Blowout due to pothole - knackered tyre, wheel, possibly suspension - what to do?
 

Hi all,
Coming back from a cracking weekend away, I hit a pothole about half a mile from home.

It's a subsided area of temporary road surface, about 5 feet wide. No way of avoiding it without swerving into oncoming traffic, or braking like a loon and collecting someone in my rear. Must have been doing 15mph if that.

result?

Instant blowout on the front left tyre. 245/40R18 :(

The alloy could be damaged. Worse still, I have no clue what it will have done to the aluminium suspension components, etc... (BMW sport suspension on a 3 series E46)

There's a building site entrance just next to this hole, and it looks like it's a shoddy mess of a temporary fill job that's caused the problem.

I've taken pictures, but who do I contact? The council? The builders?

There's sod all way I'm shelling out for this one, as the road is an absolute joke: there's a 2 inch vertical cliff in the road... Tyre pressures were checked on Friday, too... Arggh! At least it was near home!

I know I won't be the only one who got stuffed by it either?

ANyone been through this and can offer constructive advice? "Learn to drive", "learn to miss potholes" will be ignored :)

ive got 2 sets of 15" rims with tyres if you want;)

i had the same problem, heres what i did...
if there are hole in the road and it has been reported to the council then someone else has a problem with the pot-hole then you are due compensation.
get someont to call the council in the morning and get a reference number, then phone yourself in the evening and say you have damaged your car and you get compensation...worked for me:thumb:

i phoned the Highways dept at the council
you have to go thriugh your insurance though HTH:D

If its an adopted road then its the council highways department which are at fault, for not maintaining the road.

This happened to my brother inlaw recently, knackered the tyre and alloy wheel. They fobbed him off, and due to him being an easy going bloke, he just gave up on it.

Be prepared to take it to small claims if they wont accept liability. They will try and fob you off at first, but stick at it. Get lots of photos with date /time shown, get the depth, width and length of pot hole with a rule. Soon as you inform them, the council will repair the road section. Go back daily if necessary and take photos, so you can show when it was repaired.

Do all your correspondence by recorded delivery mail, or by email with a read receipt facility, so you can check when the barstewards read your mail.

Andy

i found that they were only responsible if the hole had been previousley reported to them and thay hadnt acted on it........
then they are failing in their duty to mark a hole as unsafe:)

Ok, get a mate to write in and say that he nearly had an accident due to this pot hole, followed shortly afterwards by chiark's letter.

Roads should not have potholes in that big to damaged wheels tyres/ suspension.

Andy

i said that...
you didnt read my first reply did you:Suspiciou :p

Good luck. Remember you are dealing with an organisation that thinks it's perfectly ok to dump six-inch high piles of tarmac every fifty yards in the roads we spend so much money to maintain. :)

Inches?

Yards?


You can tell I'm an old c**t, can't you? :D

yep HTH:p

I think you should claim off the council, might teach then to do a bit more for the roads which are deteriorsting so badly that eventually if will be too expensive to even think of repairing them.

Ive got an E36 M3 coupe too and there are certain potholes which seem to catch the suspension out quite badly.

Les

Poor old Leslie; normally so grammatically correct and irreproachable in spelling.

He's going to regret this in the morning. :D

Cheers for the advice.

I'm not up for the two letter, or getting a mate to report it thing. I'll play fair with them, I expect them to play fair with me.

It's obvious that it's a temporary repair gone horribly wrong...

Will get onto the council and see what they say. Ta again!
Nick

let us know what happens.......good luck :thumb:

You should know ny now that the council is not likely to play fair with you. If there is any way for them to claim that nobody has previously reported the problem they will. After all, how are you going to be able to prove them wrong. Unless, of course, you know somebody that has also had a problem.....

Up to you, but as you know it is their fault, they should pay. You should make sure they do. It is not as if you are making them pay more than they should. Just imo

I know what you're saying, but I don't like gaming the system.

There's a claim form in the post to me now. Tyre is 105+VAT :( , I'm just more worried about any possible suspension damage as I know the car has a lot of aluminium bits in the setup :(

i cant imagine you will get anywhere without 'gaming'...their policy is to spend as little as possible:(

I had a blow out and buckled wheel due to a pot hole, a big one at that! Sent back the claim form etc etc and got a letter daying that they had fulfilled their dutied by performing the bi monthly inspections of that stretch of road and the hole was filled in within 24 hours of notification etc etc

Not a lot i could do really, barstewards.

" The senoir technician for the southern Highways Division had confirmed to me that all statutory obligations have been fuldilled in respect of the location where you suffered your accident. This involves carrying out regular inspections where any defect is noted and arrangements made for repair and also responding to complaint/reports of defects that have arisen in the intervening period between inspections.

The location where you suffered you accident is subject to a highway safety inspection every 3 months. The last inspection prior to your accident was carried out on the 19/01/04 (This was three weeks before the accident by the way!), when no defects were observed. Unfortunalty the pothole must have developed in the interim period between inspections. As the Council was not aware of the defect it was not in a position to effect any repair and I do not therefore consider that the Council can be held liable for the damage to your vechile. I am please to inform you tha the pothole was repaired within 24 hours of notification.

In view of the above and whilst I sympathise with your financial lss I regret that I am unable to reemburise you."

Oh Balls.

I can see this getting rather involved due to the builders being responsible for doing a temporary rather poor job... Hence the council will be chasing them for me?

I live in hope.

No one is perfect Bubba, and I was'nt even pissed!

Les :D

looks like you are gonna have to resort to dirty tricks then;) told ya:p

And, to top it off, I don't only need a new tyre.

I need a new wheel! ARGH!

well, what are you going to do then?:p

Wait for the claim form... Then explain the situation.

If as you say the pothole was by a building site entrance it is possible that the pothole was caused by settlement (due to poor compaction methods) in trench backfill when road was dug up to make a sewer or service connection for the site works.

I'ts certainly worth a visit to the site to explain your mishap to the site manager.

Cheers pacenote, nipping out now :)

Seems people have had different experiences. About five years ago I claimed for two alloy wheels and two new tyres on my first scoob after hitting quite a deep pothole near work. The stretch was leading to an industrial estate and got heavy usage by HGV’s which continually knackered the surface, especially during winter (when it happened).

I wrote a massive letter and put it in with the claim form, along with photos and measurements of the hole and contact details for another business owner on the estate (a mate) who narrowly avoided damage on the same pot hole.

There was never any mention by them or me about the stretch being 'reported' as bad or 'checks' having been made previously. I just sent all the details in, and within a month had a cheque back for around £1,600.00.

I did heavily imply that I thought they were negligent in maintaining the piece of road as it was always in a state, and also mentioned that I had every intention of pursuing it through the courts if they did not pay up. Maybe that helped!

Julian

...what, the truth :nono: :p

Swear to tell the whole truth and nothting but the truth.:Whatever_

^^^ doesn't the above highlight the scheming and deceitful ways of the female mind! :D