Pothole Ate My Alloy!

[Vitz_man]

Managed to drive over a pothole today which completely buckled the alloy wheel and punctured my tyre (BRAND NEW ASWELL!). Spoke to an off duty policeman and said that theres been a few claims on that very pothole this week alone. So why the hell do they not just fix them! :censor:

Anyways, trying to bounce back, anybody have a TTE Chicane alloy wheel floating about that they'd be interested in selling?

Condition not of greatest importance as I'll get it reconditioned and claim the whole lot back off the council.

Cheers in advance.

[reece]

Get some photographs of the pot hole before they fill it in, put something along side it if you can so the size can compared.

[Vitz_man]

Its half the size of my dad's Mitsibishi Pajero, so we parked that next to it and got a few photos. Can't see them arguing with that can you?

[Sico2]

http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/hazards/report

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommuni...ets/DG_10026187

Contact your council straight away. Make all pictures possible, some documents from a local dealer or a garage or something to prove it. Threaten them with court action or similar (to make your point, speed up the things much and make them feel responsible for the tax you pay). After all is done and you get your repair money back, report the pothole to fill it, using one of the links above.

Oh, and this one, may be useful.

http://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/step_by_step_guide

[Vitz_man]

Thanks for that Sico2, top notch information! ;)

I've reported the pothole, taken details of the hole and requested information under the freedom of information act. Hopefully I won't need it but meh, best to get it before hand eh?

Anyone ever had any similar dealings with local authorities? Any ideas as the the order of proceedings, time scales and legal action?

Thanks in advance! :)

[Vitz_man]

Pictures of the wheel. Sad face! =(

[Jamesbelfast]

I have came across situations whereby they only pay out for a repair to the wheel so it may do no harm to get something in writing stating the wheel is beyond repair if that is the case. My neighbour had a wheel with similar damage on his Ford Focus repaired for around £50 but a decent wheel repairer should be able to advise.

I have seen settlement times ranging from 3 weeks to 3 years:)

[Raeman]

After looking at those pics, i would have thought that wheel is beyond repair now. :o

If it's done that to the wheel, i would be wasting no time checking the suspension components for further damage!

As said, it might take ages to get anything from the council, the only thing you can do is buy another wheel in the meantime so you can still drive at least.

[Sico2]

I'd say the same, beyond repair. You can't level such alloy properly. It would never be safe to run on such wheel again.

Call up Toyota for a quote and by the way you can also explain the situation what happened, for additional suspension or the whole quarter of the car to be checked too. They may do the job properly, and since you don't pay, why not to use the best service possible(hopefully).

Get in touch with your council (over the phone, no emails. I'd say is the quite quickest and best option) don't get satisfied with half-answers or unclear answers. Straight forward, when, what how much etc. Don't listen to their "leave it with me" or "I'll take care of it for you". Ask for names of people you've talked to, when etc. There is no way back or payment refusal once you can prove everything. If they don't call, you call them up. Be as annoying as possible so they quickly want to get rid of you and pay you for the repair ;)

[eddieinvader]

Got to be honest about this I would not feel safe driving around in a car that has had a wheel that badly damaged I think you should get a new one.

Had the same thing happen to me a good few years back all I did was approach the council who wanted proof how much a new wheel would be, went to ford got a price on a new rs alloy handed it to said council and picked up a cheque for the full amount.

[Vitz_man]

Im using the car as little as possible at the moment, using a steel rim which I was using for snow tires this winter on instead of the alloy. Plan is to get a new alloy from Mr T, book the car in for a full inspection, replace anything broken and forward the bill to the council. Hopefully there won't be too much trouble with all of that...

[Vitz_man]

Thought i'd give you a quick update on this one.

Ordered a new wheel through Mr T at £130. (Ouch!)

Luckily the tyre was salvagable so that saved me a considerable amount of money as they just charged me £15 for removing it, putting it on the new wheel and balancing it.

Still waiting for the council to settle. They seem to be reasonably co-operative so far (touch wood), just need to send a few things in and hopefully it'll be sorted.

Thanks for the advice guys! :)

[gar]

Read about this sort of thing in RiDE or MCN (Motorcycle mags), they state that many authorities are increasing the sizing on what they class as a pothole so they won't have to fix 'em so quick!

Also, they recon that so much is being paid out to motorists under claims for vehicular damage, that the authorities cannot afford to pay to repair the holes!

We live in crazy times, my freind! If they fixed 'em earlier, they would SAVE money as it costs around £70 to do each hole, now, how much did you have to spend on as new wheel and tyre repair? They could have fixed 3 potholes for that and STILL need to fix 'em, hopefully before another 3 victims claim. Exponential or what?

[daz364]

Best thing to do is to find out which council is responsible for the maintenance of the road in question, I think you can find this out on the potholes.co.uk website if you don't already know, and ask for a report detailing when the road was last checked. Pictures are definitely the key and any invoices for repairs etc are always good for proof of how much damage was actually obtained. Same thing happened to me in my car but I didn't have alloys on it so was just a case of a new wheel from a scrapyard, pretty much bent the old one totally though :(