wayne613

Basically going out and about a few days ago (rained earlier), I ran through a pot-hole the width of a half lane, and a foot in depth at a decent clip. I kept control thankfully, but my head still aches from smackin´ the roof with it.

Edit/snip:
Meh. N/m. Decided to file the claim and be done with it yet again and have everything fixed...again.

[Passenger-side] gouged rims, tires, valance, front control arms/bearings and all.. All in all even for another $700 out of pocket for the insurance deductible, it´s worth it in the end. Just the 2 tires and rims would be far more.

tnroadrunr

Wayne,
First things first, find out who is responsible for the maintenance on that road. (City, County, State) photograph all your damage, Photograph the roadway and the pothole where the damage happened, get a couple quotes for repairs, and then file a claim with which ever agency is responsible for that road. They should fix your car.... and I mean everything that happened to your car..... I dont know about where you are but here, I would even file a police report to document the damage.

You pay your road taxes for safe roads to drive on, if the pot hole is as bad as you say, then it certainly is not a properly maintained roadway and they are responsible for damages. A normal hole is simply a roadway hazard and falls on the part of "Driving" but one like you described borders on negligence... Go get em.

wayne613

All true, but I´d also have ¨some splainin´ do¨ about why I was going fast enough to do the kind of damage I suffered. Admittedly had I been at the speed limit, or less, it´s doubtful more than a bad teeth on edge moment with some possible tire damage would have occurred. I also could have avoided the rear passenger-side getting it with both barrels altogether.

I did call it into our D.O.T., which was actually already called in and a set of workers had it done later that same day. Just too late for me. That last near monsoon we had earlier the previous night must have opened it up fast. Through that same area not a week earlier and it was a small divot.

jrockgts197

tnroadrunr speaks the truth. Our interstates are so bad around here that I have to get an alignment every 5000 miles and it's WAY out of spec. Our local D.O.T. decided to cover a gigantic pothole with a 1" steel plate about 3ft x 3ft instead of fixing it because they didn't want to cause traffic delays (or there's no money in the budget) and there were literally 3 -5 people per day that blew out there tire on that thing. After it caused a serious accident they fixed it. I work with 2 guys that had tire damage from that plate and they said the D.O.T. paid for their tires after a few nasty letters to the state. The victim of the accident is suing and it's still in court. Something bad enough to break your tie rod in the middle of the road, no matter the speed, is unacceptable. If you hit that same hole doing 55mph it would have caused no damage? Obviously there was a huge problem with the road. Hold them accountable for maintaining the roads with your tax dollars.

BWfVA

The last 4 winters around here have been heck on the roads but they dont seem to be doing anyting about it. Thank goodness I am out in the woods some because the roads dont get nearly as much as they would in a city or they would be really all to peices. I would definitly be trying to get someone else to foot the bill. They take enough of our tax money and they spend it like mad, so make them spend a little on you and your problem.