Cracked Alloy from Pothole

Zascar

A few days ago I was driving home from Portlaoise in a friends car. We were cruising along one of the main roads when he hit a massive pothole in the middle of the road. We didn't stop to see it but it looked way bigger than any normal pothole you see. He noticed after hitting it that his steering was a bit funny, I suggested that it may have messed with his tracking. We then stopped to survey the damage - The pothole had completely disctroyed the wheel. It was cracked just by the lip, but the crack was a few inches long and the metal had come away completely from the tire. BTW, this was no ordinary crappy wheel. He has 17" OZ Superleggeras link . These wheels are known for being extremely strong - they are standard on some of the new Subaru Impreza's - so this must have been one monster pothole.

Anyway my question is; He now has to go out and spend €400 on a new wheel, just because the council can't keep the roads in an acceptable state. Is there any point in trying to persue this with them to get some form of compensation- or would he just be completely wasting his time. If anyone can give us some advice on what to do I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

Seth Brundle

I think you will possibly be flogging a dead horse. Another forum member (Unkel) had a similar problem recently - see Driven off the road - need help

Dr. Dre

This is the exact reason I stopped using alloys, roads are too bad for them, I don't understand people using tyre walls of 25mm on our roads.

It's a pain in the euro when this stuff happens.

Capt'n Midnight

My experiance

Two rims, one puncture, one suspension arm.
I can't prove it did in the engine mounting brackects (which later passed two NCT's), which caused an exhaust replacement later on .
Only doing 30mph when I hit the pothole.

Car was never the same afterwards.

At night or if it had been filled by a puddle would have been lethal for a cyclist.

Was it on boards that I saw were some cars over here won't be sold with the lowest profile tires cos the reckoned the roads were too bad.

BrianD3

Was it on boards that I saw were some cars over here won't be sold with the lowest profile tires cos the reckoned the roads were too bad.

I think I may have mentioned this before. The Renault Laguna II Supersport models were initially sold with 17" alloys and 225/45 section tyres. But after a while Renault stopped fitting these for the Irish market and switched to 16 inchers with 205/55 tyres. I enquired about the 17's to be told that they were no longer offered as owners kept having to replace wheels due to pothole damage.

BrianD3

alleepally

I read an article about a year ago on this subject and it did have cases where people successfully claimed from the council. They had to take note of the day and time and take a photograph of the offending pot hole.

It is an absolute disgrace the state of some of our roads and no one should have to pay that amount of money because the council do their job. Fcuk, what on earth do they do with all the taxes from motorists. Oh, I remember, building the Luas and making land owners rich, ah yes.

Tivoli

i think you need proof that the council has been informed about the pot hole a few working days before the accident


a lad at work photoed a nasty pothole and email it to a few important council heads,nearly a week later he met someone with a broken rim near the pothole, stopped -swapped phone numbers- threatening letter-compo- sorted-:cool:


stick with steel rims,and spend the money you save in the pub instead and smile more

mudflapgirl

Had a bit of a similar experience, though not as bad, last week driving along....lalalalala....steering goes funny, stop, look at tyre, DAM!
Have the biggest amount of hassle trying to change it and try to find the puncture, no joy, decide to play safe and put spare on and take tyre to local tyre centre.
In the hours between changing tyre and bringing it to a tyre centre, I fork out over 270eur in motor tax for the year.
Take tyre to centre on way home. Man looks at tyre can't find puncture either. Inspect rim of alloy. Dirty great big DENT! He looks at me and says 'when did you hit the pothole?' I go 'which bloody one?! there's millions of them!' cue lots of guffaws from both of us and 20 mins later a bill for him tapping out the dent and fixing the tyre back on the rim properly. The dent had caused the seal to break and air to leak out.
So WHY OH WHY? Did I pay nearly 300eur in Road tax, when the roads are in such a laughable state I might as well not drive on them? For the M50 that's not finished? or the LUAS which I won't use cause I have a car and live in the country where I can't use it?

pshht! (*me giving up*)

Andrew Duffy

what on earth do they do with all the taxes from motorists

They build roads with it - the tax take from VRT, motor tax and fuel duty is about the same as the net spend on national road construction and local authority road maintenance. If you want more money to be spent on maintaining local roads, write a letter to your TDs asking them to justify the building of national roads capable of carrying upwards of five times the traffic they will ever carry just so Bertie and Seamus can get another picture in the paper.

alleepally

"They build roads with it - the tax take from VRT, motor tax and fuel duty is about the same as the net spend on national road construction and local authority road maintenance. "

I think the point being made here is that there are a lot of roads in bad condition which leaves one to wonder where all the money goes. it's something like 3 or 4 billion a year the government take in taxes from motorists and I'm pretty damn sure that only a fraction of that goes on actual road building or maintenance.


And yes, we all know about the writing to TD's option. I do that from time to time on certain issues that exercise my mind but I'm realistic and know that a letter or an email don't change things very much.

Andrew Duffy

Motor Tax and licence fees come to about 600m, VRT to about 800m and fuel duty to about 850m. There is, of course, VAT as well, but seeing as that would be imposed on everything bought by a driver if he weren't spending it on his car, it can't really be counted. The 2.25bn is spent on a national road budget of 1.3bn-1.6bn and a local road budget of 450m, along with unquantifiable costs associated with the extra workload imposed upon the emergency services, gardaí and hospitals, and the degenerative effect of exhaust fumes.

Sorry for the lecture, but since I drive, walk and use public transport, it annoys me when motorists complain that they don't get what they deserve from their taxes but refuse to do anything about it. Lobby your TDs to get the system changed - VRT should be abolished and the cost taken up by increasing the duty on fuel, to more accurately tax based on usage. Motor tax should be based on pollution rather than engine size - the tax on a truck spewing out filth all day and destroying roads is not much higher than the tax on an Aston Martin, which produces an exhaust so clean you could breath it.

Kermitt

i agree definitely that the roads in this country are a disgrace, i have to argue though, as a car owner with alloys, that there are few potholes that will do serious damage if you are travelling at sensible speed. i've had this experience with a clio i once owned. Deep pot hole, hit it once or twice at 40, no damage. In a hurry one evening, forgot about pot hole, hit it at 65 and put the suspension strut through the bonnet and buckled a steel wheel. Learned my lesson since then.

What speed was that guy doing to mangle a strong alloy to that extent??:dunno:

Seth Brundle

@ Andrew Duffy - I think people complain when they are forced to pay several hundred euro to keep a car. However, the local authorities do not spend enough maintaining the roads upon which people drive. I am aware there is no relationship between what is taken in in taxes and what is spent on repairs & maintenance but the authorities don't deny that the standard of the roads are far short of what they should be.
Furthermore, why should a family have to pay much more for less use than a taxi (€72) or a fume spluttering tractor with no rear lights (€72)?

Hellrazer

Posted by Zascar:
Anyway my question is; He now has to go out and spend €400 on a new wheel, just because the council can't keep the roads in an acceptable state. Is there any point in trying to persue this with them to get some form of compensation- or would he just be completely wasting his time. If anyone can give us some advice on what to do I would appreciate it.


Take a photo of the pothole,a photo of the wheel,get an official estimate from a Garage and you WILL get reimbursed for the damage.
I have customers who have had driveshafts bent,wishbones bent etc and everyone of them has got compensation for the damage caused by the potholes.

BrianD

I thought you could only claim if they council fixed wrongly as opposed to not fixing it at all. Was it an 'N' (national) or a 'R' (secondary) route? What speed were you going at?

Perhaps you could send the bill to the next 'one off' house built in the county. It is servicing homes like this that are diluting the council's budgets for road maintenance.