery.